Convent of St. Birgitta

THE FIREPLACE:  It contains a close copy of the reliquary still venerated in the Blue Church in Vadstena, Sweden.  (Vadstena also has the original plain wooden chest that St Catherine actually brought home from Rome.)  Marguerite told me that she had this copy done in Sweden.  The original is covered with red velvet and adorned with silver coats of arms belonging to the donors.  (Marguerite had the shields slightly simplified.)  Until fairly recently the roof had a central silver medallion of St

BAS-RELIEF:  Commissioned by Marguerite Harris The bas-relief shows (left to right) one of St Birgitta’s pilgrimages with her husband Ulf (on the one to St Olaf in Norway, we are told that she walked; or this is the return from Compostella, with Ulf beginning to fail in health).  The center shows the traditional scene of DISTRIBUTION OF THE RULE to the nuns and monks;  on the right, St Catherine Ulfsdottir accompanies the return of her mother’s relics to Sweden.