sillydoll
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- 2002 CF: 2004 from Paris: 2006 VF: 2007 CF: 2009 Aragones, Ingles, Finisterre: 2011 X 2 on CF: 2013 'Caracoles': 2014 CF and Ingles 'Caracoles":2015 Logrono-Burgos (Hospitalero San Anton): 2016 La Douay to Aosta/San Gimignano to Rome:
29th May - the feast day of St. Bona of Pisa (1156 - 1207).
A native of Pisa, she experienced visions from an early age. On one occasion she saw a vision of Saint James the Greater. She was frightened by the light around these figures, and ran away. James pursued her, and led her back to the image of Jesus. Bona was devoted to James for the rest of her life. By the age of ten, she had dedicated herself as an Augustinian tertiary. She regularly fasted from an early age, taking only bread and water three days a week. Four years later, she made the first of her many journeys, going to see her father who was fighting in the Crusades near Jerusalem. On her trip home, she was captured by Muslim pirates on the Mediterranean Sea, wounded, and subsequently imprisoned. She was later rescued by some of her countrymen, and completed her trip home.
Shortly thereafter, she set out on another pilgrimage, this time leading a large number of pilgrims on the long and dangerous thousand-mile journey to Santiago de Compostela, where James the Greater is honored. After this, she was made one of the official guides along this pilgrimage route by the Knights of Saint James. She successfully completed the trip nine times. Despite being ill at the time, she took and completed a tenth trip, and returned home to Pisa, dying shortly thereafter in the room she kept near the church of San Martino in Pisa, where her body has been conserved.
She is the patron saint of travellers, couriers, guides, pilgrims, flight attendants, and the city of Pisa.
A native of Pisa, she experienced visions from an early age. On one occasion she saw a vision of Saint James the Greater. She was frightened by the light around these figures, and ran away. James pursued her, and led her back to the image of Jesus. Bona was devoted to James for the rest of her life. By the age of ten, she had dedicated herself as an Augustinian tertiary. She regularly fasted from an early age, taking only bread and water three days a week. Four years later, she made the first of her many journeys, going to see her father who was fighting in the Crusades near Jerusalem. On her trip home, she was captured by Muslim pirates on the Mediterranean Sea, wounded, and subsequently imprisoned. She was later rescued by some of her countrymen, and completed her trip home.
Shortly thereafter, she set out on another pilgrimage, this time leading a large number of pilgrims on the long and dangerous thousand-mile journey to Santiago de Compostela, where James the Greater is honored. After this, she was made one of the official guides along this pilgrimage route by the Knights of Saint James. She successfully completed the trip nine times. Despite being ill at the time, she took and completed a tenth trip, and returned home to Pisa, dying shortly thereafter in the room she kept near the church of San Martino in Pisa, where her body has been conserved.
She is the patron saint of travellers, couriers, guides, pilgrims, flight attendants, and the city of Pisa.
