St. Walburga

St. Walburga was born around 710 in the kingdom of Wessex, England, into a remarkably holy family — daughter of St. Richard and sister of the missionaries St. Willibald and St. Winnibald — and died around 779 at Heidenheim in Germany. Educated as a Benedictine nun at the monastery of Wimborne, she answered the call of her kinsman St. Boniface to join the mission to the still partly pagan Germanic peoples.

Crossing to Germany, she assisted in the great work of evangelization and became abbess of the double monastery of Heidenheim, guiding both monks and nuns and forming them in the faith and learning. After her death her tomb at Eichstätt became a celebrated place of pilgrimage, where a healing oil (long known as 'St. Walburga's oil') was said to flow from her relics. Widely venerated across Germany and the Low Countries, she is honored as a saint and a mother of the German Church.