Saint Alice

Saint Alice of Schaerbeek was born around 1220 in Schaerbeek, near Brussels in the Duchy of Brabant. Frail from childhood, she was sent at only seven years old to be educated at the Cistercian abbey of La Cambre, where her gentle spirit, keen mind, and deep love for God quietly matured. She remained there for the rest of her life as a Cistercian lay sister, embracing humble service and prayer. Around the age of twenty she contracted leprosy and was separated from the community, living in a small hut and enduring intense pain and loneliness. Alice did not waste her suffering; she offered it to God for the conversion of sinners and for the souls in purgatory. As her illness progressed, she became paralyzed and eventually blind. In her darkness and weakness, her greatest consolation was the Holy Eucharist, and she clung to Christ’s presence with steadfast trust. Venerated especially as a patron of the blind, Saint Alice died in 1250, about thirty years old. Her feast day is June 11.