De sancta Odilia
The Early Life and Miraculous Sight of Odilia
Born into nobility and rejected by her father, Odilia is miraculously healed of her blindness and eventually reconciled to her family.
The father of the virgin Odilia was Adalric (or Aethicus), and her mother was called Bethsuind (or Bersinda); both were born of the most noble Frankish lineage. Aethicus held the principality of all Burgundy—or Alsace—under King Childeric, and within his borders stood a monastery. It was a monastery for nuns. He built it at great expense and with much ornamentation on the summit of the mountain called Hohenburg, to serve for the worship of God in honor of Saint Mary, ever-virgin. His wife, Persinda, gave birth to a daughter, but because of his excessive shame, the father ordered the child to be killed; however, the mother entrusted her to one of her maids to be raised. Later, because of the murmuring of the people and at her mother's command, she fled far away with a boy to a place called Palma. While she was raising the girl there, the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Bishop Erhard from the regions of Bavaria, saying: “Go to a certain monastery called Palma; there you will find a girl who has been blind from birth. Baptize her, name her Odilia, and immediately after the baptism she will receive her sight.” When he anointed her eyes with chrism, she received her sight most clearly. From her infancy, she had dedicated herself to the service of God, applying herself day and night to vigils, prayers, fasting, and almsgiving. The virgin also had a brother in her father's house, to whom she wrote. She sent him a letter wrapped in a scarlet ball by way of a certain pilgrim, so that by reconciling her to her father, she might be brought back. When her brother spoke to their father about this, he ordered him to stop thinking about it anymore, but the young man called for her without their father's knowledge. And so, as the duke sat on the mountain peak and saw... a carriage approaching, he asked what it was. His son replied, “It’s your daughter, Odilia.”
A Life of Prayer and Spiritual Motherhood
After her father's repentance and death, Odilia leads her monastery with profound holiness, prayer, and miraculous signs.
But sadly, the father, overcome by anger, beat his son so severely with his staff that the boy fell ill and died from it. Regretting the enormity of his crime, the father stayed in the monastery from that point on. He then ordered that a daily allowance for one servant be given to his daughter. After Odilia had lived in the misery of this life for many days, her father, moved by mercy, handed over the monastery and all its holdings to her. Shortly after, he lived for a little while longer before passing away, and Odilia, knowing her father... prayed so fervently and tearfully for his release from purgatory, there on the side of the mountain where the cloister now stands, that heaven opened above her, a great light shone around her, and a voice said: 'Because of you, your father is freed and is being led by the angels to join the choir of the patriarchs.' Many noble virgins therefore flocked to her, and having become their spiritual mother in the aforementioned monastery, she taught them to serve God by her own example. She had one hundred and thirty nuns under her rule. She invited the angels through her prayers, and whatever she asked of God, she deserved to receive without delay. This blessed woman ate nothing except barley bread and vegetables, except on feast days; a bear skin served as her bed, and a stone as her pillow. Because the mountain where Odilia’s monastery is situated made it too difficult for the poor seeking alms and for pilgrims to climb, she built a lower monastery to serve as a hospital. This place pleased the sisters so much that they also established a convent there. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, she planted three linden trees with her own hands, which are still very useful today in the heat. Through prayer, she filled a completely empty vessel with wine when a certain sister saw the vessels were empty during the divine office. Also, because she had received her sight at baptism, she especially venerated the blessed John the Baptist. John the Baptist appeared to her in a vision and commanded that an oratory be built for him. One night, Odilia gave herself to prayer upon the rock where a large wooden cross now stands in memory of that great miracle, and there she asked John to show her the design of the building. And he did. For John, appearing to her in the same form in which he baptized Christ, showed her the location of the church in length and breadth in great brightness and dedicated the structure. One sister saw this—the light, that is—but did not see John; Odilia forbade her from revealing the vision to anyone before her own death. At the beginning of the cloister of Saint John, oxen with a wagon of stones fell from the mountain, which is seventy feet wide, and they met the servants unharmed while climbing back up, loaded again. For the servants had come with joy to kill them so they would not be food for worms, but for men, and they found them unharmed. She had a brother who had three daughters: Eugenia, Attala, and Gundelinda, who also left the world. Odilia buried her own nurse with her own hands, and after eighty years, when the tomb was opened, the nurse's right breast, with which she had nursed her, was found intact. It was found remaining.
