ON ST. NOTBURGA, WIDOW, ST. HIXTA, VIRGIN, AND HER OTHER SEVEN CHILDREN, NINE BORN AT ONE BIRTH, IN THE DIOCESE OF CONSTANCE.
Ninth century.
CommentaryNotburga, widow, in Germany (St.) Hixta, her daughter, Virgin in Germany (St.) Her other seven daughters, Virgins in Germany.
From various sources.
[1] The name of the Virgin Notburga is celebrated among the Belgians; she lived most holily at Cologne with her aunt Plectrude, and, having rejected the nuptial torches to which her kinsmen were striving to compel her, she obtained by her prayers to be suddenly called to the embraces of the eternal Bridegroom. Feast day of St. Notburga. Her feast is celebrated on October 31. Another Notburga is venerated on January 26 at the village of Buell in the diocese of Constance in Germany. Life. The deeds of this one, received by our Daniel Feldner from the Pastors of the neighboring jurisdiction of Klegau -- grave and learned men -- were communicated to us; and we give them here.
[2] St. Notburga lived about eight hundred years ago, born of the royal blood of the Scots. Notburga, pregnant, goes into exile. As soon as she was of age suitable for marriage, she was given to a husband, and was soon bereaved of him, but pregnant with a fortunate offspring. Lest she be permitted to bring it forth in safety, she was soon assailed by the grievous injuries of wicked men, and was cast out of her native soil while pregnant. After long and troublesome wanderings on the roads, she arrived in Germany at that place in Klegau she gives birth to nine children where now the village of Buell is situated, in the Landgraviate, as they call it, of the Counts of Sulz, not far from the right bank of the Rhine. Here she gave birth to a brood of nine at one birth -- a plainly admirable delivery. Nor is such fecundity beyond belief. For what certain writers once wrote, that no more than five children can ever be born at one delivery, has long since been refuted by very many examples; and to omit those too portentous reports -- that a Countess of Holland gave birth to 365, not unheard-of fecundity, and a certain lady of Henneberg to still more, events which occurred not without an unusual act of God -- that nine, twelve, and thirty-six have been born is established on the authority of weighty writers. St. Quiteria and her nine holy sisters, born at one birth, we shall give in their place. We ourselves have learned from Leonard Paludanus, a most excellent man, that two girls now serving in the honorary retinue of the Duchess of Bouillon are said to have a parent who was one of 32 children whom his mother brought forth in three deliveries: eleven twice and ten once. Let us return to Notburga.
[3] Notburga, now the parent of so many children, immediately set her mind to regenerating them for God, having them washed in the saving waters of baptism. But water was lacking. A spring miraculously brought forth. A faithful companion of her flight and hardships, at her command, seized the staff with which her mistress was accustomed to steady her steps and struck a rock, from which a most limpid spring at once flowed forth. With its water, eight were baptized by the sacred rite and enrolled in the register of the children of God; for one had died before it could be properly washed with water. On account of the wickedness of the neighbors. The spring then began to be frequented by crowds of people drawn by the fame of the miracle and by the healing waters. But what cannot the avarice and envy of wicked men violate? The neighbors begrudged the visiting pilgrims their draught of that water and dared to stir up many quarrels. They were first admonished by Notburga to be grateful toward God and to use so great a gift of his peacefully. But when she perceived that she accomplished nothing by these admonitions, she transfers it elsewhere, she diverted the spring into a nearby grove, where it gushes forth to this day and brings very many benefits to mortals, not so much by the abundance as by the healthfulness of the water.
[4] Notburga was an eminently religious woman, of great trust in God, devoted to prayer, and of a strong spirit in adversity. Having piously educated her eight children, She piously reared eight children and trained them as heirs of her virtues; they then illuminated all of Klegau like so many stars in various ways and showed many mortals the way of life by their examples. At length, having endured many hardships for Christ in her homeland and still more in exile, and having excellently trained her children in every virtue and consecrated them to God, she departed this life laden with splendid benefactions and merits, she dies holily, to be rewarded by God with eternal happiness. Her body was piously entombed by the inhabitants near the place where her handmaid had elicited the spring with her staff. A church, not inelegant, was built in her honor many centuries ago, she is publicly venerated, in which her body is still preserved and honored by the pious veneration of the people. It is the custom of the Catholics of Klegau, if any public calamity threatens, to assemble in throngs at this temple of St. Notburga with a solemn rite of supplication, renowned for miracles, and to implore her help and patronage with great piety and confidence; nor have their prayers almost ever been sent in vain. In former times very many votive offerings were to be seen in that church, testimonials of heavenly aid received through the intercession of Notburga.
[5] Nor are all these things ancient. Certain cures said to have been obtained very recently are considered tantamount to miracles. Dropsy cured by her aid. A noble matron in the year 1639, when she was suffering from dropsy, vowed that she would make a devout pilgrimage to the church of St. Notburga. She did so, piously offered her prayers there, was relieved of her disease, and exulting with immense pleasure of a grateful heart, hung up a votive offering as evidence of her recovered health.
[6] A certain man living in the village of Griessen had received a grievous wound which could be cured neither by the art of surgeons a wound nor by the use of thermal baths. His wife made a vow to visit this church and to beseech the Saint for her husband's recovery. She went, filled with a certain immense confidence; health was immediately restored to her husband, not without the wonder of many.
[7] In the same year a heretical woman also, from a nearby village called Wilchlingen, was found by the Pastor of Buell, Father Christopher Wideman, kneeling in prayer in the church of St. Notburga and offering a pound of wax. Epilepsy. When asked what she, a supplicant beyond the faith of the people of her sect, was doing in that place, she replied that experience had already taught her to seek here the health of her daughter: for if she herself, as she had vowed, venerated St. Notburga with anniversary gifts and prayers, her daughter was free and immune from the epilepsy from which she suffered for the entire year; but if she neglected this, the girl was more vehemently shaken by unusual convulsions, so as to strike horror into all, and no one would employ her as a servant, since she would perpetually disturb the household with her fits. Thus Notburga allows some portion of her beneficence to be extended even to those who are outside.
[8] St. Hixta, Virgin, renowned for miracles. The names of her children have been obscured by the forgetfulness of time. One is still known and celebrated: that of St. Hixta, or Yxta, a Virgin who lived holily in Klegau. She is buried in the village of Jestetten, where a special chapel and altar are dedicated to her, beneath which she is commonly believed to rest. Many formerly flocked to this chapel and the Saint's tomb for the sake of devotion, before heresy prevailed, and through the aid of St. Hixta they obtained remedies against diseases and other afflictions.
[9] The other sons and daughters of St. Notburga led the most innocent lives in various places of Klegau, illuminated by many miracles from heaven. Other holy children of St. Notburga. Therefore the people of Klegau long ago erected various chapels to them, as to their patron Saints. But when in the previous century the heretics raged with savage fury far and wide, they demolished those chapels, as they did most other monuments of the old religion, and abolished nearly all their veneration. The cult of St. Notburga has endured among the people of Buell. She is held as the patroness of the place, and is celebrated on January 26 with a public solemnity, Image of St. Notburga, with even the noise of the marketplace forbidden. She is depicted in old paintings carrying eight infants in her arms, with a ninth lying at her feet -- the one, that is, who died without baptism.