Blessed Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad was born on June 4, 1870 in the Faglavik province of Sweden as the 5th of 13 children and her parents raised them in the Reformed Church of Sweden. When she was 18 she moved to New York to work to support her family back in Sweden. She studied nursing at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hospital and she worked there as a nurse and a home care aide for the sick and aged. Her work took her to the Catholic Church of New York and her interest in the Church grew. She saw the Church as the closest place to Christ. She convereted to Catholicism and received a conditional baptism on August 15, 1902 by Jesuit priest Giovani Hagen.
She made a pilgrimage to Rome the same year and was confirmed there. She returned for a short time to New York and then went back to Rome to begin a religious life. She settled in the Carmelite House of Saint Bridget of Sweden on March 25, 1904. With permission from Pope Pisu X in 1906 she got permission to take the habit of the Brigittines. She worked to restore the Order in Sweden and Italy. She returned to Sweden in 1923 and cared for the poor and tried to revitalize the Brigittine movement there. She establised Brigittine foundations in India in 1937. And she saved Jews and other individuals persecuted by the Nazis by giving them refuge in Rome. She died on April 24, 1957 in Rome. She was beatified on April 9, 2000 and awaits canonization.
There is a local order of the Brigittines that I have never visited and I hope I will be able to get there soon on a very nice summer day.
"The Lord has called us from different nations, but we must be united with one heart and one soul. In the divine Heart of Jesus we will always meet one another and there we seek our strength to face the difficulties of life. May we be strengthened to practice the beautiful virtues of charity, humility and patience." Blessed Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad
No comments:
Post a Comment