St. Notburga

St. Notburga (c. 1265 – c. 1313) was born of humble parents at Rattenberg in the Tyrol and entered service as a kitchen maid in the household of a local count. Faithful and diligent, she was in the habit of setting aside a portion of the leftover food to give to the poor at the castle gate; dismissed for a time when a new mistress forbade this charity, she took work as a farm servant, on condition that she be free to attend Sunday and feast-day Mass.

A famous legend tells that, when her master once bade her keep working past the bell for Saturday-evening vespers, she flung her sickle into the air, where it hung suspended until the holy time had passed — a sign of the sanctity of the Lord's Day and its rest. Recalled at last to the count's household, she served faithfully to the end of her life. Long venerated in the Tyrol and Bavaria as a model of the devout working servant, she is honored as a patron of servants and farm laborers; her cult was confirmed by Pope Pius IX in 1862.