Odile gave bread, wine, and meat to all the poor who came to the abbey; she was unwilling any should go away hungry. On feast days a great crowd of beggars would besiege the gates, and on one occasion, all the food of the community, and even the wine, being given them, the Sister who had charge of the wine-cellar sought Odile in church to tell her there was none left for dinner. The abbess replied with a gentle smile: “He who fed five thousand persons with five loaves and two fishes will provide for us, if it be his will. Forget not, my daughter, that he has promised to those that seek first the kingdom of heaven all other things shall be given. Go where duty calls you.” The Sister went away, and at the hour of repast, going to the wine-cellar, found a supply of excellent wine.
X.
The two chapels already built by the duke were too small for celebrating the divine service with suitable pomp. There was hardly room enough in them for the sisterhood. The crowds from the neighboring villages were often obliged to kneel outside. A larger church was indispensable. Adalric provided the materials, and it was completed by the year 690. Two square towers of pyramidal form rose beside the grand entrance. The abbess had it consecrated to the Blessed Virgin, her chosen patroness and her model. One of the side chapels she styled the Oratory of the Mother of God. There she loved to take refuge in her mental troubles, in tribulation, and in seasons of spiritual dryness. A second chapel she called Holy Rood Chapel. [pg 264] In commemoration of her baptism she wished also to erect a small church in honor of S. John the Baptist. Undecided about the location, she went out of the monastery one night about midnight, and, kneeling on a great rock, she remained a long time buried in profound meditation. Suddenly, says the old legend, she was surrounded by a dazzling light, and before her stood the radiant form of the precursor of our Lord in a garment of camel's hair, such as he wore in the desert. He seemed to indicate the spot where the chapel should be erected. The next day it was commenced, and was finished in the autumn of 696. The night before it was to be consecrated S. Odile spent in prayer therein. The prince of the apostles himself, with a choir of angels, descended and performed the ceremony.
“The air of paradise did fan the house,
And angels officed all.”
This miraculous chapel was sometimes called the Sacrarium, because the abbess deposited in it the cassette of relics Bishop Erhard gave her on her baptismal day. It was afterwards more commonly called the Chapel of S. Odile, because she was buried there herself. Besides these, she built the Chapel of Tears and the Hanging Chapel, so called because it stood on a steep precipice looking down into a deep chasm. All these chapels were so many stations where the abbess and her companions betook themselves to meditate in silence and solitude.
Adalric and Berswinde, weary of power and grandeur, retired to the Convent of Hohenbourg with their daughter. Advanced in age, they now thought only of preparing themselves for death by prayer and good works. The duke, naturally violent and hard, had sometimes in his moments of passion forgotten his duty. There were many faults for him to expiate before God, and many scandals to repair before men. While he was practising all the virtues of a holy penitent, he was attacked with a serious malady. Odile felt that his last hour was at hand, and hardly left his bedside, wishing, not only to give him the care his illness required, but to console, encourage, and prepare him for a holy death. Contemporary testimony expressly declares: “Consolante eum et roborante beata Odilia.” She received his last breath and closed his eyes on the 20th of February. The year is variously stated. It was between 690 and 700.
A witness of her father's sorrow for his sins, and of his resignation in his last moments, Odile hoped the mercy of God would be extended to him. She imposed on herself the severest mortifications, and shed floods of tears for the solace of his soul in the chapel, called from this circumstance the Chapel of Tears. On the fifth day she had an inward assurance of his salvation.
There are numberless traditions in Alsace respecting S. Odile. They have been handed down from one generation to another in the villages grouped around the foot of Mount Hohenbourg. One of these legends changes the tears of the saint into a limpid stream, where the blind, or those who have any disease of the eyes, go for a remedy. Another says her tears perforated a rock. A third makes her and all her community behold her father convoyed heavenward by a choir of angels led by S. Peter in sacerdotal robes. The more we examine S. Odile's life, the more numerous become these brilliant legends, and the more fully do we find her [pg 265] life marked by acts of beneficence and by miracles.
Berswinde survived her husband only nine days. She died suddenly while praying in the Chapel of S. John.