Himmlische Offenbarungen

Bull of Canonization.

she found that she had obtained a more powerful remedy for the health of her body than she had requested.

However, so that the blessed God might make known to the world the great merits of this beloved widow, it happened that Elsebysnara, a woman of the aforementioned diocese of Linköping, gave birth to a dead child and was greatly troubled by it. When she came to herself again, she humbly prayed to God that through the merits of such a praiseworthy widow the child might become living, adding a vow that she together with the child, if it came to life, and a wax image, would visit the holy widow's grave. From that hour, the child began to become warm, to move, and it received life perfectly. The woman, full of devotion and joy, fulfilled the vow she had made.

But why do we delay so long, since Almighty God, through the merits of this holy widow, has made the deaf to hear, the mute to speak, the gouty strong, the crooked straight, the lame and weak to walk, and the blind to see? He has delivered pregnant women when they stood in danger during birth and healed illnesses that were otherwise impossible to heal. He has brought the shipwrecked, and those who did not suffer in powerful waters, unharmed to the shore. And if we wished to recount one after another all the miracles which the blessed God has worked through the merits of the oft-mentioned widow, both during her life and after her blessed dissolution, against and above the forces of nature, the lengthiness of such a narration would hold us up far too long. However, the faithful who desire to know such stories may diligently read through the book in which they are faithfully recorded. The fulfilled vows at the aforementioned monastery at Vadstena Wastteen, to which the venerable body of this blessed widow has been translated, as well as the statues and monuments placed there, give great testimony to the truth.

And since through the working of the Holy Spirit this brave widow, because of her beautiful merits, is now placed into the glory of God the Father and has enlightened the Church Militant to some extent, and we taste and see that her conduct was and is good; and therefore, in the night of the overtaking temporal death, the light of her virtues and merits must not be extinguished (for it is not put under a bushel, but set upon a candlestick, and brings an inextinguishable light through the whole house of the Lord), but the sons of the Holy Mother Church should rather rise up, call her blessed, and give her of the fruit of her hands, and her works shall praise her in the gates

of the Mother Church. We, who by reason of the office of the pastoral service are debtors to the wise and the unwise, have learned from what was held both from the blessed memory of our predecessors Gregory XI and Urban VI, Roman Bishops, and from our own decree. Accordingly, we are informed for certain of the truth of what was set before by capable witnesses and other lawful proofs and found such things to be true. And because we have been many times and insistently requested in the name of the Lord by our beloved daughter in Christ, Margaret, the most illustrious Queen of Sweden, and the prelates and officials of the people of the holy city of Rome, and the beloved daughters in Christ, the Abbesses of both convents of the aforementioned monasteries of St. Lawrence and of Vadstena, that we should finally bless her highly famous widow, and that our sanctification should bloom over her.

To the honor of Almighty God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and for the exaltation of the true Faith and the increase of the Christian religion, as well as for the stilled division and the unification of the Faith and the Church: by the power of Almighty God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own, with the advice and consent of our brothers and all prelates who are at the Roman Court, we recognize, declare, resolve, or pronounce that the oft-mentioned blessed Birgitt, otherwise called Brigida, of blessed memory, is Holy, and shall be honored as Holy by the universal Church and be written into the number of the Saints. We also herewith write her into it now. And we ordain that her feast and divine service be kept devoutly and heartily by the universal Church annually on the day when she, having overcome and triumphed over the world, was born from the present life into everlasting eternity, namely the 23rd of July original: "Hewmonats", the old German name for July, as for a Saint who is neither a virgin nor a martyr. And so that the multitude of the Christian faithful may come together at her venerable grave all the more eagerly and frequently, and the feast day of the same Saint be celebrated more heartily, and her name be honored more often, we grant by the aforementioned power to all those who truly do penance, confess, and devoutly visit her grave at the monastery of Vadstena on her feast day, as well as on the 25th of May (the day on which this venerable body was brought into the said monastery) and the days immediately following, annually on each of the days they visit the said grave, as stated before, a gracious remission of seven years and as many quadragenas forty-day periods of penance from their imposed penances. Therefore, we diligently [exhort] your community...

A small symbol consisting of four crosses arranged in a square pattern.