Wrocław, Poland, Oct 16, 2019 / 10:20 am
Readers who find this story through a search engine probably were looking for information about Hedwig, Harry Potter's snowy owl.
St. Hedwig of Silesia was not an owl. But read on anyway: she was a princess, a wife, a mother, and a builder of bridges between the German and Polish people. And her husband's name was "Henry the Bearded."
St. Hedwig, whose feast is Oct. 16, lived in the 13th century and received a good education in her youth at a convent in Bavaria. She is recorded to have said that knowledge plus holiness of life leads to greater glory for souls in heaven.
Hedwig "became known as a helper of poor people and after her canonization, she became a beloved patron saint of the same groups of people," Bishop Andrzej Siemieniewski, auxiliary bishop of Wroclaw, told CNA.