Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/491

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ST. LUPARIA
477

Bohemiæ. Chanowski, Vestigium Bohemiæ Piæ. Schultz, Guide to Prague.

St. Ludvina, Lidwina.

St. Lufthild, Jan. 22 (Leuchteldis, Linthild, Lufteldin, Luftold, Lutfold, etc.), date unknown. Represented holding a distaff. Her Life by Cornelius Cnrtins, among other legends, contains the following. Her father had a longstanding dispute about the boundary of his property, and one day he took Lufthild out behind him on his horse. She took her distaff and spindle with her to avoid idleness. In whatever direction she drew the thread and spindle, there the fields were severed apart by distinct boundaries; on another similar occasion a trench was ploughed up in wondrous fashion, which is called St. Leuchthild's Dyke unto this day: thus disputes were adjusted and litigation laid to rest by her.

While she was still at a very tender age, her stepmother set her to keep the wild geese out of her father's field, and once when they did a great deal of mischief, whether by the fault of the young saint or not, the stepmother beat her with great cruelty, which Lufthild bore with perfect meekness. The stepmother next accused her to her father, of wasting and giving everything to the idle, useless poor. So he went to meet her as she was carrying bread to the poor, and asked what she had in her robe. Lufthild was so frightened that she could not answer. He seized her and was going to beat her, but first looked into her bundle, where the bread meantime was turned into pieces of charcoal. After this, her stepmother watched her so closely that she could get nothing to give away; but she could not rest, so great was her desire to do good. She drew near to her stepmother, when she had just finished making the bread, to ask of her but one loaf, holding out the fold of her robe to receive what her petition might win. Thereupon, an attendant, out of sheer wantonness and perverseness, taking up in a shovel some live embers, poured them into the bosom of the maiden. Her father, a hard-natured and unkind man, so far from punishing the wrong done to so gentle and dutiful a daughter, assailed her at the instigation of her stepmother more bitterly than ever, with reproaches for continuing to bestow stolen bread upon the poor. When she grew older she led a solitary religious life in a little cell near the church, and there she died and began immediately to work miracles. Among others, she cured several persons of dangerous bites of dogs.

Mons St. Lufthildis, in the diocese of Cologne, was already so called in 1260, and Lufthild was honoured and accredited with miracles in 1222. An old bell in the 16th century, bore an inscription indicating that her worship was of long standing when the bell was new. It was as follows:—

"Leuchtel binn ich gnandt.

Der Nam iff der alter Klocken

ist mir Wolbekant

Sancta Levchtildis Virgo

Ora pro nobis

anno domini millesimo qvingen-

tesimo tricesimo octavo."

AA.SS.

St. Lugusta, Lucusta.

St. Luighsech, Lassecha.

St. Luina. (See Priscilla (4).)

St. Luitberga, Liutberg.

St. Lumbrosa (1), Luminosa.

St. Lumbrosa (2) or Lombrosa, Nov. 1, v. at Cæa in Leon, Spain, M. c. 830 by the Saracens. Patron of Jaën and Sahagun. She was one of those nuns who lived near a monastery of men. She was buried in a marble tomb in the chapel of St. Mantius in the Benedictine monastery of Sahagun. So groat was the devotion of the people that they made a hole in the tomb and abstracted the greater part of her relics. AA.SS. Yepez.

St. Luminosa or Lumbrosa, May 9, + 476, sister of Honorata of Pavia.

St. Luna Mista, Summista.

St. Lunicia, June 7, M. in Africa (Greven). Henschenius, AA.SS., supposes the name to be a mistake for certain names of men.

St. Luparia the elder and St. Claudia Luparia, her daughter, Feb. 22 (Spanish Martyrology). The conversion of the mother is attributed to St. James the Apostle. The Bollandists were