St. Hedwig of Silesia

Who they were

Hedwig of Andechs was married at twelve to Duke Henry the Bearded of Silesia, an arranged match that became, by the record, a real partnership. Together they founded the monastery of Trebnica, Silesia's first for women, and a network of hospitals and leper houses that Hedwig served with her own hands. The detail every account preserves is that she went barefoot in devotion, and when her confessor ordered her to wear shoes she obeyed, and carried them.

Widowed in 1238, she took up residence at Trebnica under her own daughter, who was abbess, without taking vows, which left her free to keep giving everything away. Then 1241: the Mongol invasion, and her son Duke Henry II killed leading the defence at Legnica. The sources record her consoling the widows and mothers of Silesia while she was newly one of them. She died in 1243 and was canonized in 1267. She is a different woman from Jadwiga the queen of Poland, with whom she is often confused.

Why people turn to St. Hedwig of Silesia

Widows, with St. Elizabeth of Hungary, St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Marguerite d'Youville and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. And the hardest corner of that shelf, mothers who bury sons, where she stands with St. Stephen of Hungary on the fathers' side.

How to ask their intercession

For a bereaved mother, by name, and nothing more elaborate than that. Her carried shoes make the lighter prayer available too: obedience with your own style left intact.