So who is Blessed Imelda?

A few years ago when I was teaching CCD, I wanted to make the students (Junior High School age) aware of the Real Presence of Jesus in Communion, a concept which is sometimes brushed aside by today's Catholics.

I decided to try an experiment. I told my students that I was going to tell them a story and they were to decide if it was a true story or not. I told the following story to them:

There was once a little girl named Imelda. She was a very pius little girl and her one desire was to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Since she went to a convent school, she was at Mass daily but at the time she was going there, girls did not receive their first Communion until the age of 12.

So, daily, little Imelda, then 10 years old, watched with a great longing in her heart as the older girls took Communion.

One day, the priest looked up and saw something over Imelda's head (we do not know what he saw - perhaps a golden light?) and he was inspired to come over to Imelda and give her Communion even though she was too young.

Her First Communion turned out to be her last, because she went into estasy at receiving the Lord so intimately and died immediately.

"Now it's your turn to tell me if you think this story really happened."

"That's ridiculous - someone dying after receiving a Communion?"

But as they discussed it, a strange thing happened. In thinking of the nature of Communion, they, on their own (I intentionally remained silent to see what conclusion they could come up with by themselves), they decided that it probably WAS a true story and that Imelda or anyone else might indeed, die in estasy receiving the True Body and Blood of Jesus.

The discussion was intense and all of us, interested in it, were caught by surprise when the bell to end CCD class had rung. They all turned to me glued to their seats (keep in mind, they were usually out the door one minute after the bell).

"Well, tell us," they said, almost in unison, "Is it true?"

I told them that it was indeed true and that Blessed Imelda had lived around 1300 AD.

There is actually another part to this story. I first read about Blessed Imelda in a somewhat anti-Catholic biography by a woman who had gone to Catholic school. She wrote, somewhat scornfully, how the nuns seemed to speak ceaselessly about how holy Blessed Imelda was because she had died after her first communion at the age of 5 (she was wrong about the age).

I was intrigued but could not find any information on her in any of my books. I knew that the local Kino Institute probably had the several volume set of books about the saints so I called them and asked them to look up Blessed Imelda for me, explaining I had no access to those books.

The lady who answered the phone said someone would call back. But when a priest called back, he explained that he didn't want to spend the money to read the entry to me because it was a toll call. I asked him to please let ME pay for the call and allow me to call HIM back (on my dime, so to speak).

He consented somewhat unwillingly, obviously bored with the subject and me.

But I did call back and he read the entry. When he came to the part about Blessed Imelda dying in estasy after her first Communion, his voice visibly softened as if he remembered something which he had perhaps forgotten lately. He said gently, "Well that was a long time ago".

But I knew that this small saint ministered to him as much as she did to me.

And I hope that Blessed Imelda has ministered to you also!

Addenda: Recently I was reading in a book of Eucharistic Miracles and found out that Imelda's surname as Lambertini and that after her death, her body has remained incorruptible for all these hundreds of years!

More info:

Patron Saints Index: Blessed Imelda Lambertini

by Sue Widemark - please share this with a friend and give me a link!