CRISTINA da AQUILA, blessed. — Augustinian mystic, in the world Mattia di Ciccarelli, born at Colle di Lucoli on 24 February 1480, died at L'Aquila on 18 January 1543. In that city she donned the habit of the Augustinian nuns at the age of 25; she was abbess there several times. Her existence was a continuous and admirable ascent to holiness, through her love of the Eucharist and her spirit of mortification. God frequently granted her the charisms of ecstasy and visions, and the signs of the crown of thorns on her head. She performed many miracles during her life and after her death. The cult which the faithful began to render her almost immediately after her passing was confirmed by Gregory XVI in 1841. Feast day: 3 October.
CRISTINA « MIRABILIS », saint. — Born at Brüstheim, near S. Trond (Belgium), around 1150, died there on 23 June 1224. A young orphan girl, she was assigned by her two elder sisters to tend the animals in the pasture.
After 17 years of this humble and secluded life she fell ill and died (1182), but she came back to life while her funeral rites were being celebrated, and then began a life full of physiological enigmas and such extraordinary events that she acquired the nickname Mirabilis (« the marvelous »): she was as light as a spirit, flew like a bird, lived in trees or on the pinnacles of towers, and threw herself into ovens or boiling water without external injuries. All these and other extravagances are recounted by her contemporary Thomas of Chantimpré (1232), but historical criticism sees in them the effect of credulity or of erroneous interpretations of pathological phenomena. After a period of more normal life, she died in the Benedictine monastery of S. Catherine at S. Trond. She is absent from the Martyr. Romanum. Her feast is on 24 or 26 July.