Saint Saint Alice

Alice of Schaerbeek (or Adelaide or Aleydis) (also known as Alice the Leper) (Dutch: Sint Aleydis, French: Sainte Alix), (c. 1220–1250) was a Cistercian lay sister who is venerated as the patron saint of the blind and paralyzed. Her feast day is 15 June. Alice was born at Schaerbeek, near Brussels, then in the Duchy of Brabant. A frail child, she was sent at the age of seven to be boarded and educated at the Cistercian La Cambre Abbey, where she remained for the rest of her life. The name of the abbey is derived from the Latin: Camera Sanctae Mariae (Chamber of Our Lady) and is recalled in the park southeast of Brussels called "Ter Kamerenbos / Bois de la Cambre" ("Chamber Woods"). Alice was a very pretty girl and a lovable child, and soon showed great intelligence and a deep love for God. She became a laysister at the abbey. However, at some 20 years of age (c. 1240), she contracted leprosy and had to be isolated in a small hut. The disease caused her intense suffering, which she offered for the salvation of sinners and the souls in purgatory. Eventually, she became paralyzed and afflicted with blindness. Her greatest consolation came from the reception of the Holy Eucharist, although she was not allowed to drink from the chalice because of the presumed danger of contamination. However, it is said that the Lord appeared to her with assurance that He was in both the consecrated bread and the wine. She died in 1250, at the age of c. 30. The little we know about Alice's life comes from a Latin biography, composed c. 1260–1275. Authorship of the work is unknown. Scholars have typically believed that the author was an anonymous chaplain at La Cambre Abbey. However, Martinus Cawley suggests that Arnulf II of Ghistelles, abbot of Villers Abbey 1270–1276, is its likely author. Alice's biography was also translated into Middle Dutch, as witnessed by one extant manuscript. By decree of 1 July 1702, Pope Clement XI granted to the monks of the Congregation of St.