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Turning grief into prayer and service.

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September 4 · Widow

St. Ida

St. Ida

Turning grief into prayer and service.

Traditional feast

September 4
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Widow

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

THE TRANSLATION OF S. CUTHBERT. [Sarum, York, and Durham Kalendars. Authorities: — Simeon of Durham, and the Hist, of the Miracles and Translations of S. Cuthbert in Mabillon.] Bede relates, in the life of S. Cuthbert, that the saint charged his disciples before his death, that rather than ever 1 Charles Martel f Count Bcrnarc|— ' Theodrada— S. Ida t King Pepin — Charlemagne — Louis the Pious. fall under the yoke of schismatics or infidels, they should, when threatened with such a calamity, take with them his mortal remains, and choose some other dwelling.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Stay faithful when it costs you. This account is about holding firm under pressure.

Make time for silence. Solitude and withdrawal to pray shape this life.

Build up the community you belong to. This life was lived with and for a community.

Learn from the kind of life it was. Turning grief into prayer and service.

Read more

The full original · 274 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: German Martyrologies. Authority;— A Life by Uffing, monk of Werthcim, in the 10th cent.] This saint came of a family as illustrious in the annals of profane history as in those of the Church. She was the granddaughter of Count Bernard, son of Charles Martel, and Gundlindis, daughter of Adelbert, Duke of the Alemanni, whose sister was S. Odilia. Her parents were Theodoric, Duke of the Ripuarii, and Theodrada, afterwards Abbess of Soissons. Charles Martel her great-grandfather was son of Pepin, son of S. Bega and nephew of S. Gertrude, and grandson of the Blessed Pepin of Landen and of S. Itta or Iduberga, his wife.1 S. Ida was married to Ecbert, Duke of the Saxons who inhabited the region between the Rhine and the Weser. After his death, she spent her widowhood in works of charity and daily devotion. She had a stone coffin made for herself, and filled it daily to the brim with food for the poor. She was buried at Herzfeld.

THE TRANSLATION OF S. CUTHBERT. [Sarum, York, and Durham Kalendars. Authorities: — Simeon of Durham, and the Hist, of the Miracles and Translations of S. Cuthbert [bishop of Lindisfarne (d. 687)] in Mabillon.] Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)] relates, in the life of S. Cuthbert, that the saint charged his disciples before his death, that rather than ever 1 Charles Martel f Count Bcrnarc|— ' Theodrada— S. Ida t King Pepin — Charlemagne [king of the Franks, crowned emperor in 800] — Louis the Pious. fall under the yoke of schismatics or infidels, they should, when threatened with such a calamity, take with them his mortal remains, and choose some other dwelling. In the year 875 the province of Northumberland was so cruelly infested by Danish pirates, and Lindisfarne was so much exposed to their continual ravages, that Eardulf the bishop, Eadred the abbot, and the community of the monks, left that place, and carrying with them that sacred treasure, wandered to and fro for seven years. In 882 they rested with it at Concester (Chester-le-Street), a few miles from the Roman wall, where the bishop’s see continued one hundred and thirteen years, as Camden remarks. Both King Alfred and the Danish leader granted peace for a month to all persons that fled to the saint's shrine, and Alfred gave to this church all the land that lies between the Tyne and the Tees. In 995, in the fresh inroads of the Danes [Viking raiders from Scandinavia], Bishop Aldune retired with the saint’s body to Ripon, and four months after to Durham, a place strong by its natural situation, but not habitable, till the people of the country, on this occasion, cut down the wood, and raised a small church, and cells for the monks.

Feast days

Feast: September 4

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Ida's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on September 4
St. Hermione

St. Hermione

September 4 · Feast
M

St. Marcellus

September 4 · Martyr
M

St. Monessa

September 4 · Virgin
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.