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Saint Opportuna
Saint Opportuna

Saint Opportuna

Feast Day
Apr 22, 2013
Patronage
Diocese of Seez
<p>St. Opportuna was from Montreuil, and was a French Benedictine Nun and Abbess.&nbsp; When she was a young girl, Opportuna became a Benedictine Nun at the convent called the Monasteriolum, where her cousin St. Lantildis was Abbess.&nbsp; She took the veil from her brother, St. Chrodegang, the Bishop of Seez.&nbsp; Montreuil was only three miles from the Abbey, but Chrodegang was murdered on the way to visit his sister there.&nbsp; Later, Opportuna became Abbess.&nbsp; She was viewed, as a true mother to all her Nuns, correcting their faults, with words, not blows. &nbsp;</p> <p>Opportuna&rsquo;s sanctity was not expressed in charismatic actions during her lifetime; she performed no miracles during her lifetime.&nbsp; She lived in a time where the Bishops were hostile to any such forms of expressions such as charismatic ascetics, healers, prophets or visionaries known as the Carolingian era. &nbsp; The accounts of miracles worked at the site of Opportuna&rsquo;s tomb, where present after her death.&nbsp; She remained ever present in her former precincts, extending her protection to her flock forward in time.&nbsp; Opportuna&rsquo;s vita, records that once a peasant stole a donkey from the convent and refused to acknowledge his crime.&nbsp; Opportuna turned the matter over to God, and the next day the farmer&rsquo;s field was sown with salt.&nbsp; The repentant peasant returned the donkey and gave the Nuns the field. &nbsp;</p> <p>Some legends tell us that Opportuna died from a brief illness which was compounded by grief from the death of her brother, Bishop Chrodegang, who had died on September 3, 769.&nbsp; The Administrator he had entrusted his Diocese to while he was away for seven years to Rome planned his murder.&nbsp; Opportuna foresaw her brother&rsquo;s death in a prophetic vision, but was powerless to intervene.&nbsp; She buried her brother in her own convent, and she herself died on April 22, 770.&nbsp; According to sources, Vikings invaded both the convent at Montreuil and the Abbey at Almeneches, and they were destroyed.&nbsp; Her relics were transferred to the priory of Moussy.&nbsp; Some of her relics were enshrined in a small Church in Paris, near a hermitage called Notre Dame Des Bois Paris. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-size: medium;"><strong>Practical Take Away</strong></span></p> <p>St. Opportuna was a French Benedictine Nun.&nbsp; She was the brother of Bishop Chrodegang, now a saint.&nbsp; She became the Abbess of her Convent, and was known as a true mother to all her Nuns.&nbsp; She didn&rsquo;t work great miracles in her lifetime, but after death, many miracles were wrought at her tomb.&nbsp; She extended her protection to the community and her Nuns, forward in time, beyond death.&nbsp; She foresaw the murder of her brother Bishop Chrodegang, also a saint, but was unable to do anything to prevent it. &nbsp;</p>