Dear Saint Dymphna,
Girl, I wasn't too sure about you, but then something happened.
We met the other day, although considering all the people who come around to adore you and ask you for healings and blessings and stuff, I wouldn’t be at all offended if you didn’t notice me.
Before we go any further, Dy, you should know I’m not Catholic. I’m not anything, and I’ll be honest with you, our visit didn’t change that.
I was fascinated by your story nonetheless.
Considering you lived some 1,400 years ago in the seventh century, it’s no wonder the details of your life and death vary (see here or here or here, just to cite a few). The main gist, however, is pretty constant: Your mom died. Your dad went crazy with grief and wanted to marry you (a big NO on your part). You fled the scene, traveling more than 600 miles from your home in Ireland to Belgium. Your dad found you in Geel anyway, where you continued to refuse his incestuous proposal. Still crazed, he lopped off your head. You were just 15.
During the time between your arrival in Belgium and your murder at that young age, the legends report you did good works for the people of Geel. There were miraculous cures after your death. Your body was in a cave. Your body was moved. The people built a church for you. Most importantly, you were canonized in the thirteenth century as the patron saint of the mentally ill.
And it is in Geel at The Church of St. Dymphna where your reliquary is enshrined.
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Dy? This stuff happened hundreds of years ago. Considering humans can’t agree on events from, say, last Tuesday, you’ll forgive me for wondering if some of the details are … a little dodgy. I’m not alone in that opinion, but I’ll leave the carbon dating information regarding the structure and contents of your reliquary in Geel for another discussion.
No matter. My Catholic friends love their saints. Hence, you landed a National Shrine here in America in the quirky burg of Massillon, Ohio, which is about 40 miles from where I’m typing this right now. There are two statues of you there in St. Mary’s Church and a first class reliquary, in which a tiny sliver of one of your bones is reportedly encased.
Our meeting was a research expedition, mostly for my buddy Kim, who’s a saint of the mentally ill in her own right. I’m fascinated by everything always, which is probably why she asked me to tag along, and boy am I glad she did.
As I gazed at your statue, I wondered what you looked like when you were alive. I wondered how long it took to travel from Ireland to Belgium back in the seventh century. A month? Three months? Longer? Did you sail all the way around England or did you do the Irish Sea/England/English Channel route? What was the boat like? What did you eat? Did you ever get sick or have a toothache? And who in the heck were “the court jester and his wife,” cited in some of your histories as traveling companions? (Please tell me the jester wore a funny hat the whole time.) Did you have any friends other than your protector Father Gerebran?
Did you have a sweet little pet to love? Or a favorite doll to cry to? Did you ever weave flowers in your hair? More importantly, what were your dreams? What did you fear?
Mostly, I wondered what you’d think about all the people who’ve expected miracles from you for a millennium. It seems like a heavy burden for someone who led such a tough and short life: Fifteen years of fraught living followed by 1,400 years of legends and sainthood.
Girl, it sure doesn’t seem fair.
One of your statues is in the back of St Mary’s (historic in its own right). I put some money in the slot at your feet there and a prayer in your basket. I kept it simple and just asked for “Peace on Earth.” Then I pressed a button to light a candle. I don’t expect you to do anything, though. I was more or less just being polite.
Kim and I toured the incredibly beautiful church and the adjacent cemetery. We knocked around Massillon. Then we went home.
Afterwards, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and how a young girl with such a violent story could endure through hundreds of years. Everything about you spoke to the sadness and hope we humans carry. Not surprisingly, I was carrying a bit of both myself and some curiosity about you as well. So I started pecking at my keyboard, only to find the same story unfold again and again.
Then, Dy, I did find something glittering in your long wake, and it was wonderful.
While you surely deserve your share of the credit, it’s mostly regular humans—namely the good people of Geel—who are honoring you in a beautiful and quiet way. And they’ve been doing it for many, many years.
For over 700 years, residents of Geel have been accepting people with mental disorders, often very severe mental disorders, into their homes and caring for them.
It isn't meant to be a treatment or therapy. The people are not called patients, but guests or boarders. They go to Geel and join households to share a life with people who can watch over them.
That info came from here, but there are plenty of other sources to learn about what you started in Geel—essentially a community foster care system for those with mental illness, which is cited as the oldest in the world. There’s even a 2016 doc about the intersection of your adopted Belgian home and art.
I might be a wretched heathen, but my respect runs deep for the sort of faith you garner. You should also know that your every depiction is beautiful, as is your American home in St. Mary’s. The church simply took my breath away. That it’s nestled in a blue collar neighborhood in gritty Massillon, Ohio, inflates my heart in a way that’s hard to describe, but I’m pretty sure you know what I mean.
More than anything, sweet and gentle Dympha, I wish you’d had as much love while you were alive as you do now, so I’ll send along a little of my own in this letter’s closing.
Love, Erin
ps: Predictably, men are still fighting over your golden coins.
people heal in community, sadly a concept which has become obscured.
Catholic cemeteries have always fascinated me, especially the one I came across at Mirogoj in Zagreb, Croatia, which was larger than the small town I grew up in. Also, most Orthodox cemeteries in Serbia have headstones and shrines worth more than the houses people live in. It's crazy.