Editing Bridget of Sweden (section)

== Visions ==
[[File:StBridgetSyonIndenture.jpg|thumb|''The Vision of St Bridget'': The Risen Christ, displaying his wound from [[Saint Longinus|Longinus]], inspires the writing of Saint Bridget. Detail of initial letter miniature, dated 1530, probably made at [[Syon Abbey]], England, a Bridgettine House.]]
At the age of ten, Bridget had a vision of Jesus hanging upon the cross. When she asked who had treated him like this, he answered:<ref name=SHMI />
{{cquote|They who despise me, and spurn my love for them.}}
The [[Passion of Jesus|Passion of Christ]] became the center of her spiritual life from that moment on.<ref name=SHMI /> The [[s:Revelations of St. Bridget|revelations]] which she had received since her childhood now became more frequent, and the records of these ''Revelationes coelestes'' ("Celestial revelations") which were translated into [[Latin]] by Matthias, canon of [[Linköping]], and her confessor, Peter Olafsson, prior of Alvastra, acquired a great vogue during the [[Middle Ages]].<ref name="kirsch">{{cite CE1913|wstitle= St. Bridget of Sweden |volume= 2 |last= Kirsch |first= Johann Peter |author-link=
Johann Peter Kirsch |short=1}}</ref> These revelations made Bridget something of a celebrity to some and a controversial figure to others.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Jul2003/Saints.asp#F3 |author=Ball, Judy |title=Woman on a Bod Mission |publisher=Saint Anthony Messenger |website=Americancatholic.org |access-date=17 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203011757/http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Jul2003/Saints.asp#F3 |archive-date=3 February 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

=== Vision of the birth of Christ with kneeling Virgin ===

Her visions of the [[Nativity of Jesus]] would influence later depictions of the [[Nativity of Jesus in art]]. Shortly before her death, she described a vision which included the infant Jesus lying on (not in) clean swaddling clothes on the ground, and emitting light himself, and she described the Virgin as blonde-haired and kneeling in prayer exactly as she was moments before the spontaneous birth, with her womb shrunken and her virginity intact.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/RevelationsOfStBridget/page/n90/mode/1up Vision of Saint Bridget] in Chapter 8, "Revelations of St. Bridget, on the life and passion of Our Lord, and the life of His Blessed Mother", 1862 edition on archive.org</ref> 

Many depictions followed this scene, they included the popular ox and donkey and they reduced other light sources in the scene in order to emphasize the "child of light" effect, and the Nativity was treated with [[chiaroscuro]] through the [[Baroque]]. Other details which are frequently seen, such as Joseph carrying a single candle that he "attached to the wall," and the presence of [[God the Father]] above, also originated in Bridget's vision.

The pose of the Virgin kneeling to pray to her child, to be joined by [[Saint Joseph]], technically known as the "Adoration of the Child", became one of the most common depictions in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, largely replacing the reclining Virgin in the West. A few earlier depictions of the Virgin which show her with an ox and a donkey (scenes which are not described in the gospels) were produced as early as 1300, before Bridget was born, have a [[Franciscan]] origin, by which she may have been influenced, because she was a member of the Franciscan order.<ref>Schiller and Seligman, pp. 76–78.</ref>

<gallery>
File:Duccio di Buoninsegna - The Nativity with the Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel - Google Art Project.jpg|Pre-Bridget reclining Virgin with ox and donkey, with [[Salome (Gospel of James)|midwife Salomé]] off to the side, {{Circa|1311}}, by [[Duccio di Buoninsegna]]
File:Hans Memling 027.jpg|Post-Bridget kneeling Virgin with Joseph holding a candle as he enters the space with angels, ox, and donkey, circa 1470, by [[Hans Memling]]
</gallery>

Her visions of [[Purgatory]] were also well-known.<ref>Duffy, p. 338.</ref>

===Prophecy===
In addition, "she even predicted an eventual Vatican State, foretelling almost the exact boundaries delineated by [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini]] for [[Vatican City]] in 1921."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/06/not-so-secular-sweden|title=Not So Secular Sweden |author=Matthew Milliner|date=June 2014|work=[[First Things]]|publisher=Institute on Religion and Public Life|access-date=18 May 2014|quote=Faced with the corruption of the Avignon papacy, she even predicted an eventual Vatican State, foretelling almost the exact boundaries delineated by Mussolini for Vatican City in 1921.}}</ref>

[[Pope Benedict XVI]] spoke of Bridget in a general audience on 27 October 2010, saying that the value of Saint Bridget's Revelations, sometimes the object of doubt, was specified by [[Pope John Paul II]] in the letter ''Spes Aedificandi'': "Yet there is no doubt that the Church," wrote my beloved predecessor, "which recognized Bridget's [[catechesis|holiness]] without ever pronouncing on her individual revelations, has accepted the overall authenticity of her interior experience."<ref>[https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2010/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20101027.html ''Saint Bridget of Sweden'', General Audience, 27 October 2010].</ref>