Our Lady's Tears: 2013

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Our Lady of Sorrows, ora pro nobis

"Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled: my heart is turned within me, for I am full of bitterness: abroad the sword destroyeth and at home there is death alike." Lamentations 1:20

St. Winifred

Also St. Gwenfrewy or Winefride, she was the daughter of a Welsh nobleman, Tyfid ap Eiludd. Her suitor, Caradog, was enraged when she decided to become a nun, and decapitated her. Her head rolled downhill, and, where it stopped, a healing spring appeared. Winefride's head was subsequently rejoined to her body due to the efforts of her maternal uncle, Saint Beuno, and she was restored to life. She later became a nun and abbess at Gwytherin in Denbighshire, and Caradog, cursed by St. Beuno, melted into the ground. She died 660.