03 Works, Today, April 15th, is Saint Hunna's day, With Footnotes - #102

Hunna

Saint Hunna (Una) (died 679) is a French saint. She was the daughter of a duke, and later married Huno of Hunnawetyer. She devoted herself to serving the poor women of Strasbourg, France. Because she undertook to do the washing for her needy neighbors, she was nicknamed by her contemporaries "The Holy Washerwoman".

Saint Hunna

In her prayer, she felt called to do more, to serve others.   Her eyes were opened to the poverty and general squalor that the peasants and servants lived in… and she felt moved to assist.   Hunna began making daily trips from the estate into the local villages and fields, visiting her poor neighbours, offering them religious instruction and working for them.   At first, she simply offered to do their laundry, earning her the title, “holy washerwoman.” Hunna would travel from home to home, collecting soiled clothing and then spend the better part of each day washing and scrubbing the clothing clean. When the clothing was too dirty, or too threadbare to mend, she would replace it with a new article.

As time went on, her washing service expanded to any task that her neighbours needed help with—cooking, cleaning, childcare, even more demanding physical labour.   She also instructed in ways of cleanliness, assisting with hygiene.   Saint Hunna regularly performed the greatest act of service, bathing those who were unable to bathe themselves.

She also donated properties to monasteries and financed the construction of churches.

Claude Bassot (1580-1630)

La consécration de Déodat/ circa 1620

Oil on panel

Musée Pierre-Noël de Saint-Dié-des-Vosges

Her family seems to have been influenced by St. Deodatus (Dié), Bishop of Nevers, for St. Hunna's son, who was his namesake, was baptized by him and subsequently entered the monastery which he founded at Ebersheim. 

St. Hunna died in 679 and was canonized in 1520 by Leo X at the instance of Duke Ulric of Würtemberg. More on Saint Hunna

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