Bridget of Sweden, mother to Saint Catherine of Vadstena had eight children. Her family of eight children included four boys and four girls. No one knew when she got married at 13 years old in 1316 to Ulf Gudmarsson of the family of Ulvåsa, how much she would achieve in her lifetime.
To this man, she not only bore eight children but also had great influence on him, convincing him to accompany her on her pilgrimage to Rome when she went there to seek the Pope’s permission for the order she founded – The Bridgettine Order. For her charity and saintliness, she became famous far and wide, even as she gained great favor as a mystic and saint.
She was indeed a devoted mother to another Saint- Saint Catherine of Vadstena. As founder of the Bridgettine order, Saint Brigid (as she is also known) gave the world a legacy of the teachings of humility, kindness and everlasting love not only for her family but also to the Almighty God and all humanity.
In 1344, shortly after their return, Ulf died in the Cistercian monastery of Alvastra Abbey in Östergötland Sweden, Birgitta devoted herself wholly to religion. It was about this time that she founded the Order of the Holy Saviour, or the Brigittines, of which the principal house at Vadstena was richly endowed by King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and his queen.
Around the year 1350 Birgitta went seeking papal authorization for her new order and partly to pursue her self-imposed mission to elevate the moral values of the age. Twenty years later in 1370, Pope Urban V confirmed the rule of her order. In the meantime she had endeared herself universally beloved in Rome because of her kindness and good works. Apart from a few pilgrimages one of which was to Jerusalem in 1373, Birgitta lived in Rome before being moved to Sweden. Birgitta was canonized in 1391 by Pope Boniface IX and confirmed by the Council of Constance in 1415. Owing to new discussions about her work, the council of Basel confirmed the orthodoxy of the revelations in 1436.
As a child, she had already believed herself to have visions; these now became more frequent, and her records of these "Revelationes coelestes" ("Celestial revelations") which were translated into Latin by Matthias, canon of Linköping, and by her confessor, Peter, prior of Alvastra, received critical acclaim during the Middle Ages.
Her visions of the Nativity of Jesus had a great influence on depictions of the Nativity of Jesus in art. Shortly before her death, she described a vision which included the infant Jesus as lying on the ground, and emitting light himself, and describes the Virgin as blond-haired; many depictions followed this and reduced other light sources in the scene to emphasize this effect, and the Nativity remained very commonly treated with chiaroscuro through to the Baroque. Other details often seen such as a single candle "attached to the wall," and the presence of God the Father above, also come from Bridget's vision:
“...the virgin knelt down with great veneration in an attitude of prayer, and her back was turned to the manger.... And while she was standing thus in prayer, I saw the child in her womb move and suddenly in a moment she gave birth to her son, from whom radiated such an ineffable light and splendor, that the sun was not comparable to it, nor did the candle that St. Joseph had put there, give any light at all, the divine light totally annihilating the material light of the candle.... I saw the glorious infant lying on the ground naked and shining. His body was pure from any kind of soil and impurity. Then I heard also the singing of the angels, which was of miraculous sweetness and great beauty...”
Erik Edvarsson
