Bridget of Sweden

Saint Bridget, born in 1303 in Sweden, was a noblewoman, married at the age of 13 to Ulf Gudmarsson, with whom she had eight children. After twenty-eight years of marriage and the death of her husband in 1344, Bridget dedicated herself entirely to religious life and charitable works. She became famous for her mystical visions and revelations, which she recorded in a work entitled 'Heavenly Revelations'. In 1346, she founded the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, known as the Bridgettines, with a dual monastic branch for men and women, in Vadstena, Sweden. Around 1349, she moved to Rome, where she spent the rest of her life, working for the return of the popes from Avignon and for Church reform. She made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land shortly before her death in Rome in 1373. Canonized in 1391, she was proclaimed co-patroness of Europe by Pope John Paul II in 1999.