St Walburga was born in England around the year 710. She was the daughter of St Richard the Pilgrim, one of the under-kings of the West Saxons, and Winna, sister of St Boniface, the Apostle of Germany.

At an early age she was entrusted to the care of the Benedictine nuns in Wimbourne (present-day Dorset) where she eventually made monastic profession. When her relative St Boniface, a missionary monk and bishop who worked for the evangelization of Germany, asked for help from other Anglo-Saxon monasteries, St Walburga became part of a group of nuns from Wimbourne who answered the missionary call. Eventually she became Abbess of the monastery at Heidenheim, a double monastery of men and women founded by her brother St Wunibald, who served as its first Abbot. She died in 777 or 779. She was canonized in 870 by Pope Adrian II. The tenth-century legend of her life tells stories of her gentleness, humility and charity, as well as her power to heal the sick through prayer.

Many years after her death, her bones were taken from Heidenheim, then in ruins, to the town of Eichstatt, Bavaria, which had been founded by another brother, St Willibald, its first bishop. Her relics were entrusted to the care of a community of Benedictine nuns founded for the purpose of maintaining her shrine. To everyone’s surprise, her bones began to produce a clear liquid which people began to use as a tool for prayer for the sick. Countless numbers experienced healing of body or spirit through her intercession. St Walburga’s oil continues to flow every year from about October 12 to February 25, two of her feast days. It seeps from her relics through a thick slab of stone where it is collected and distributed by the nuns of the Abtei St Walburg.Monastic life has continued without interruption at the Abtei St Walburg from 1035 AD to today.