Christina Reteressensis

Who they were

Blessed Cristina of Retters was a German Premonstratensian mystic, born in the diocese of Mainz in 1269; her baptismal name is unknown, since she took the name Cristina after an apparition of Christ. At six she was entrusted to the Premonstratensian nuns, and at Frankfurt, aged ten, after a vision she asked to take the habit of the order in which she had been raised, professing in 1281 after two years as a novice. Around Christmas she had a vision of the infant Jesus asleep in the manger on the altar; as she drew near, he grew to the stature of a man and began to sing the divine office beside her, and she understood that she must love not only Christ's infancy but also his Passion and sufferings, a devotion that shaped the rest of her life.

War forced her to leave the convent with other nuns in 1282; returning a few years later still attached to worldly memories, she showed a difficult character, but resolved to become an exemplary nun, changing through repeated flagellation and mortification and taking refuge in contemplating the wounds of Christ, which Christ himself had shown her in a vision as a source of consolation and strength. She suffered various injustices and mistreatment from her fellow nuns, which she bore in silence, and, having taken on the office of infirmary helper, cared for her sick sisters with boundless charity, treating even those who had made her suffer most with love. Worn down by her penances, she fell gravely ill in 1283, comforted by frequent visions of Jesus and Mary, and some years later fell ill again, dying in the odour of sanctity amid great suffering on 23 November 1292, aged only 23. Though she never received the stigmata, she lived in intimate communion with Christ's suffering; the Premonstratensian order has always honoured her as blessed, keeping her feast on 24 July.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as blessed since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Premonstratensian mystic whose visions of the Christ Child and of Christ's Passion shaped a life of penance and care for her sick sisters; feast 24 July.

The cause