St. Christina The Astonishing

Christina was born in 1150 near Liege, Belgium and raised by her older sisters after her parents died. Thomas de Cantimpré, a theologian at Louvain wrote a record of her life. She experienced what was perhaps an epileptic seizure when she was twenty-one and appeared to have died, so a funeral Mass was said for her. During the Mass she recovered and levitated to the rafters of the church. The astonished priest ordered her to come down and when she did so, she said she had traveled through hell, purgatory, and heaven. From then on Christina experienced visions and ecstasy, but also acted strangely at times. She would hide from people because she could not stand those with an “odor of sin” climbing trees and even hiding in ovens. She would sleep on rocks, stand in freezing water for hours and practice other strange mortifications. Some people thought her a saint, others thought her possessed, and still others thought her insane. She lived at St. Catherine’s convent in Sint-Truiden and died there on July 24, 1224. She has never been canonized and is sometimes called Blessed Christina. She is the patron of the mentally ill and of therapists.