The Holy Death and Heavenly Communion
Odilia experiences a miraculous return from death to receive the Eucharist before finally departing to be with the Lord.
After her body was cremated and she had performed many notable deeds of virtue, Odilia, knowing her end was near, called the sisters to her at the church of Saint John. She preached to them and asked them to pray for her and for her father; after this, she instructed them to go to the oratory of Mary, the Mother of God, and read the Psalter. Meanwhile, while this was happening, she passed away alone, and such a scent filled the place that it was as if all the rooms were full of spices. When the sisters returned and saw that their mother had died without Communion, they prayed so urgently that she was raised from death and said to them, "Why have you disturbed me?" I was joined to Lucy, and... I had that joy which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and which has not entered into the heart of man. They replied, "It would have been a source of shame for us, Mother, if you had died without the holy Communion." Odilia then took the chalice that had been brought, in which... was the Body and Blood of Christ. She handled it with her own hands, received Communion, and while everyone watched, she gave up her spirit. That very chalice remains to this day at Hohenburg in memory of that venerable event, for it is believed to have arrived there from heaven. Then her body was honorably buried before the altar of Saint John, and the fragrance of that scent remained there for eight days. She was joined to the martyrdom of Lucy because Odilia herself was a martyr in two ways: by her will and by the mortification of her flesh.
Read the original Latin
Odiliae virginis pater Adalricus sive Aethicus, mater vero Bethsuindis sive l'ersinda vocabatur, ex nobilissimo Francorum genere orti, Aethicus enim totius Burgundiae sive Alsat sub Childerico rege principatum habebat, in cujus etiam finibus monasterium. sanctimonialium. in honore sanctae Mariae semper virginis in summitate montis, qui vocatur Hohenburg, ad Dei servitium peragendum maximo sumtu et ornatu consiruxit, Hujus uxor Persinda filiam aecam peperit, pater aulem propter nimiam verecundiam ipsam occidi jussit, sed mater ipsam cuidam ancillae suae alendam commisit. Quae postea propter murmar populi jubente matre longissime cum puero fugit ad locum, qui dicitur Palma,Ubi cum ipsam puellam nutriret, dominus Jesus Christus episcopo Krardo de partibus Bavarine apparuit dicens? vade ad quoddam monasterium, quod dicitur Palma, ibi invenies puellam a nativitate caecam, quam baptizabis, nomen Odilia ihnpones ei et mox post baptismum visum recipiet, Cumque oculos ejus chrismate liniret, visum clarissime recepit, Haec ab infantia se Dei servitio subdidit, vigiliis et orationibus, jejuniis et elemosinis die noctuque insistens, Habuit antem virgo fratrem in domo patris, cui scripsit. epistolum globo coccineo involutam et per quendam peregrinum sibi misit, ut eam patri reconcilians revocaret, el cum frater de hoc patri loquerelur, praecepit ei, ut de caetero non plus de hoc cogitaret, Sed juvenis eam vocavit patre ignorante. Dum itaque dux in cacunine montis sedens videret. currum venientem, quaesivit, quid hoc esset, Cui filius: Odilia filia tna.
