SAINT ERMENGILD OF ELY, WIDOW AND NUN

 

St. Ermengild

Queen of Mercia,

Wife of King Wulfhere (widow)

Became a nun upon widowhood

Feast day: Feb 13

My 4th cousin, 38 times removed

I could not find very many pictures of Saint Ermengild, but she seems to be a worthy object of interest. She managed to convert her pagan husband, King Wulfhere, of Mercia, to the Catholic faith. 

Wulhere appears on the right

Lichfield Cathedral

Lichfield, Staffordshire, England

While I found little more than a mention and some bare facts about Ermengild, her royal and nobel family have quite a bit of information spread throughout the internet.  

Here are a few about her husband, Wulfhere:

Wikipedia of England

History by Nicklin

British History Podcast

There is a YouTube video about King Wulfhere that begins at the time when his father, King Penda, dies:

YOUTUBE VIDEO ABOUT WULFHERE

Her family tree was full of saints, of course, incluing her mother, sainted Queen Sexburga and her daughter, Saint Werburga (for whom there are a lot of photos of pictures, as well as some handsome statues!)

Saint Werburga

Saint Ermengild's daughter

Patron Saint of the City of Chester

in Cheshire, England

Feast day: Feb 3

My 5th cousin, 38 times removed

They are all descended from King Anna, all of whose children were either saints or royal rulers. Talk about a richly appointed background! These people are all related to me in some capacity or another - mostly saints. I find it interesting that we share some of the same blood becuase I hope to inherit as much of their good tendencies as I possibly can!

King Penda

Wulfhere's Father

Although she retired to the life of the widowed nun and managed two monasteries before she died, I am most impressed by Ermengild's ability to evangelize that pagan husband of hers. That is the real feat, as far as I am concerned! Husbands, especially in those days, are not famous for being receptive to learning from their wives. She must have been a remarkably influencial woman, and I would have loved to have met her!

Here are some links to websites that talk about her:

FROM THE ENGLISH WIKIPEDIA

CATHOLIC ONLINE

THE BLOG "THE HOLY ONES"

Her feast day is February 13th, which is also my dearly departed Grammy's birthday - the only relative who ever showed me an ounce of love and affection.

Lichfield Cathedral image

While the histories of this week's sainted ancestors are jam packed with tales of their influence on world affairs, as well as ecclesiastical, there is precious little real information about Ermengilda and the other sainted women, except that they were leaders of various numbers of convents and monasteries.

But that is exactly what I would expect of contemplatives and mystics. Sometimes, these monastics who have royal relatives will be found to make a mark on world history but, for the most part, their work is behind the scenes, hidden. You and I are living like that (and I am speaking to the other half-monastics and independent hermits here.) We know that, if we DO have any worth, it is only felt in the finest of spiritual realms. All of it is behind the scenes, somewhat clandestine and furtive. Meanwhile, the public face of our faith can be, at times, very grand.

Ely Cathedral

This Catheral had its origins in 672 AD

when my cousin St. Etheldreda,

daughter of King Anna,

built an abbey church here.

I know that it can be discouraging to have our time eaten up with the mundane: Paying bills, struggling with health issues, cleaning and organizing our homes, etc. The human heart naturally seeks the embrace of a loving recognition of our spiritual labors by Our Lord, whom we adore. However, we must always keep in mind that our job requires that we remain a bit mysterious and obscure, despite being crucially necessary to the welfare of makind. 

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when

thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;

and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Matthew 6:6

I don't know how, exactly, our Father in Heaven will reward us "openly" for our hidden life of prayer, but I trust that He knows what is best for us and, one day, he will reveal to ALL what He means by this.

In the meantime, we can say to ourselves and to God, "ah! what a beautiful thing!" And we can hold a firm confidence that He will hear us and see the exquisite nature of our holy labors.

My living room prayer wall

We also have one another, and I treasure the correspondence I receive from each one of you that joins with me in our holy labor of prayer and work for the Lord, each in our own little prayer closet or sitting in front of our personal prayer shrines. I love hearing about the causes for which you dedicate your rosaries and chaplets, as well as your other spiritual routines and practices.

May Saint Ermengild, Seaxburga and Werburga, as well as all the other saints who intercede for us at the throne of Our Lord, watch over all of us, and may we all be blessed!

Silver Rose

Back Room Prayer Wall

SAND HILL CRANES IN THE MORNING

Early Winter landscape

I heard the distinctive crackling cries of sand hill cranes toward the end of our morning constitutional and looked up to see a large flock of these giant birds sailing in a wide, lazy circle over the trees. Migration time. A bit late in the year, compared to earlier days when I would see them traveling in October, around the time of the balloon fiesta. They are going South to Bosque del Apache, the nature reserve a couple hours south from here by car. There, they will have a field of corn, grown just for them, that has been threshed and left to dry on the ground. They will mingle with the fat white snow geese and smaller varmints that cannot resist the sweet fresh smell of high quality food that is spread across the earth just for them, an incredible banquet.

Across the wide viewing path and boggy wetlands, the raptors will perch in giant trees. I saw a bald eagle there once, and many goldens. The memory of a brilliant male pheasant, arrayed in the height of his glory with gorgeous glistening plumes of bright feather, has stayed with me for more than 14 years. Glimpses of the timid are treasured.

Though I usually try to keep moving on my slow, shuffling walks around the property, I stood for several minutes, leaning on my cane, watching as the cranes slowly formed themselves into three parties of about 25 each. In beautiful "v" formations, following one another, they flew out of their orbit around the patch of cottonwoods and headed south.

