Talk:Bridget of Sweden

Untitled

Article really should include more information about how highly politically Birgitta was. Her visions were often opportune, to say the least; for instance, she specifically opposed Albrecht von Mecklenburg's succession of the Swedish throne. --Johan L 23:07, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

also on how the detail of her vision of the Nativity had a major influence on the depiction of this in art. Generally more detail needed on her writings - ie what they said Johnbod 01:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Barf

The title of this article, "Saint Birgitta", is mixed-language crap of the highest order.

Since this in English Wikipedia, the title should be fully in English, "Saint Bridget".

In Swedish, it is "Sankt Birgitta", "Heliga Birgitta".

But not MIXED. I have to wonder who have been those analphabetes who christened this in semi-Swedish. - 213.243.157.114 19:09, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Analphabetes? Who said anything about mixing languages?

70.36.48.88 (talk) 06:10, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

From Brigitta of Sweden

Text below from newly posted page Brigitta of Sweden which I have redirected here. u p p l a n d 08:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Birgitta of Sweden spent her life in two distinct segments, one as a mother and the other as a mystic. She is best known for writing books about her mystical visions of Jesus and Mary and letters to many Church and political leaders. Later in her life, as a result of her visions, she took an active roll in urging the Pope, living in Avignon, to return to Rome. She wrote to church leaders about her visions urging them to end corruption and sin within the church hierarchy. From direction given to her in these visions, she started the Birgittine order of nuns which her daughter Catherine would later lead.

Birgitta married Ulf Gudmarsson, a lawman, at the age of thirteen. Although she wasn’t very keen on the idea of marrying, due to her religious convictions, she found that Ulf shared her zeal for Christianity and the union was a happy one. Birgitta was very bothered by her desire for what she called “marital pleasure.” She avoided sex, even sleeping on the floor away from Ulf at times to avoid temptation. With time, the desire to raise children outweighed her desire to avoid sex. Birgitta gave birth to eight children, one of whom was Catherine, who some view as a saint although she was never officially canonized. While raising children, she also served as the governess of King Magnus’s wife, who was young enough to need a governess.

After returning from a pilgrimage to Cologne, Tarascon, Saint-Baume, and Saint James, Ulf became sick and died. His death in 1344 marked the beginning of Birgitta’s religious life. Some time following the death Birgitta began experiencing visions of Christ, who gave her a vocation. In 1349 she and others left on a pilgrimage to Rome, arriving in 1350, a jubilee year. There, she hoped to form a new religious order, based on her mystical conversations with Jesus. The new order would include both men and women, living in equality, although, they would have to be separate because of past problems with monasteries housing both sexes. The plan was that the order would be very strictly cloistered from the outside world. When the monasteries were actually built, they were made as two separate monasteries, not one for both men and women. Other aspects of Birgitta’s plan were permitted to be implemented into the monasteries. The order was never fully authorized by the Pope until after her death, when her daughter Catherine managed to get Papal authority. While founding her order, she also pushed to bring the Pope (who was in Avignon) brought back to Rome, threatening that returning to Avignon would cause him to have a stroke. She compared him to the devil because of the corruption that existed in the church at the time. She also wrote to the King of Sweden and church leaders urging them to refrain from sin and lead there followers to do the same.

One of Birgitta’s most notable contributions was here writings, The Revelations. In these texts, Birgitta recorded her visions of Jesus and Mary. These visions not only included instruction on the creation of her monastic order, but also on questions of theology and morality. They also include vivid visions of the birth and death of Jesus.

Upon her death in 1373, Birgitta left the Church influenced in several ways. Her daughter Catherine and a grand daughter went on to more fully establish the Birgittine order of nuns. The Revelations were spread throughout the church and had several key impacts. They became the basis for a lot of poetry, prayer, and hymns devoted to Mary. Her visions of the birth, suffering, and death of Jesus influenced art. Previously, art depicted the birth of Jesus as how birth actually looked. Some found this to graphic and so Birgitta’s vision, which emphasized the divine aspect of the birth, became more prevalent in art. Her vision of the death of Jesus was more focused on reality. Her letters helped influence the Papacy to return to Rome and influenced church teaching in Sweden. Birgitta’s body is now kept at the convent of Vadstena. She is considered the patron saint of Sweden.

