Himmlische Offenbarungen

Bull of Canonization.

famous relics rested, were left without a personal visit from the said holy widow, she spent the remaining time of her life in the aforementioned city of Rome until the end. After her husband's departure, she wore a hempen rope with many knots tied tightly against her bare flesh in honor of the Holy Trinity. Likewise, she tied a rope in the same manner around each shin below the knees, even during times of illness. She used no linen, except only upon her head. She wore rough clothes against her skin, and over them she wore not the clothing of her rank, but very plain and contemptible garments. And she fasted not only on those eves or feast days which the Holy Mother Church commands, but she added many others besides. Thus, beyond the command of the Church, she fasted four times a week, just as she had fasted four times a week before her husband had died. And after his death, when her body was exhausted from prayer, fasting, and the day's labor, she refreshed it by lying on a carpet without straw, mattress, or the like, on the bare earth or a stone floor, dressed in her usual clothes, taking a meager and short sleep. Every Friday, in memory of the most holy passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, she did not fail to fast, and was satisfied with only bread and water, regardless of the fact that she also spent many other days in honor of various saints with similar abstinence and moderation. And she fasted, or she sat at the table in another way; because she was entirely sober, she rose from the table not sated, but only refreshed. On those same Fridays, she also melted fiery drops from a lit wax candle onto her bare flesh, and ate the bitter herb Gentian a bitter-tasting flowering plant used as a tonic or for penance or its root.

Furthermore, while she lived in Rome, she heeded neither the great cold nor the great heat, nor the obstacles of the muddy path, nor rain, nor snow, nor hail. She visited the places appointed by the Church and various churches every day. Although she could have traveled according to her means, she went only on foot, even beyond the strength of her exhausted body. For she knelt so much and so long that her knees, so to speak, became as hard as camel's knees. She was of a wonderful and remarkable humility, so that at times she sat down unrecognized among the poor pilgrims at the St. Lawrence Monastery in Panisperna the Church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna in Rome of the Order of St. Clare, and kissed them with thanks. Many times she mended the clothes of the poor with her own hands and for the honor of God. She rendered a constant obedience to the prelates and her superiors and confessors, so that she hardly dared to lift her eyes without the confessor's permission. And whereas during her husband's lifetime she had confessed every Friday, after his death she applied herself to repeating a true confession at least once a day with great repentance and sorrow. She wept as bitterly over the slightest thing as others do over the heaviest, and let nothing of her words, customs, thoughts, and works pass unexamined. She constantly and attentively listened to the sermons of the word of God given by pious men. Every Sunday and feast day, she also received the highly venerable Sacrament of the Body of Christ the Eucharist with devotion and tears. She stretched out her hands to the poor and reached out her hands to the needy original: "Prov. 31", referring to Proverbs 31:20. For she practiced works of inexhaustible love toward the poor, weak, and despised persons for the sake of God's honor without ceasing. For even when her husband was still living, she used to feed twelve poor people daily in her own house, serving them and providing their necessities. And every Thursday, mindful of the Lord's Supper, she washed their feet with her own hands. From her own fortune, she also had many ruined hospitals in her homeland restored, and visited the poor and sick who lay there as a pious, kind, merciful, and diligent servant with the highest love. She touched, washed, bound, and healed their wounds without fear or resentment. In the place of Wahsteen Vadstena in the Linköping Lincospinger diocese, she had a venerable monastery built from her own goods according to the rule of ecclesiastical law for sixty nuns who live enclosed, and twenty-five brothers of the Order of St. Augustine called St. Savior's S. Salvators. These nuns as well as the brothers are obliged to keep certain statutes which were issued by the said blessed widow and thereafter approved by the Apostolic See, and she nonetheless provided them with sufficient income. There lived in her a wonderful patience, so that she bore the weaknesses of her own body, the insults offered to her, the deaths of her husband and her son Karl, and other adversities quite patiently without murmuring or complaining. In all things, she always praised the Lord with the highest humility, becoming ever more constant in faith, more excellent in hope, and more fervent in true love. She loved justice and what was fair above all. The sting of the flesh and various enticements to pleasure, malice, pride, pomp, and vain honor she despised with courageous care. Enough has been said above of her singular chastity and moderation. But who shall be found more prudent than she? From childhood until the final hour, as much as human frailty allowed, she decided all things with extraordinary discernment, and did not call evil good,