Ida of Herzfeld

Saint Ida of Herzfeld (c. 788 - c. 813) was the widow of a Saxon duke who devoted her life to the poor following the death of her husband in 811. Among her reported acts of kindness were filling a stone coffin with food each day, then giving it to the poor; she also reportedly founded the church at Hofstadt, Westphalia, and the convent of Herzfeld, sometimes recorded as Herford or Hervorden. where she is buried.

She was canonized on November 26, 980, is the patron saint of brides and widows and is frequently depicted either as carrying a church or with a dove hovering over her head. Her feast day is September 4. Her "Life" is sometimes quoted in support of the proposition that sexual congress within the institution of marriage reflects spiritual unities as well:

:At the moment when the two are united in one flesh, there is present in them a single and similar operation of the Holy Spirit: when they are linked together in each other's arms in an external unity, which is to say, a physical unity, this indivisible action of the Holy Spirit inflames them with a powerful interior love directed towards celestial realities.

She has sometimes also been identified as Redburga or Raedburh, who was, by some accounts, either the sister-in-law of Charlemagne, his sister, the daughter of his sister-in-law. his niece or his great-granddaughter. This Raedburh reportedly married king Egbert of Wessex in 800.

The details of Saint Ida's life, however, make it unlikely that she was married to the Egbert who was King of Wessex. The available biographies of Saint Ida report that her husband died in 811, long before the date of death given to King Egbert of Wessex. In addition, Saint Ida was reportedly the mother of Warin, the abbot of Corvey from 826 to 856, Count Cobbo the Elder, and Addila or Mathilde, the abbess of Herzfeld; Raedburh wife of King Egbert was the mother of Ethelwulf, who succeeded Egbert as King of Wessex.

References

Lives of the Saints:( [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainti14.htm www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainti14.htm] )