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The saints

St. Bridget of Sweden

A Swedish noblewoman with eight children who told popes to come home to Rome.

Feast: 23 July · about 1303 to 1373 · The Middle Ages · Sweden and Rome

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Damaged painting of St. Bridget of Sweden in a white veil and wimple.

Hermann Rode (late 15th century), 1480. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Bridget of Sweden

Rome, 1350

Bridget married at about thirteen and had eight children, one of them St. Catherine of Sweden.1

After her husband died, she founded a religious order and moved to Rome.1

She had visions of Christ’s passion, and boldly wrote to the popes in Avignon to return to Rome.

Patron of Europe1

01St. Bridget of Sweden

Patron of Europe

She spent her last years in Rome and on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.1

In 1999 Pope John Paul II named her a patron of Europe.1

Live it this week

Meditate on the Passion

Bridget’s visions were of Christ’s suffering. Every day this week, read one part of the Passion in John 18 and 19 and stay with it for five minutes.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Bridget of Sweden”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.