St. Walburga (d. 779) was born in England of a family of the local
aristocracy. At an early age, she was entrusted to the care of the Benedictine nuns in Wimbourne (present-day Dorset) where she eventually made monastic profession. When her relative St. Boniface, a missionary monk and bishop who worked for the evangelization of Germany, asked for help from other Anglo-Saxon monasteries, St. Walburga became part of a group of nuns from Wimbourne who answered the missionary call. Eventually she became abbess of the monastery at Heidenheim, a double monastery of men and women founded by her brother St. Wunibald, who served as its first abbot. The tenth-cetury legend of her life tells stories of her gentleness, humility and charity, as well as her power to heal the sick through prayer.
Many years after her death, her bones were taken from Heidenheim, then in ruins, to the town of Eichstatt, Bavaria, which had been founded by her brother St. Willibald, who served as its bishop. Her relics were entrusted to the care of a community of Benedictine nuns founded for the purpose of maintaining her shrine. To everyone's surprise, her bones began to produce a clear liquid, called oil for want of a more accurate word, which people began to use as a tool for prayer for the sick. Countless numbers experienced healing of body or spirit through her intercession. St. Walburga's oil continues to flow every year from about October 12 to February 25, two of her feast days. It seeps from her relics through a thick slab of stone where it is collected and distributed by the nuns of the Abtei St. Walburg.
Monastic life has continued without interruption at the Abtei St. Walburg from 1035 AD to today. In 1935, nuns from that monastery were sent to Colorado to found the community which has become the Abbey of St. Walburga in Virginia Dale.
Prayer to St. Walburga
St. Walburga, by your blessed life of love,
God blessed you with the power to heal,
to make whole the soul as well as the body.
Beg for us what we cannot obtain for ourselves,
and heal our world of sickness and sorrow.
May God hear you, who lived so graciously for His glory,
and send us the healing grace we need,
through your powerful intercession.
Amen
