Saint Odilia of Alsace

Dec 272008

[Saint Odilia of Alsace]
Also known as

Odilia of Hohenburg
Adilia of….
Odile of….
Odilia of….
Othilia of….
Ottilia of….

13 December

Profile

Born blind to the family of the Duke of Alsace Lord Aldaric (aka Etichon, aka Athich) and Bereswinda; because she was a girl and disabled, the family decided to put her out. Rather that having her killed, she was given to a peasant family. Taken in by a convent at age twelve, she gained her sight upon being touched by chrism during her baptism by Saint Erhard of Regensburg. Her brother wanted her back for use in an arranged marriage; when he heard of his son’s machinations and Odilia’s miraculous healing, her father was so angry that he struck and killed the brother. Odilia raised her brother back to life, then fled to the convent to escape the marriage. Her father followed her, but when a mountain opened a cave to hide her, and then dropped rocks on him, he gave up the idea. She joined the abbey, and eventually became abbess. Founded the Hohenburg Abbey on the Odilienberg mountain in Alsace.

Born

c.660 at Oberheim in the Vosges Mountains

Died

13 December 720 at Niedermunster, Mount Sainte Odile, Germany of natural causes
reported to have returned briefly to life to tell her sisters about the beauty of heaven, and to take communion one last time
buried in a chapel near the convent church on the Odilienberg

Canonized