ST MILBURGA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS

ST MILBURGA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS - 23 FEBRUARY

SAINT MILBURGA, VIRGIN AND ABBESS

(Seventh Century.) Saint Milburge [St Milburga] was sister to St Mildred, and daughter of Merowald, son of Penda, king of Mercia.

Having dedicated herself to God in a religious state, she was chosen abbess of Wenlock, in Shropshire, which house she rendered a true paradise of all virtue.

PURITY OF HEART AND HOLY PEACE

The more she humbled herself, the more she was exalted by God; and whilst she preferred sackcloth to purple and diadems, she became the invisible glory of heaven.

The love of purity of heart and holy peace were the subject of her dying exhortation to her dear sisters. She closed her mortal pilgrimage about the end of the seventh century.

HER FEAST DAY

Malmesbury and Harpsfield write that many miracles accompanied the translation of her relics, in 1101, on May 26, which Capgrave and Mabillon mistake for the day of her death: but Harpsfield, who had seen the best ancient English manuscripts assures us that she died on February 23, which is confirmed by all the manuscript additions to the Martyrologies of Bede and others, in which her name occurs, which are followed by the Roman on this day.

THE ABBEY OF WENLOCK

The abbey of Wenlock was destroyed by the Danes: but a monastery of Cluny-monks was afterwards erected upon the same spot, by whom her remains were discovered in a vault in 1101, as Malmesbury, who wrote not long after, relates.

Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Milburga may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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