Ida of Louvain (died around 1300) was a

Cistercian nun Cistercian nuns are female members of the Cistercian Order, a religious order belonging to the Roman Catholic branch of the Catholic Church. History The first Cistercian monastery for women, Le Tart Abbey, was established at Tart-l'Abbaye in the ...

Roosendael Abbey Roosendael Abbey (the abbey of the valley of roses) was a community of Cistercian nuns, founded in the 13th century on the banks of the River Nete in the Duchy of Brabant, at a location now in Sint-Katelijne-Waver. The monastery was established i ...

in the 13th-century

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

who is officially commemorated in the Catholic Church as blessed.

Life

Ida was born into a well-to-do family in

Leuven Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...

Duchy of Brabant The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries, part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Neth ...

(now Belgium). At the age of 22 she felt a religious vocation but her father was a worldly man who would not accept this and subjected her to various forms of ill-treatment to discourage her. Despite parental disapproval, she first dedicated her life to God as an

anchoress In Christianity, an anchorite or anchoret (female: anchoress) is someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, or Eucharist-focused life. While anchorites are ...

, and later became a nun in the recently founded Cistercian Abbey of Roosendael (the Valley of the Roses) in what is now

Sint-Katelijne-Waver Sint-Katelijne-Waver (, old spelling: ''Kathelijne-Waver''; french: Wavre-Sainte-Catherine, ) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the towns of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Waver and Sint-Katelijne-Waver p ...

. One historian has described her as adding "éclat" to the monastery. The only contemporary record of her life is in a series of letters by her confessor, a priest named Hugo.

Legend and veneration

Ida died with a reputation for sanctity and came to be considered a saint. She was said to have experienced

stigmata Stigmata ( grc, στίγματα, plural of , 'mark, spot, brand'), in Roman Catholicism, are bodily wounds, scars and pain which appear in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ: the hands, wrists, and feet. Stigm ...

and mystical graces. These included miraculous visions and corporeal encounters with appearances of the infant

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

, where she would hold him, bathe him, play with him and dress him. She was

beatified Beatification (from Latin ''beatus'', "blessed" and ''facere'', "to make”) is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a deceased person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in their nam ...

for her piety and humility. Her official commemoration, granted by

Pope Clement XI Pope Clement XI ( la, Clemens XI; it, Clemente XI; 23 July 1649 – 19 March 1721), born Giovanni Francesco Albani, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 23 November 1700 to his death in March 1721. Clement XI w ...

in 1719, is April 13.Basil Watkins (ed.), ''The Book of Saints'' (7th ed., London, 2002), p. 273.

References

Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 13th-century Christian nuns 1300s deaths People from Leuven People from the Duchy of Brabant 13th-century women from the Holy Roman Empire {{Authority control