“Fortunately, the patroness of the city and the monastery, Saint Pusinna, is currently in discussion about a possible attribution. Here are some facts about the history of the Pusinna: Her lifetime is the migration period, she experienced the Huns invasion and the battle on the Catalaunian fields in her homeland in 451.
The lifestyle of the Pusinna may not be attractive for our time, Corona could change that a little. It is recommendable. She lived on the property her father gave her. Two pillars determined her lifestyle in a time of great need and poverty: devotion to God and at the same time remaining in the middle of the world and thus the promise of care and love for the poor and the sick, which was hardly known at that time. This can be a great program for women in a monastic community if they take their lives seriously.
She is said to have lived a life of prayer that she only interrupted to do good to those in need. It’s a form of greatness. In the language of our time, it is relevant to existence and the system.
The eighth and ninth centuries are the times of the Christianization of the Saxons. The special method of proselytizing is inconceivable without worshiping relics. All major monasteries, abbeys, and dioceses tried to get relics (bones) from saints to emphasize their importance. Relics were a tremendous revaluation of the dioceses and parishes.
The negotiations for the transfer of the Pusinna relics to the Herford abbey was the diplomatic masterpiece of the Herford abbess Hadwig. Related to the king and diplomatically secured by her brother, Hadwig succeeds in fulfilling the dream of the abbey. Under the protest of many bishops in Gaul and against the will of the population, who felt they had been robbed of the blessing of a saint, the king decided that the relics of the Pusinna should be brought to Herford, in the recently Christianized Sachsenland.
The transfer of the Pusinna relics to the new burial site turns out to be a triumphal procession through half of Europe, similar to Liborius for example. The great pilgrimages from all over Westphalia and beyond begin with the Pusinna relics in Herford Minster. The reputation grows, Herford is later – perhaps with a little irony – referred to by a Pope as Saint Herford.
For the Middle Ages, both the abbey and the city benefit from the worship of Pusinna, business and pilgrimage have always been good siblings (see Cologne Cathedral). Over time, the name Pusinna outshines the abbey’s Marian patronage. Pusinna is the only continuum that runs through the entire Middle Ages.
From the transfer (translatio) of the relics from Binson in the year 860 to the secret burial of the relics in the garden of the monastery dean in 1685, the relics were in Herford for 850 years – even 150 years after the introduction of the Reformation.
We would like to thank the reformed abbess Elisabeth of the Palatinate for saving a small part of the relics. This clever woman knew about the fame of the relics and in 1677 gave the Paderborn prince-bishop a somewhat larger relic. Two candlesticks with relics came near Marsberg, where they were forgotten and rediscovered in 1937. A part came to the parish church of St. Johannes Baptist in 1947.
So Pusinna did not allow herself to be completely driven out of Herford and returned. It would be good if we don’t leave it at that. If you were to choose this name, you could combine it with an addition. I spontaneously came up with terms like forum or center. ”
–