Medical state

Shouldn't there be something about recent years discoveries that points to the fact that she was an epileptic, and that her visions are more likely to be the results of spasms? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.248.190.175 (talk) 15:26, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

These are not "discoveries", nor is this a "fact". It's an attempt to explain the phenomena surrounding St. Bridget in scientific terms, for the purpose of discrediting the substance of her visions. However, visions with highly detailed content (as opposed to an "aura" or a feeling of heightened reality) are not a symptom of epilepsy. Deborah64554 (talk) 18:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Rome

She must have had a different reason for going to Rome. In 1350 no pope had set foot in Rome for forty-six years. Pope Clement VI was in Avignon and never gave any indication of returning to Rome. When Ulf, the husband of Bridget was deathly ill following a journey to Compestella,"Bridget was greatly comforted by a vision of St. Dionisus that consoled her exortting her to make a pilgrimage to Rome. (Itinary of St. Bridget of Sweeden from Rome to Jerusalem, Sabino De Sandoli, C. 1991 Franciscan Printing Press, intro." 178.214.65.29 (talk) 15:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)Br. Anthony Sejda, ofm

The Fifteen 'Our Father and Hail Mary prayers - Reference Needed.

I think a reference is required for Jesus' supposed appearance.

Saint Bridget prayed for a long time to know how many blows Jesus Christ suffered during His terrible Passion. Rewarding her patience, one day He appeared to her and said: "I received 5475 blows upon My Body. If you wish to honor them in some way, recite fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Marys with the following Prayers, which I Myself shall teach you, for an entire year. When the year is finished, you will have honored each of My Wounds."

I think it's also necessary to mention what Jesus' viewpoint about worshipping anyone other than himself or the Father. Jesus just wouldn't have said "...recite fifteen Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Marys". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.93.200.36 (talk) 07:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Such an interpretation would require a proper reliable source to support it, because Wikipedia doesn't publish our own personal interpretations.

As a point of fact that might interest you, the "Hail Mary" prayer does not worship Mary; worshipping any human is considered a serious sin. The first half is a direct quotation from the Gospels, and the second half is a simple request to a "fellow Christian" that she pray for the speaker. (As I understand it, the belief is that the death of baptism is so much more significant than the death of the body, that if two people who have "died in Christ" (been baptized) but are alive in the body can speak to each other, then any two people who have "died in Christ" can speak to each other regardless of the state of their mortal bodies.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:52, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Our Blessed Mother revealed these seven promises to St. Bridget of Sweden in the 14th century. Our Lady said she would bestow seven graces to the those souls honoring her daily by saying seven Hail Marys while meditating on her tears and sorrows:...

— [1]

On the Sorrowful Rosary there exist also an old article on the website catholic-church.org, untill it will be kept alive and oline by the Internet Archive or their copyright authors. With the unique exception of a couple of sources, the related informations have been substantially removed from Google, leaving the web to a long and unterminated series of merchants of the Temple. And that censorship and trade on sacred objects will suirely move some people to believe that the Marian promises to St Brigitte havda historical background and are complexively true. But this is a legittimate WP:POV not to be developed here. In any case, at this point of the discussion, it seems to be reasonable to add the WP articles Rosary devotions and spirituality and Our Lady of Sorrows to the section titled "See also". Thanks and best regards to all the not satanist Freemason readers and editors of en.wikipedia.Philosopher81sp/Micheledisaveriosp

Hi, please help!

