June XXIII

St. Etheldreda, or Audry, V. A.

From her Life, by Bede, b. 4, ch. 19, 20, and more at large by Thomas, a monk of Ely, in his History of Ely; in Wharton, Anglia, Sacra, p. 597, and Papebroke’s Notes, p. 489, t. 4, Junij. See also Bradshaw’s life of St. Wereburga, ch. 18. Bentham, Hist. Ely, ed. 1766.

A. D. 679.

St. Etheldreda, or Ediltrudis, commonly called Audry, was third daughter of Annas, or Anna, the holy king of the East Angles, and St. Hereswyda. She was younger sister to St. Sexburga and to St. Ethelburga, who died a virgin and nun in France, and was eldest sister to St. Withburga. She was born at Ermynge, a famous village in Suffolk, and brought up in the fear of God. In compliance with the desire of her friends she married Tonbercht, prince of the southern Girvij;* but they lived together in perpetual continency. Three years after her marriage, and one year after the death of her father, Audry lost her husband, who for her dowry settled upon her the isle of Ely.^† The holy virgin and widow retired into that solitude, and there lived five years rather like an inhabitant of heaven than one in a mortal state. Trampling under her feet whatever attracts the hearts of deluded worldlings, she made poverty and humility her delight and her glory, and to sing the divine praises with the angels night and day was her most noble ambition and holy employ. Notwithstanding her endeavors to hide herself from the world, her virtues pierced the veil which she studied to throw over them, and shone with a brightness which was redoubled from the lustre which her humility reflected on them. Egfrid, the powerful king of Northumberland, hearing the fame of her virtues, by the most earnest suit extorted her consent to marry him, and she was obliged to engage a second time in that state. The tradition of the church, which by her approbation and canons has authorized this conduct in many saints, is a faithful voucher that a contract of marriage, not yet consummated, deprives not either party of the liberty of preferring the state of greater perfection. St. Audry, upon this principle, during twelve years that she reigned with her husband, lived with him as if she had been his sister, not as his wife, and devoted her time to the exercises of devotion and charity. At length, having taken the advice of St. Wilfrid, and received from his hands the religious veil, she withdrew to the monastery of Coldingham beyond Berwick, and there lived in holy obedience under the devout abbess St. Ebba. Afterwards, in the year 672, according to Thomas of Ely, she returned to the isle of Ely, and there founded a double monastery upon her own estate. The nunnery she governed herself, and was by her example a living rule of perfection to her sisters. She ate only once a day, except on great festivals, or in time of sickness; never wore any linen, but only woollen clothes; never returned to bed after matins, which were sung at midnight, but continued her prayers in the church till morning. She rejoiced in pains and humiliations, and in her last sickness thanked God for being afflicted with a painful red swelling in her neck, which she regarded as a just chastisement for her vanity, when in her youth at court she wore rich necklaces studded with brilliants. After a lingering illness she breathed out her pure soul in profound sentiments of compunction, on the 23d of June, 679. She was buried according to her direction, in a wooden coffin. Her sister Sexburga, widow of Erconbercht, king of Kent, succeeded her in the government of her monastery, and caused her body to be taken up, put into a stone coffin, and translated into the church. On which occasion it was found uncorrupt, and the same physician who had made a ghastly incision in her neck a little before her death, was surprised to see the wound then perfectly healed. Bede testifies that many miracles were wrought by the devout application of her relics, and the linen cloths that were taken off her coffin; which is also confirmed by an old Latin hymn by him inserted in his history.*

This great queen and saint set so high a value on the virtue of virginity, because she was instructed in the school of Christ how precious a jewel and how bright an ornament that virtue is in his divine eyes, who is the chaste spouse and lover of true virgins, who crown their chastity with a spirit of prayer, sincere humility, and charity. These souls are without spot before the throne of God; they are purchased from among men, the first fruits to God and the Lamb, being the inheritance properly consecrated to God; they sing a new canticle before the throne, which no others can sing, and they follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.¹ “Whither do you think this Lamb goeth? Where no other presumes or is able to follow him,” cries out St. Austin.² “Whither do we think that he goeth? into what groves or meadows? Where are found joys, not like those of this world, false, empty, and treacherous; nor even such as are afforded in the kingdom of God itself to those that are not virgins; but joys, distinct from theirs. The joys of the virgins of Christ are formed of Christ, in Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. The peculiar joys of the virgins of Christ are not the same as of those that are not virgins; for, though others have their joys, none have such.” He adds,³ “Be solicitous that you lose not this treasure, which if it be once forfeited, nothing can restore. The rest of the blessed will see you, who are not able themselves so far to follow the Lamb. They will see you, nor will they envy you; but by rejoicing for your happiness, they will possess in you what they do not enjoy in themselves. And that new song which they will not be able to say, they will yet hear, and will be delighted with your so excellent a good. But you, who shall both say it and hear it, will exult more happily, and reign more joyfully.”

