History and Facts about S.t Eanswida
Feast Day is September 12th.
Eanswida lived in the seventh century. Eanswida was the granddaughter of
St. Ethelbert, the first Christian king of England. Eanswida’s father Prince Edbald later became the king of
Kent.
Edbald was not a religious man at
first, but he learned a great deal about Christianity from his little daughter.
She was a very good Christian/devout
as well as attractive.
Her father found a handsome man to
marry her, a pagan prince from Northumbria. But Eanswida was not at all
pleased. She kindly refused to marry him so that her father would not be
offended.
He respected her wish and surprised
everyone when he allowed his daughter to become a nun .
Princess Eanswida was a very happy nun
and she soon started a Benedictine convent. She lived simply and prayerfully
like the rest of the sisters.
She spent the rest of her life in
penance and prayer for herself and for all the people of her homeland. Eanswida
died on the last day of August in 640.
The Danes finally destroyed her
convent, but Benedictine monks started the monastery again in 1095.
In pictures and art St. Eanswida is
shown as a nun wearing a crown, holding a church or a fish.
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