ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY
Saints celebrated on the 10th of January
BLESSED ORINGA, VIRGIN
Blessed Oringa was born of poor parents in Castello Santa Croce on the Arno, Italy. When she was baptised, she was given the name Oringa, which was later changed to Christiana.
PIOUS EXERCISES
From her life story, filled with fabulous miracles, the following emerges: As a child she was used to herd cattle, later she served as a maid for a citizen in Lucca. From a very young age, she had a great urge for extraordinary exercises in piety.
PILGRIMAGES AND TEMPTATION
Feeling called to undertake several pilgrimages, she travelled to Loreto, even to Monte Gargano. In Assisi, which she visited on the return journey, she experienced a severe temptation to resist purity, which she overcame with God's grace.
THE MONASTERY
In the vicinity of Lucca she founded, apparently through alms, a virgin monastery, in which she entered herself. After a serious illness for thirty years, she died in 1310.
MIRACLES
The miracles attached to these simple dates are quite mind-blowing: for instance, that the Virgin Mary personally taught her and the other nuns the choir so perfectly that they afterwards were so accomplished in it to instruct a group of monks; and on another occasion - so it is related - the nuns were busily preparing for a church festival until late in the evening and night threatened to fall, but the sun stood still on their orders, so that it gave light long enough for them to finish the tasks at hand; and yet another miracle involved fellow nuns who had long since died. They were seen joining ongoing funeral ceremonies etc.
HER RELICS WERE ACCIDENTALLY BURNED
Her relics are no longer to be found; they were accidentally burned in 1514. The monastery mentioned as founded by Oringa is St Maria Novella in Toscana. Her festival is, apart from January 10, sometimes given as February 18.
Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints
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