The feast day of St. Lydwina is celebrated on April 14. St. Lydwina is the patron saint of ice skaters and the chronically ill.
St. Lydwina was born in Schiedam, Holland into a family of nine children in 1380. While still young she developed a devotion to Our Lady of Schiedam. While ice skating one day she injured herself, breaking several ribs. Gangrene set into the wounds she had received and spread throughout her body. She was bedridden for the rest of her life suffering from various illnesses.
St. Lydwina offered all of her suffering to Jesus on the cross. She experience mystical gifts including vision of heaven, hell and purgatory. She received apparitions of Christ and bore the stigmata. Many miracles occurred at her bedside.
In one vision she saw a rosebush with the words
“When this shall be in bloom your suffering will be at an end.”
In the spring of 1433 she exclaimed,
“I see the rose bush in full bloom!”
Easter morning, 1433, she had a vision of Christ giving her the Last Rites.
St. Lydwina died on April 14, 1433. Her grave became a site for pilgrims to visit and a chapel was built there. She was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1890.
I commend myself to the prayers of yourself and your friends, so that Christ, the source of all pity, may design to wash me clean in the water of His mercy.
Quote of St. Bernard; Feast day August 20
April is the Month of the Eucharist