History You Didn’t Know You Needed: St. Dymphna
Today we’re diving in head first with a little-known Catholic saint.?
I’ll start this by noting that I grew up super Catholic which included Catholic schooling from kindergarten through college. While there are plenty of things to not like about Catholic school, one of the things I really enjoyed was learning about the saints. Most people know of the big names like St. Peter and Joan of Arc, but there is a world of sanity goodness that extends way beyond that. By some estimates, there have been more than 10,000 Catholic saints since the start of the church in the first century.?
Nowadays, it’s pretty hard to become a saint but back in the early church they were making everybody a saint and there were some characters. One of those earlier saints and a personal favorite of mine is Dymphna. Admittedly, I was first intrigued by her because of her name: Dymphna. It’s so unique and fun to say, but when I did more digging, I learned that Dymphna, if she existed, was pretty interesting.?
Most of our information comes from a 13th century account of her life written by a Belgian priest who admitted that he used oral tradition as his source material. While his works cited are a little iffy, he still tells a great story.?
According to legend, Dymphna was born in Ireland in the 7th century. Her mom was a gorgeous and devout, Christian princess while her dad, Damon, was a heathen pagan.?
Life was great for Dymphna until her mom died when she was 14 and everything went to shit. Damon took the death very hard. He was devastated. Inconsolable. So overcome with grief that he was becoming unhinged. His advisors tried desperately to get him to pull it together and eventually convinced him that the best way to move on was to just remarry. Swap out the dead wife for a brand new one. Damon liked that idea BUT she had to be 1) of noble birth and 2) as beautiful as his late wife. Damon searched high and low for a replacement but couldn’t find one, until he realized that his teenage daughter Dymphna was the spitting image of her mother. Problem solved - he would marry her!?
Damon minced over to his daughter with the good news of their pending nuptials but Dymphna, who was gorgeous and a devout Christian like her mother, was not into the idea. She was much more into the idea of giving herself to God.? Left with little choice, she ran.?
Dymphna and her confessor, basically her priest best friend, Gerebran, packed up everything and left Ireland before Dymphna could marry her dad.?
They ended up in a Belgian town called Geel which is about an hour outside of modern Antwerp. In exile, it took them a while to find their groove. They were hermits for a while, until Dymphna said she wanted to put her princess money to good use and help people. She was said to have opened a hospice and dedicated her life to caring for the sick and dying.?
Meanwhile, Damon was seething back in Ireland. He sent his spies all over Europe to track down his daughter bride. Eventually, they located Dymphna and Gerebran and Damon was on the next boat over. When he arrived, he immediately confronted the pair and had Gerebran killed as a way to show Dymphna that he meant business. She refused which only enraged her dad more. In a frenzied state, he drew his sword and “separated her head from her body.” The teenage princess was dead.?
We don’t know what happened to Damon after that, but we hope it wasn’t great. The people of Geel were saddened by the loss of Dymphna and Gerebran who had done so much for them and fashioned a tomb for them in a nearby cave.?
Several centuries pass and people completely forget about Dymphna. Then, in the 14th century some Geelians stumbled upon the site of her tomb. Now this is where it starts to get good. Miracles start happening - specifically for people with epilepsy and mental illnesses. After visiting Dymphna’s resting place, they were totally cured. Word spread like wildfire and pretty soon pilgrims from across Europe were journeying to Geel to have their mental afflictions cured by Dymphna. Pretty quickly after the miracles started, the Pope found out about Dymphna and named her a saint. A church was built on the site in the 14th century to accommodate the faithful and was then rebuilt in the 16th century after the original church burned down in a fire. That 16th century church still stands in Geel today and is home to the supposed remains of St. Dymphna.?
Today, St. Dymphna, while still a more obscure saint, is revered by Catholics as the patron saint of those with mental illness. So, next time I take my Lexapro, you better believe I’ll be thinking of St. Dymphna.
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Senior Communications Strategist and Writer. Education Advocate: STEM, Equity, Diversity, Community-Building.
4 个月My fave HS English teacher was named Dymphna. She was the best!