Blessed Notburga

Mar 192010

[Saint Notburga]
Also known as

Noitburgis
Notburga of Eben
Notburga of Tyrol
Notburga of Rattenberg

14 September

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Born to a peasants family. Worked as a kitchen maid at the house of Count Henry of Rattenberg at age 18. The count‘s wife, Ottilia, ordered Notburga to feed leftover food to the house swine; she gave it to the poor instead. Warned about her behavior, Nortburga fed the leftovers to the pigs, and gave much of her own food to the poor. Ottilia saw this as a form of disobedience, and dismissed her.

Worked as a servant for a farmer in Eben am Achensee, Austria. However, when her the lady Ottilia died, the count re-hired her, and she spent the rest of her life as a servant in his house. Worked with the poor. Miracle worker.

Miracle stories are an integral part of Notburga’s life.

Her master once saw her leaving the house with something bundled in her apron. Thinking he had caught her disobeying the order to not give away food, he demanded to see what she carried. To keep her out of trouble, the food and wine had turned into wood shavings and vinegar.

When she took the job with the peasant farm family in Eben am Achensee, Notburga made it a condition that she be allowed to skip her chores in order to attend Mass on Saturday night and on the eve of feast days. On one of these occasions, the farmer tried to get her to keep working. Notburga said she would let her sickle decide the matter, and threw it into the air. The sickle hung suspended in the air, and Notburga went to church.

Shortly before her death, Notburga told Count Henry to place her corpse on a wagon drawn by two oxen, and to bury her wherever the oxen would stop on their own. The animals drew the wagon to the chapel of Saint Rupert, where she was buried.