Edith: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Edith was born in 961 at Kemsing in Kent, the daughter of King Edgar and of St Wulfthryth, and a half-sister of St Edward the Martyr. Her mother brought her up in the convent at Wilton, and there Edith took monastic vows at about fifteen. She was well educated and skilled at embroidery, and though she sometimes wore fine clothes she wore a hairshirt beneath them. She kept strict fasts and long prayers, yet she also fed the hungry, clothed the poor, cared for the sick and urged that a hospital be built at the convent. She loved animals, and she refused the office of abbess more than once, wishing to remain a simple nun. When her half-brother Edward was murdered at Corfe in 979, Edith was offered the crown of England, and she declined it. She built a church at Wilton dedicated to St Denis, and at its consecration St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, wept, for it had been revealed to him that she would soon die. Three weeks later, in 984, she fell asleep in the Lord at the age of twenty-three after receiving Holy Communion from him. Her body was later found incorrupt. Kings honored her, and King Canute believed he owed his life to her prayers when he was saved from a storm at sea. The Church keeps her memory on 16 September (29 September on the Old Calendar).

What the faithful pray for

• humility and freedom from worldly honor
• the poor, the hungry and the sick
• young people seeking to give their lives to God
• nuns and all who live in monasteries
• those in danger at sea