Hi, I was going to be adding some info to the many languages about saint Bridget and was adding the webpage which has her collected works and history in more than 15 languages into the many languages of her wikiproject but was wrongly stamped as a spammer and now cannot add the links which has her complete works and history in more than 15 languages according to the admin. I am confused where to turn to get this blacklist of me and help this article stay relevant and good. The webpage name is: www.prophecyfilm.com . I would appreciate anyone contacting me and helping this be solved. I wanted to add each language site, that is, for spanish: www.prophecyfilm.com/spanish, and then the rest of the different languages, and then make additions in the articles from the various translations on the website prophecyfilm.com. The link I am using have her complete works compared to the link on the page which has only 20 chapters or so. Please help me continue my work! Saintbridget (talk) 23:16, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

A lot of opinionated material completely unrelated to Bridget on the same page. Seems like obvious linkspam to me, and a weakly disguised attempt to use Wikipedia to draw readers to the other material. Tomas e (talk) 12:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? This site has more info about her than any other site in existance, seems like you are lying quite alot. Just because there is other things on the website does not mean it is not worthy of being linked, many pages have things unrelated to the specific subject that is up on wiki, in fact most do so, why are you making up things? Saintbridget (talk) 08:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not very kind of you to accuse another editor of lying. It also violates Wikipedia's policies about personal attacks on editors.

It is also inappropriate to try to force the link into the page when (so far) you have 100% opposition to its inclusion.

Tomas e says that there are many things on the page that have nothing to do with St Bridget. Far from being a lie, this seems to be nothing less than the truth: There's a video titled "A Real Excorcism Case Caught On Tape", another about creationism, and so forth. These off-topic items can be a real problem in terms of complying with our basic guidelines, since external links are supposed to be on-topic (the actual page that we link to, not necessarily the entire website). Is there a page at this website that only has information about St Bridget? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is a directlink to the page you are asking for, Should I place the link to this page myself or should I allow you to do it?

• The revelations and Prophecies of Saint Bridget of Sweden The complete revelations and history of Saint Bridget of Sweden to read or download at prophecyfilm.com Saintbridget (talk) 13:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

That's much better, and this table of contents might be an even better choice.

You should definitely not place the link yourself. Let's see if anyone has any further comments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I changed the link to the table of content instead as you said, should I make any more changes in the link? Can I add new info from Bridget's works to this article some time in the future? Peace! Saintbridget (talk) 14:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought it would be better for all people who dont have their bridget wiki in english to come to the front site so that they could chose their language, or read any specific book they wanted, or so that the english people could chose what they wanted, oh well, I might be wrong. Peace! Saintbridget (talk) 13:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

This decision only affects readers of the English wiki article; therefore we assume that they (1) will want English much more frequently than other languages and (2) are smart enough to look for another language if that's their preference.

Again: you personally should not add any link to this website to any articles anywhere on en.Wikipedia ever because (rightly or wrongly) you have been accused of spamming and a conflict of interest with this website, and to continue adding the links would only "prove" to your accusers that you really are a spammer whose only interest in Wikipedia is promoting this website. Instead, I suggest that you apologize to Tomas e on his talk page for having called him a liar on this page, and politely ask him whether he's willing to compare the newly proposed, more specific link to the other similar links in this article and leave a note here about which link he thinks would be better for the readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I basically thought that you (WhatamIdoing) checked the external link and just like me found it basically OK, since it does not have the other religious material on-page, unlike the previous link. Therefore I left no additional comment. I didn't check deep enough to see how much the EL adds to the article, but it does have a couple of nice-looking images. Tomas e (talk) 15:38, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't want to make any assumptions about your opinion.

Do you think it's redundant to the (now) second link? I'm not sure that it is, and it does look a little more accessible (that is, the text of the Revelations is right there in front of you, instead of something you can find by scrolling down and looking around). Do you think that this could be justified as an addition, instead of a substitution? (If so, feel free to add the link.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you both still there considering the cause. Is there something wrong yet? Peace!Saintbridget (talk) 16:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Should someone of you add the link or how should it be done? I do not understand? Was the first link I gave better? Peace! Saintbridget (talk) 20:06, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Saintbridget, WP:There is no deadline.

I'm going to add the link. It's sufficiently different from the one with the Latin text that I think it should be an addition. Actually, I think that the page we've settled on is better, because the text is right there, so you don't have to look around and hope that you find the right link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Retouched image

I've retouched the File:Heliga Birgitta på ett altarskåp i Salems kyrka.jpg image, here is the difference:

• 
• 

Watch the images in full size for best comparison. The retouched image might seem a little blurred in thumbnail view, but that's just Wikipedia's PNG thumbnailing software.

