Lidwina
Dutch Catholic saint
Feast: 14 April (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Lidwina, born at Schiedam in Holland on 18 April 1380, loved the Mother of God from childhood. In the winter of 1395 she fell while skating and broke a rib; the injury never healed, and gangrene spread through her body.
For many years she lay in pain that only grew, but God gave her a wonderful gift of prayer and visions, and many miracles took place at her bedside. She died on 14 April 1433 in the odour of great sanctity, and her grave at once became a place of pilgrimage.
The miracles
There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.
Why that counted as sanctity
A young woman who offered years of suffering to God.
- Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), via New Advent - St. Lidwina
- Wikidata Q264499 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
- English Wikipedia — Lidwina (CC BY-SA)
Checked against the sources listed on 21 September 2026. Corrections welcome.