May 5 + Saint Jutta

Jutta (Judith in English) - also known as Jutta of Kulmsee, Jutta of Sangerhausen, or Judith of Prussia - was born in Thuringia, Germany. She was a member of the very noble family of Sangerhausen with which the dukes of Brunswick were related. She was married at fifteen to a wealthy young nobleman of equal rank, but in the married state she was more intent upon virtue and the fear of God than upon worldly honor.

In the beginning, the piety of Jutta displeased her husband. But later he learned to value it and was heart and soul with her in her pious endeavors. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and died suddenly on the way. Jutta received the news of his death with deep sorrow, but also with the most perfect conformity with the Will of God, and resolved to spend her widowhood in a manner pleasing to God.

She decided in 1256, with her relative Anno von Sangerhausen, to enter an order. Her several children embraced a religious life in various Orders. Jutta disposed of her expensive clothes and jewels, entered the Third Order of St. Francis, and wore the simple garment of a religious.

By divine inspiration, Jutta built a little hermitage and from that point her life was utterly devoted to others: caring for the sick, particularly lepers; tending to the poor, whom she visited in their hovels; helping the crippled and blind with whom she shared her own home. She prayed especially for the conversion of nonbelievers and for the newly baptized Christians to be true to their faith.

"Three things can lead us closer to God," she once said. "They are: painful physical suffering, being in exile in a foreign land, and being poor by choice because of love for God.”

Jutta died of fever in 1264. She was buried in the Church of the Holy Trinity. Fifteen years afterwards, steps were taken for her canonization, in consequence of her great renown for sanctity and the numerous miracles wrought at her tomb.