Saint Zdislava of Lemberk

January 3rd – St. Zdislava Lemberk

Born in Bohemia (Czech Republic), 1210; died there on January 1, 1252;

cultus

approved by Pope Pius X in 1907; canonized by Pope John Paul II in Olomouc,

Czech Republic, in 1995.

Born of a warrior race to noble parents, Zedislava lived in a fortified

castle

on the borders of Christendom, in an age when the fierce Mongol hordes were

the world’s worst menace. Her whole life was spent within the sound of clashing arms, and the moans of the dying. The gentleness and purity of her life  stand out in surprising beauty against the dark background of a warlike and

materialistic people.

Zedislava learned Christian charity early in life from her mother, who  taught her not only the secrets of preparing medicinal herbs but also the healing balm of prayer. Going each day to the castle gate with alms and medicines for the
poor and the wretched who crowded there for help, she was soon well   cquainted with human misery. Cheerful, prayerful, and alert to see the sorrows of  others, the child became a light of hope to the miserable. Because of her sweetness
and natural charm, she was able to teach many lessons to those about her.

As a child, she is said to have fled from her home for a time to live as a hermit, but she returned to live a more normal life that included an early marriage to a soldier, the duke of Lemmberk, who, like her own father, was a rich nobleman in command of a castle on the frontier. The couple produced
four children. Zedislava cared judiciously for her own family and lavished great
care on the poor, especially the fugitives and victims of the Tartar invasions.

Her husband was a good man, but a rough and battle-hardened soldier who
liked nothing better than the clash of swords. He may have treated Zedislava badly  and he certainly tried his young wife’s patience and obedience in a thousand ways. He insisted that she dress in her finest gowns and attend the long and
barbarous banquets that pleased him so. (In return, she tried his patience because of her generosity towards the poor.)
Being of a retiring disposition and much given to prayer-and, moreover,  having a family and a large castle to care for-she found this a real sacrifice.  However, obedience and patience had been an important part of her training, and she taught herself to spiritualize the endless trials that would beset the  mother of four children in a medieval fortress.
The Polish missionaries, Saint Hyacinth and Blessed Ceslaus, brought  Zedislava the first knowledge of the new religious order which had begun but a few  years before.

Saint Dominic, a Spaniard, had met them in Italy, where he had gone
to have his order approved. Begun in France, the Dominican Order was already international, and with the profession of Zedislava as the first Slavic Tertiary, its world-wide scope became apparent.
Enchanted with the possibilities of an order that allowed her to share in  its benefits and works while caring for her family, Zedislava threw herself into  the new project with enviable zeal. She encouraged her husband to build a hostel  for the many poor pilgrims who came homeless to the gate. She visited the prisoners in the frightful dungeons, and used her influence to obtain pardons from the severe sentences meted out to them. She fed and cared for the poor, taught catechism to the children of the servants, and showed all, by the sweetness of her life, just what it meant to be a Christian lady and a Dominican  Tertiary. On
 the occasion of a Mongol (Tartar) attack, when homeless refugees poured into the castle stronghold, her calm, invincible charity was a bulwark of strength to all.

With her own funds, Zedislava determined to build a church (Priory of Saint Lawrence) where God might be fittingly worshipped. As an act of zeal and penance, she herself carried many of the heavy beams and materials that went into the building. She did this at night so that no one would know of her  hard work.
Zedislava experienced visions and ecstasies during this time. She also received Holy Communion nearly every day in an age when this was not customary. Her death came soon after the completion of the church. The mourning people who knelt by her deathbed could see evidence of her strong Christian virtues in the
monuments she had left: her children, her church, and the inspiration of a saintly wife and mother. She consoled her husband in life and appeared to him in glory after death, which strongly encouraged his desire for conversion.

Numerous miracles are ascribed to Saint Zedislava, including the raising of the dead to life, though Pope Pius X did not refer to these in his approval of the cultus given to her in her native country (Benedictines, Dorcy, Farmer).
In art she is depicted as a Dominican tertiary with a crucifix wound with  roses, lying in the place of a sick person in bed (Roeder). Venerated in Bohemia (Roeder).

Editors”s Note:
from: http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/