Saint Alda

Saint Alda or Aldobrandesca (d. c. 1309) is an Italian Christian saint and nurse.

She was widowed and childless after seven years of marriage. She retired to a cottage outside Siena and devoted herself to almsgiving and asceticism. She experienced visions of Jesus performing the deeds recorded in the gospels. Eventually, she gave away all of her possessions and used only a small gourd for a drinking cup.

She gave up her hermitage and went to live and work in a hospital in order to take care of the sick. Members of the staff regarded her as a fakir and wanted to prove her trances and ecstacies false. Therefore, while she was in a mystical ecstacy, they pricked her with sharp pins and put lit candles to her hands and feet. She did not respond in any way to these provocations, and eventually she won over the staff.

While ministering to the sick, she performed several miraculous cures.

Her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is April 26.