Sed heu pater iracundia motns cum baculo, quein imanu tenebat, filinm tan verberibus castigavit, quod infinnitalus fuit, de qua etiam aegritudine obiit, Pater vero super immartitate criminis poenitens de caetero in monasterio permansit, Tunc paler jussit filiae tamen de die stipendium unius ancillae dari, Cum sic Odilia multis diebus in miseria vitae essel, pater mise cordia motus super enin praedictum monasterium cum omnibus appenditiis suis illi tradidit, Post hoc panco tempore supervivens defanctus est, Odilia sciens patrein. suum in purgatorio uri in latere inontis, ubi nuno claustrum est situm, tantum et tam lacrymabiliter oravit, quod coehun super eam apertum est et lux magna circumfulsit eam et vox dicit ei: propter te liberatus est pater tuus et in choro patriarcharum collocandus ab angelis ducitur. Conflnebant ergo ad eam virgines nobiles non paucae, quarum spiritualis mater effecta in supra dicto monasterio ad exemplum sui Deo servire instituit, Habuit enim sub regimine CXXX moniales, lnvitavit angelos precibus et quidquid a Deo postulavit, sine mora percipere meruit, Haec beata praeter dies festos nihil comedit nisi panem hordeaceum et legumina, pellis ursi fuit pro lecto, lapis vero pro cussino, Quia mons altus, ubi coenobium Odiliae situm est, fecit pauperes quaerentes elemosinam et peregrincs-nimis laborare, fecit inferius monasterium pro hospitali, Qui locus tantum sororibus placuit, ut etiam ibi conventum instiluerent, In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti propria mann tres tilias plantavit, quae usque nunc valde utiles sunt in calore, Orando vas omnino vacuum implevit vino, cum quaedam soror inter divina officia vasa esse vacua vidit. Item quia in baptismo visum recepit, specialiter beatum Johannem baptistam venerabatur, Qui Johannes baptista ei in visu apparuit sibique oratorium fieri praecepit, Odilia autem quadam nocte se dedit orationi super petram, uhi nunc magna crux lignea locatur ob memorian tanti miraculi, ibi Johannem rogabat ostendere sibi modum aedificii. Quod et fecit. Johannes enim in forma, qua Christum baptizavit, in maxima claritate sibi apparens ecclesiae locum in longitudineim et latitudinem ostendit et constractam dedicavit, Quod vidit una soror, lucem videlicet, sed Johannem non vidit; Cni Odilia inhibuit, ne ante ipsius obitum alicui visionem imanifestaret, Jn inchoatione claustri sancti Johannis boves cum plaustro lapidum cadunt de monte, qui habet in latitudine LXX pedes et illaesi obviant servis adscendendo iterum onerati, Wenerant enim servi cum gaudio ipsos occidere, ut non essent cibus vermium, sed hominun,et invenerunt i nesos. Habebat antem featrem , qui tres filias habuit, Eugeniam, Attalamn et Gundelindam, quae etiam mundum reliquerunt, Odilia suam nutricem propriis manibus sepelivit et post LXXX annos sepulchro aperto dextra mammilla nutricis, qua eam lactaverat, integra. inventa est reliquo.
corpore incinerato, Post plurima virtutum insignia Odilia sciens finem sibi adesse, convocatis ad se sororibus apud sanctum Juhannem praedicavit iis et rogavit eas o ire pro se et pro patre suo, Post hoc praecepit iis, ut irent in oratorium matris Dei Mariae et legerent psalterium. Interim, dum haec fierent, ipsa obiit sola tantusque odor ibi fuit, quasi omnes domus plenae essent aromatibus. Redeuntes sorores cum viderent matrem suam sine eucharistia defunclam , adeo instanter oraverunt, quod de morle suscitata iis dixit: cur me inquietastis? Luciae conjuncta fui et. illud gaudium habui, quod oculus non vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis adscendit, Responderunt : nobis fuisset confusio, domina, si absque communione sacra obiisses, Odilia calicem allatum, in quo. erat corpus et sanguis Christi, propriis manibus contrectavit et communicavit et omnibus cernentibus emisit spiritum, Ipse aulem calix in Hohenburg ob memoriam venerabilis facti hactenus permanet, coelitus enim creditur illuc pervenisse, Tunc corpus ejus ante altare sancti Johannis honorifice sepelitur et odoris fragrantia usque in octavam diem ibi manebat. Martirii Luciae ideo conjuncta fuit, quia ipsa Odilia duobus modia martir fuit, voluntate et carnis maceratione,
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