I can see the charm in using the original picture, so I'll leave this up for discussion. What do you think? --Beao 15:51, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Good idea!- _J.Logan`^t: 17:58, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

patron saint

I have here in A History of Sweden by Herman Lindqvist, page 72, that Birgitta was made patron saint of the European Union rather than Europe. As these are tow different things, does anyone have a source of saying she is patron saint of Europe? - _J.Logan`^t: 17:56, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

I recall pretty clearly that the decree was for patron saint of Europe (added together with Edith Stein and Catherine of Sienna to the already existing patrons Benedict of Nursia, Cyrill and Methodius). This should be pretty easy to verify on the Vatican web site, though. 95.172.68.155 (talk) 18:13, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

POV problem

The neutrality of this biography leaves much to be desired as far as Bridget's actual historical person and her impact on her times is concerned. She is also known as the person who in her "revelations" so viciously slandered King Magnus and his family, for political reasons, that his name still today bears an undeserved smudge on it. Something of this propaganda aspect of Brriget's works must be mentioned in this article if it at all it is to be considered neutral, encyclopedic work. I am adding a POV template until that has been done. SergeWoodzing (talk) 01:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you just fix it yourself? An experienced editor like you should be WP:BOLDly solving problems, not just tagging the page and hoping someone else will fix it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 3 January 2012 (UTC)

Point well taken. And one I have made myself at times. In this case I thought I'd let people with a special interest in "Holy" Bridget have a go. Will try to get to it myself as soon as I can get the references lined up. SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:55, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the POV:ing. It's not quite the fact that there's a clear opposing view against her, it is more like a general historical cold neutrality towards here in the modern Sweden, since the concept of an upper class Saint fighting for the rights of the nobility against the king before the collaps of the nation Sweden, isn't the very least compatible to any known modern Swedish mind set. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 14:01, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm surfing a little, but it appears it is really really hard to find anything written by a Swede (see f.ex. Libris) about her. It seems she is mostly a topic for a continental European symbol. There's some very acrid and unbalanced Swedish criticism against her, properly referred on the Swedish Wikipedia, that might or might not be usable. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 17:35, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

The most serious criticism I've seen of her is based on her having created an international career for herself by knowingly slandering and libelling her relative the king and his family. I'm not sure if everyone who knows that about her belongs to the vast Swedish majority of aetheists, or if even people with a "do-unto-others" attitude feel that way. SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:06, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Serge, do you intend to de-POV the article, or can the tag be removed? carl bunderson (talk) (contributions) 23:34, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not up to me. The article is not neutral, that's neither my fault nor my responsibility. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:51, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

This article is still far from neutral and the POV tag is still justified. Reinstating it. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 09:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

If you wish the tag to remain it is your responsibility to make some effort to fix the article, or suggest how it should be fixed. William Avery (talk) 19:37, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Please show me that WP guideline! I am unaware of any such "responsibility" here. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 02:26, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

I have now added enough balance to remove the POV template. SergeWoodzing (talk) 16:19, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Criticism

New scholarly sources have shown how Bridget operated politically and personally. If info about this is added, duly sourced, it should not be softened, censored or quashed. SergeWoodzing (talk) 08:40, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

There is nothing to say against this, and these statements are still in the article. However, they should be referred to as statements of certain sources and attributed to them as claims. I was also a little bit surprised at the word choice of "mud-slinging" in an encyclopedia.--Medusahead (talk) 09:18, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

The word (and worse) has been used several times about Bridget by respectable authors. Swedish: smutskastning. Research about her, what is shown, not just claimed, has not resulted in glorification only. The church was rampant with political manipulation and corruption at that time, as I'm sure you know. Bridget was smart and used the tools she acquired to get her way. A martyr she certainly was not.--SergeWoodzing (talk) 12:41, 4 April 2024 (UTC)