St. Mary of Oignies

Her parents, who were wealthy inhabitants of Nivelle, in Brabant, gave her a virtuous education, and married her young to a gentleman remarkable for his piety. He imitated her in her long devotions and watchings, and in the extraordinary austerities which she practised. This fervent couple by mutual agreement devoted themselves to serve the lepers in a quarter of Nivelle called Villembroke. By this abject life, they exposed themselves to the railleries and contempt of their worldly friends; but human respects were no temptation to our sincere lovers of the disgrace of the cross, who learned by humiliations to die more perfectly to themselves: assiduous meditation on the sufferings of Christ was their favorite exercise, and was to Mary a source of continual tears; which, as she said to cardinal Vitry, far from exhausting her, were her refreshment. Black dry bread, with a few herbs, made up the slender refection which she allowed herself only once a day. When she spun or worked, she had the psalter always open before her, the more easily to prevent distractions, by frequently casting her eyes on it· for she seemed in all her employments never to cease praising God in her heart. She made every year two pilgrimages to our Lady’s church at Oignies, two miles from the place of her abode, and her devotion to the mother of God was most tender and remarkable. The pious cardinal who has written her life testifies that in her prayer she was favored with frequent raptures and extraordinary heavenly visits; and that her conversation, which was ordinarily on God, inflamed and comforted exceedingly all who spoke to her. I know, says the same learned and pious author, that many will laugh at what I relate, but those who have received of God the like favors, will believe and understand me. A certain person of eminent piety who came from a great distance to see her, received such comfort, and such a flame was kindled in his breast by her words, that he ever after continued to feel the effects in his soul, and found the bitterness which he suffered from his earthly pilgrimage exceedingly alleviated. Another who rallied his companions for turning out of their way to visit the servant of God, and refused to go with them, being weary of waiting for them out of doors, at last went in to hasten them out; but was suddenly so struck at the sight of the saint’s countenance, and on hearing her words full of unction and ardor, that his heart was that moment entirely changed: he melted into tears, and after staying a long time to hear her heavenly discourses, could scarce be drawn from her company.

The saint on several occasions showed that she had received from God the spirit of prophecy, and was endued with an eminent gift of spiritual knowledge and counsel. These graces she obtained and preserved by her profound humility, by which she sincerely regarded herself as the outcast of the world, and unworthy to enjoy in any respect the rank of other creatures, and with confusion both thought and styled herself entirely ignorant in the paths of virtue. She was most watchful over her heart that nothing might enter it but Jesus Christ and what belonged to his love. I never heard her let fall one word, says our author, that savored of the spirit of this world, and she seasoned almost every sentence she spoke with the adorable name of Jesus. She and her devout and most affectionate husband gave all their worldly possessions for the relief of the poor, when they first devoted themselves to serve the lepers at Villembroke. A few years before her death she left Villembroke, where visitants from Nivelle sometimes broke into her solitude; and settled near the church at Oignies, in a house belonging to a person of eminent virtue. She there sighed continually in a holy impatience to go to God, and repeated almost without intermission rapturous aspirations of divine love, and wonderful praises of God, the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity; passing from the Trinity to the sacred humanity of Christ, and intermixing frequent Alleluias. She approached most frequently the holy eucharist, in receiving which her countenance, through the ardor of love which inflamed her breast, seemed to dart forth rays of light. In her last sickness she was visited by the archbishop of Toulouse, by the widow of the duke of Louvain, who was then a devout Cistercian nun, and many other persons of distinction, who were all much edified by her saint-like deportment; she calmly resigned her soul into the hands of her Creator in 1213, being thirty-three, others say thirty-six years old. Her relics are placed in a silver shrine behind the altar at Oignies, which is a monastery of regular canons in the diocese of Namur. See her Life, written by the devout cardinal, James of Vitry, once a canon regular in that monastery, afterwards bishop of Acon in Palestine, and lastly of Tusculum. He died at Rome in 1244, and has left us a history of the East, from the time of Mahomet, and some other works. Her name is inserted in the calendars of several churches in Flanders, and her relics enshrined in several places; in some she has been honored with an office. See Papebroke, t. 4, Junij, p. 631.

* The Girvij inhabited the counties of Rutland, Northampton, and Huntingdon, with a part of Lincolnshire, and had their own princes, dependent on the kings of Mercia.

^† So called from the great quantity of eels in its waters.

* The monastery of Ely being destroyed by the Danes in 870, it was refounded by St. Ethelwold, bishop Winchester, and king Edgar, for monks only, and dedicated in honor of the Blessed Virgin and St. Audry, in 970. A bishopric was erected there in 1108.

¹ Apoc. 14.

² L. de Sanciâ Virgin, c. 27, t. 6, p. 354.

³ Ibid. c. 29.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 635–638). New York: P. J. Kenedy.