Saint Imelda Lambertini‘s extraordinary story beautifully illustrates the profound power of childlike love and longing for Christ in the Eucharist. Even at the tender age of nine, her passionate desire to receive Jesus overcame earthly rules and customs through a miraculous intercession. Though she lived seven centuries ago, her inspiring example continues to kindle devotion in the hearts of First Communicants to this day.
Saint Imelda Lambertini Receives Her Heart’s Desire
Little Imelda Lambertini’s love for Jesus bloomed early. On her fifth birthday, she asked her devout Catholic parents a profound question – “Can anyone receive Jesus into his heart and not die?” Though only a child, Imelda already nurtured a precocious longing for union with Christ in the Eucharist. But custom dictated that she must wait until age twelve to receive her First Communion.
Imelda pleaded again and again with her parents to allow her to receive communion sooner, but they held firm. At age nine, her longing led Imelda to enter a Dominican convent near her home in Bologna. There she followed the nuns’ way of life, attending Mass, chanting the divine office, and cultivating her interior prayer life. Yet her deepest desire still remained unfulfilled. Time and again she begged the chaplain, “Let me receive the Body of my Lord!” But bound by custom, he refused.
On May 12, 1333, Imelda’s convent community processed to the chapel to receive communion. Imelda knelt alone in her choir stall, body shaking with longing, face wet with tears. Why do you feed these nuns but not me?” she cried to the chaplain. The Mass concluded, the nuns departed, but Imelda remained, weeping. Suddenly, a sweet fragrance permeated the chapel. Returning nuns beheld a miraculous vision – a Sacred Host suspended in the air above Imelda’s head! At last, the unbelieving chaplain relented. From his hands, Imelda ecstatically received the Eucharist her heart had burned for so long.
The joy that flooded her soul was too profound for earthly realms. Clasping the love of her life close within her heart, nine-year-old Imelda slipped sweetly into eternity. She rose to take her place among the angels, to make her First Communion thanksgiving in Heaven forever. From that day forward, the precocious passion of “the little girl with the big love for Jesus” kindled devotion within all who heard her story.
Saint Imelda’s passionate devotion still kindles hearts today, as First Communicants continue to find an intrepid model in the little girl whose love for Jesus knew no earthly bounds.
References
Bohn, Babette. “Female Self-Portraiture in Early Modern Bologna.” Renaissance Studies, vol. 18, no. 2, June 2004, pp. 239–286.
Monaco, Angelo. “Between Hagiography and Insanity: Refracting Political Violence in William Trevor’s Elegiac Fiction.” Journal Article.