Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The mysticism of the north and the Virgin of Vadstena

Vadstena (Sweden) (1303-1391)

On the shores of Lake Vättern, in medieval Sweden, a woman of strong character and profound inner life founded a monastery that would become the spiritual heart of the country for centuries. Her name was Bridget; she was born around 1303 and died in 1373, and the Church canonized her in 1391, establishing her feast day on July 23. She is Saint Bridget of Sweden, one of the great mystics of Northern Europe.

It is well documented that Bridget founded the Vadstena monastery and the Order of the Most Holy Savior—the Bridgettines—, that she was first buried in Rome, and that her remains were later transferred to Vadstena, where they rest. Her figure became linked to the memory of the Virgin Mary within the spirituality of her famous revelations and the liturgical life of the monastery, which always cultivated an intense Marian devotion.

It is important, however, to proceed with caution and not attribute more to her than the sources allow. The Bridgettine tradition emphasizes her character as a great mystic and the receipt of her order's rule from Christ himself; this belongs to the realm of devotion and her visions. And, above all, the sources do not contain a concrete and verifiable anecdote about a specific image that could be called "Our Lady of Vadstena," with a founding narrative, a dated miracle, or an episode that can be reliably recounted. The prudent thing to do is to state this, without inventing a prodigy that the sources do not support.

Nor is there any direct and specific link between Vadstena and the recitation of the Rosary. What is certain, however, is the strong Marian spirituality of Bridget and her order, a devotion to the Virgin that permeated the life of the monastery and, through the Bridgettines, spread throughout Europe. That this Marian piety included the Rosary is reasonable to assume in later practice, but it cannot be asserted as a distinctive historical feature of Vadstena.

What remains, however, is the essential and the certain: a saint from the north who knew how to look at Mary with the eyes of a mystic, and a monastery by a lake that for centuries was a beacon of Marian prayer in a land that time and history would make less Catholic, but where her memory never completely faded.