Notburga

Today is the feast of the Exultation of the Holy Cross.   A real Feast, a big thing.  We discussed this last year.   Remember:  Adoramus te, christe, et benedicimus tibi, quia per crucem tuam redemisti mundum.

It is also:
Saint Notburga

Also known as
Noitburgis
Notburga of Eben
Notburga of Tyrol
Notburga of Rattenberg

memorial
14 September

Profile

Our Saint today was born c 1265 to a peasant family in Austria. To support herself she became a kitchen maid at the house of good Count Henry of Rattenberg at age 18. I really don’t know how this happens but the good count married a hardhearted, nasty, stubborn woman named, Ottilia. For some reason this happens to good men….notably on 27 August 1983.

Ottilia became the new mistress of the house and so ordered Our Saint to feed leftover food to the house swine. In a precursor to what we call today the organization known as “City Harvest” instead of the pigs, she gave this food to the poor. The nasty Ottilia did not like being crossed so she threatened to fire our Saint if this behavior continued. So Nortburga fed the leftovers to the pigs, and gave much of her own food to the poor. Ottilia saw even this as a form of disobedience, and canned her anyway. Good Count Henry, like Cinderella’s father, had little to say.

She then became a servant girl for a farmer. Time wounds all heels and the nasty lady Ottilia died relatively young, so the good but spineless count rehired Notburga, and she spent the rest of her life as a serving girl in his house. Although a peasant herself, Notburga worked to assist the poor. During her lifetime she was known as a miracle worker. After her death many miracles were reported at her shrine in the Tyrolese mountains.

Notburga's life was filled with miracle stories and was the reason for her local popularity some of these yarns are:

Nasty Ottilia once saw her leaving the house with something bundled in her apron. Thinking she had caught her disobeying the order to not give away food, she demanded to see what she carried. To keep her out of trouble, the food and wine had turned into wood shavings and vinegar. A similar legend surrounds a few female saints most notably St Elizabeth of Hungary where the food miraculously became roses.

On one occasions, her employer tried to get her to keep working instead of attending Mass. Notburga said she would let her sickle decide the matter, and threw it into the air. The sickle hung suspended in the air, and Notburga went to Church.

Shortly before her death she told Count Henry to place her corpse on a wagon drawn by two oxen, and to bury her wherever the oxen would stop on their own. She died 16 September 1313. The animals drew the wagon to the chapel of Saint Rupert, where she was buried.

Patronage
agricultural workers
farm workers
farmers
field hands
husbandmen
peasants
servers
waiters
waitresses

Representation

holding an ear of corn
holding flowers and a sickle in her hand
with a sickle suspended in the air nearby