Here we see Queen Christina Vasa (1626-1689) boldly riding on horseback. The daughter of Sweden's warrior-king, Gustavus Adolphus, Protestant champion in the Thirty Years War, (and the grand-daughter of Charles IX, who had usurped the throne from his Catholic nephew, Sigismund), Christina abdicated in order to convert to Catholicism in 1654, and moved to Rome. All her life, she was an independent, intellectual, and highly unconventional personality. Here are some of her maxims, from the last decade of her life:The soul has no gender.
We triumph over our passions only when they are weak.
All these dream-pictures of fatherland, freedom, honor, happiness and pride, which have inspired so many outstanding men to perform great and noble deeds, are, in truth, no more than daydreams.
Faith believes in God, but love sees Him.
All abandon us sooner or later. One must foresee this abandonment and resolve to quit all voluntarily. We must remain alone with God from now on, as he alone suffices for us to live and die happy.
When one examines one's heart one finds that nothing can fill it or console it but God alone.
5 comments:
What a lady! She sounds like a poet
Many portray Christina as an simply eccentric, outlandish- she certainly could be very unconventional, but she had a deep, lovely soul nonetheless.
It's always striking to me how the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, who was such an enemy of Catholicism, ended up becoming a Catholic herself!
here is found her monument in the Vatican. A singular honour to the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus Wasa http://saintpetersbasilica.org/Monuments/ChristinaofSweden/ChristinaofSweden.htm
Richard
Thanks for this post, I was so glad I found it. Queen Christina is one of my favorites and I positively *detest* the way she is often portrayed these days, without a shred of evidence, baned entirely on rumor, assumptions and innuendo. She was a great lady and Queen.
Yes, she is unfortunately much maligned.
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