These infusions of natural life sustain me and speak to a spot in my soul that is unnamable but gives me a deep sense of satisfaction. On the other hand, a wild sorrow grips me each time a bit of access to nature is eaten away by the dictates of government types for whom the bottom line is the ONLY priority, and the beauty of nature is irrelevant, inconvenient, or allowed only for the wealthy.

No sooner did I get inside my apartment, than the "landscapers" showed up with their infernal, roaring instruments of torture, otherwise known as leaf blowers. They blasted my front door with the vengeance, with me sitting just two feet away. The powered air forced dirt into my apartment through every crack between the door and the sill. After they covered every surface in my apartment with all the fine bits from the parking lot, they blew leaves and detritus into my garden and left me sneezing in fits, another tortured city asthmatic.

As soon as they were finished, a large machine on the golf course began chewing up the air with its artificial noise, mowing or sowing or who-knows-what. It continued for quite a long time, causing me to begin the now too familiar battle to calm nerves that have been jangled by the chaos of modern life.

Soon, the workmen that have been spackling the ceilings of the outdoor spaces will return with their ladders, their loud laughter, and their yelling to one another from one building to another. Hovering outside the windows of the many retired tenants, and slopping white spackling material all over the sidewalks, in the dirt and on the glass of the windows, they have been a constant presence for weeks now.

The building has gotten to the age where numerous repairs are required and, because the building was constructed so poorly to begin with, and the repairs are done in a slap-dash manner by non-professional, untrained laborers who do not speak English and are probably not even legally in this country, the repairs have continued for a couple of years now.

Every year, the activity in this complex becomes more and more intrusive, noisy, inconvenient and not conducive to the life of silence and contemplation of a hermit type person. Imagine, if you will, sorting oneself out so that the soul is in silence and ready to receive the Lord, and, suddenly, the place is overrun with jabbering, clueless workmen who are clanging pails and scrapers and paint brushes and thermoses in a cacophony of disorganization.

A few quiet moments of watching the sand hill cranes was a blessed (and rare) break from the mayhem of the majority of the rest of the day. I will be grateful for it and cling to it, thinking back to when life was much more like the former than the latter and how the balance has shifted so dramatically that I hardly feel as if I live on the same planet as I did in 1970 or 1980.

How will I meditate on God and say my prayers in the midst of this grotesquerie? How can one established sacred space when noise and the constant presence of strangers invades my privacy and seeps in with the dirt from the parking lot? All the icons in the world can't keep out this sort of invasion.

Please pray for me, as I pray for you.

Silver Rose Parnell
Copyright (c) 2015, All rights reserved

THE CONTEMPLATIVE, MANUAL LABOR, AND PRAYER PROJECTS

Baby blankets and hats being prepared for donation

to the Gabriel Project at Project Defending Life

in Albuquerque, New Mexico

I just wanted to dash off a quick note for my other contemplative sisters and brothers with regard to the type of work one decides to do in the way of ministry or of making an income.

It is best to stick with what I call "manual labor," which doesn't have to mean you are out digging ditches.  As long as it is something that engages the body in rather routine tasks that do not involve much executive function of the brain, that will be suitable.

In the contemplative monasteries, they make candy and altar breads.  Some of them produce finely embroidered vestments.  I know one monastery that produces some awesome pumpkin bread.  Others make cheese and some even make wine.  Many grow a good deal of their own food.  We can take our example from the contemplative monasteries and convents and imitate their long-standing devotion to a simple life in which the hands are used for labor.

Something that occurs to me as being rather important is that most of these activities can be done in peace and silence.  I don't believe that a stock trader or a retail sales clerk would have an easy time of it, as far as developing a contemplative life.  Their jobs would pull them too far in another direction. Anyway, I am mostly speaking to the home-bound in my blog....the disabled and elderly who have the time and the quiet home life on which to capitalize.

Baby blankets and hats are one of my ministries.  The work is mostly repetitive, and with each stitch I can say a prayer for the welfare of the new baby being welcomed into the world.  Sometimes I listen to the rosary on EWTN and recite it along with Mother Angelica and her nuns.  Sometimes I wing it. I also paint, but I am having trouble getting back to that endeavor.

Anyway, if you choose a physical task like this, it is far easier to "pray unceasingly" than if you choose a more active ministry that requires interaction with other people or a lot of writing, research, typing, and that sort of thing.  The more involved you become with outside activities, the less you will be operating as a contemplative.  If you have a tendency toward loneliness and must be with people to feel alright, then the contemplative life is not for you.  We are communing with God at every opportunity we can snatch out of the jaws of time.

I don't mean to say that everyone should be a hermit. I do think we have to limit our interactions with the outside world and keep them within certain boundaries.  Each of you will have to decide what those are for yourself.

It is important to focus your prayer life also for, in addition to quietly spending time with the Lord in the practice of the presence of God and in strictly contemplative prayer, we are called to pray for the suffering world in many areas.  With so much going on in the world today, it is hard to know what to pray for.  It could be overwhelming.  I recommend having one primary prayer project that is a constant.  For me, it is the prayer that the Catholic and Orthodox Churches will resolve their longstanding rift and become one with each other again.  My prayer life is dedicated to that rather large request.  Not only does this give me a focus, but it gives me a PURPOSE as well.  This is important.

People will ask you to pray for them, and there will be transitory requests with which you can pepper the stew, so to speak.  Don't lose sight of your mission, however.  It will help you to stay more easily on the path.

I would be interested in hearing how you construct your contemplative life.  Feel free to comment and let me know.  Perhaps others will be interested also.

God bless you,

Silver Rose Parnell