Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Vignettes from the Lives of the Irish Saints: Saint Brigid's Choice


ST BRIDGET’S CHOICE.

St. Bridget, Patroness of Ireland, accompanied by her nuns, was, on a certain occasion, in the presence of Bishop Maccelle, from whom she had received the veil, and she asked the good bishop to give them a brief instruction on some pious subject. The bishop delivered a brief discourse on the “Eight Beatitudes." Whereupon the saint, turning to her sister nuns, said: “We are eight virgins, and eight virtues are offered to us as a means of sanctification. It is true that whoever practices one virtue perfectly must possess every other; yet let each of us now choose a virtue for special devotion."

St. Bridget, as superioress, was requested to make the first choice, and she chose that sweetest of all virtues, Mercy. Her whole life afterward was a living illustration of the virtue which she had chosen.


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