The Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden: Her Life, Books and Four Prayers

St. Bridget of Sweden was a noblewoman, a wife, a mother of eight, a widow, a mystic and the founder of a religious order. She also told kings and popes things they did not want to hear. Her Revelations were among the most widely read spiritual books of the late Middle Ages.

The Life of St. Bridget

Bridget was born in 1303 at Finsta in Sweden, into a devout noble family related to the royal house. While still a young girl she married Ulf Gudmarsson, a nobleman who governed an important district. They were married for 28 years and had eight children. One of their daughters, Karin, is venerated as St. Catherine of Sweden.

As Pope Benedict XVI noted in 2010, Bridget and Ulf lived their marriage as a shared road to holiness. Together they went on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 1341. Ulf then withdrew to the Cistercian monastery of Alvastra, where he died.

As a widow, Bridget gave away her possessions and settled near Alvastra. There her visions began. She never became a consecrated religious herself, but she spent the rest of her life in prayer and service.

In 1349 she left Sweden for good and went to Rome, to seek approval for a new religious order and to be present for the Holy Year of 1350. She lived there simply with her daughter Karin. She made pilgrimages to the shrines of Italy, and in 1371 traveled to the Holy Land. Again and again she urged the popes, then living at Avignon in France, to come home to Rome.

She died in Rome on July 23, 1373. Her body was carried to Vadstena in Sweden, the center of her order. Pope Boniface IX canonized her in 1391.

What Are the Revelations?

Bridget dictated her visions in Swedish to her confessors, who translated them into Latin. They were gathered into eight books known as the Revelationes, with further material added afterward.

The Revelations cover a remarkable range: the Passion of Christ, the life of the Blessed Virgin, the state of souls after death, reform of the clergy, and blunt messages to the rulers of her day. Her descriptions of the Nativity and the Crucifixion influenced Christian art for centuries.

The Books and the Supplements

The main collection has eight books. After them, editions commonly add:

• Revelationes Extravagantes, additional revelations not included in the first collection.
• The Rule of the Savior, the rule for her religious order.
• The Sermo Angelicus, readings on the Blessed Virgin, written to be read by her nuns.
• The Four Prayers, sometimes numbered as “Book 12.”

St. Bridget’s Four Prayers

The Four Prayers are devoted meditations that honor Jesus and Mary. According to the introduction found in the old editions, Bridget received them in prayer and afterward read them every day.

1. The first prayer praises the Blessed Virgin for her conception and childhood, her virtues and labors, her sorrows, and her death and Assumption.
2. The second prayer praises Our Lord for His life and Passion.
3. The third prayer gives praise to each part of the sacred body of Christ and its holy actions.
4. The fourth prayer does the same for the body of the Blessed Virgin.

They are quite different from the better-known 15 Prayers of St. Bridget, which have their own separate history.

How Should Catholics Read the Revelations?

Catholics should read them with both reverence and good sense. Writing in 1999, St. John Paul II explained that the Church recognized Bridget’s holiness without ever pronouncing on her individual revelations, while accepting the overall authenticity of her interior experience.

That is an important distinction. Public revelation was completed in Christ. Private revelations, even those of saints, do not add to the faith or correct it. Their role is to help believers live it more fully in a particular age (CCC 67).

Some practical guidance follows from this:

• Read for love of Christ. The great fruit of the Revelations is a deeper sorrow for sin and a deeper love of the Passion.
• Be careful with predictions. Medieval visions are often read today as forecasts of modern events or as attacks on current Church leaders. That is a misuse of them. Bridget herself always spoke to Church authorities with respect and remained faithful to the Successor of Peter, as Pope Benedict noted.
• Remember the human element. Visions are received through a person’s own culture, language and understanding, and they were then translated and edited by others.

Her Order and Her Legacy

Bridget founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior, known as the Bridgettines, with its great abbey at Vadstena. Her daughter St. Catherine carried on the work after her death. In the twentieth century St. Elizabeth Hesselblad, a Swedish convert, renewed the order’s life in Rome.

In 1999, on the eve of the Great Jubilee, St. John Paul II named Bridget a co-patroness of Europe, together with St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

A Prayer to St. Bridget (Original Prayer)

St. Bridget, faithful wife and loving mother, you found God in your home and in your widowhood. Pray for our marriages and our families. Obtain for us a true sorrow for our sins, a tender love for the Passion of Jesus, and courage to speak the truth with charity. Amen.

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Learn more about why Catholics ask the saints to pray for them, or pray through the 14 Stations of the Cross, a devotion that shares St. Bridget’s love for the Passion.