CRISTINA « MIRABILIS », Saint. - B. at Brüstheim, near S. Trond (Belgium), ca. 1150, d. there on 23 June 1224. A young orphan girl, she was assigned by her two elder sisters to tend the beasts at pasture.

After 17 years of this humble and hidden life she fell ill and died (1182), but she revived while her funeral rites were being celebrated, and then began a life full of physiological enigmas and of things so extraordinary that she received the nickname Mirabilis ("the wondrous"): she was light as a spirit, flew like a bird, lived on trees or on the pinnacles of towers, threw herself into ovens or into boiling water, without outward injuries. All these and other extravagances are narrated 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 d. in the Benedictine monastery of St. Catherine at S. Trond. She is absent from the Martyr. Romanum. Her feast is on 24 or 26 July.

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: Acta SS. Iulii, V. Paris 1867, pp. 630-60 (650-60 the life written by T. Chantimpré); A. Kaufmann, Thomas von Chantimpré, Cologne 1899, pp. 41-43; Analecta Bollandiana, 19 (1900), pp. 38, 365-67; H. Günter, Legenden-Studien, Cologne 1906, pp. 178-80.

Livario Olger

@incollection{ec4_cristina_mirabilis_santa, author = {Oliger, Livario}, title = {Cristina « Mirabilis », santa}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {915--916}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/cristina-mirabilis-santa} }

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Christina "Mirabilis", Saint

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