Yesterday was the feast day of St. Walburga. She was an Anglo-Saxon nun in England who lived around 710-779 AD. Her uncle was St. Boniface, an English monk, who went on mission to do evangelization in Germany in the eighth century.
Both of St. Walburga’s brothers followed Boniface to Germany. St. Walburga followed them when she was about 40 years old. She was asked to preside over a double monastery of men and women in Heidenheim that was founded by one of her brothers, Wunibald, its first abbot.
Walburga gained the reputation as a healer because she understood the medical arts. She was noted for her humility, gentleness and charity and her power to heal the sick through prayer.Her name is of German origin and it means “strong protection”.
A hundred years after her death, her bones were taken from the town of Heidenheim to a town in Eichstӓtt, Bavaria and entrusted to a group of religious women who maintained her shrine in Eichstӓtt. In 1035 a Benedictine monastery was founded on the site.
Today, an oil flows from her burial site which is named “St. Walburga oil”. It is a clear liquid and flows from October 12 to February 25, the day of her death. The oil is noted for its healing properties.
In 1859 our own monastery was begun in Covington, Kentucky by a group of nuns who came from Eichstӓtt to St. Marys, PA, then to Erie, PA, and from there to Covington. Our monastery was named St. Walburg after St. Walburg Abbey in Eichstӓtt.
As we celebrate the Feast of St. Walburga, we intercede, “St. Walburga, pray for us and for all our friends who are sick.”
