February 25 + Saint Walburga

Born in Devonshire in about 710 AD, Walburga was the daughter of Saint Richard of Wessex (one of the under-kings of the West Saxons) and Saint Winna, the sister of Saint Boniface. She had two brothers, Saint Willibald and Saint Winibald.

When Richard took his two sons on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he entrusted Walburga, then eleven years old, to the abbess of the Wimborne Monastery in England where she later became a nun. She spent twenty-six years preparing for the great work she was to accomplish in Germany. The monastery was famous for holiness and austere discipline. There was a high standard at Wimborne, and Walburga was trained in solid learning and in accomplishments suitable to her rank. Thanks to this, she was later able to write in Latin about Winibald's life and an account of Willibald's travels in Palestine. She is thus looked upon by many as the first female author of England and Germany.

Beginning in 748, she evangelized and healed pagans in what is now Germany with Saint Lioba, Saint Boniface and her brothers. She became abbess of communities of men and of women in Heidenheim.

In 779, she fell ill, and assisted in her last moments by her brother Willibald, she expired. Willibald laid her to rest beside Winibald and many miracles occurred at both tombs. She was canonized in 870 by Pope Adrian II.

Presently, the most famous of the oils of saints is the Oil of Saint Walburga (Walburgis oleum). It flows from a stone slab and the surrounding metal plate on which rests the relics of Walburga in her church in Eichstädt in Bavaria. Cures are ascribed to the oil, which together with her healing skills in life, explains her patronage of plague, rabies and coughs.

The oil is caught in a silver cup, placed beneath the slab for that purpose, and is distributed among the faithful in small vials by the Sisters of Saint Benedict, to whom the church belongs. The oil is used as a remedy against diseases of the body and the soul. Mention of the Oil of Saint Walburga is made as early as the ninth century by her biographer Wolfhard of Herrieden.