Saint of the Week: Christina Rossetti
4/30/2025
Christina Rossetti
5 Dec 1830 – 29 Dec 1894
Poet
Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet known for her romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem "Remember," and for the words of what became the popular Christmas carol "In the Bleak Midwinter.“ Born in London, Christina’s mother Frances Polidori, the sister of Lord Byron's friend and physician, John William Polidori, home schooled Christina. Her father, Gabriele Rossetti, was a Neapolitan poet who had sought political asylum amid the turmoil that surrounded Italy’s late 19th century unification. When Christina was 14, she suffered a nervous breakdown, followed by bouts of depression and related illnesses. At this time, she, her mother, and her sister became seriously interested in the Church of England’s Anglo-Catholic movement, devotion which played a major role in the rest of her life. From 1859-1870, she did volunteer work at St. Mary Magdalene "house of charity" in Highgate, a refuge for former prostitutes. A prolific writer, she began doing so at age seven. Not until 11 years later did she publish her first work, a poem that appeared in Athenaeum magazine. Her most celebrated collection, Goblin Market & Other Poems, did not appear until 1862, when she was 31. It garnered tremendous critical praise and, according to biographer Jan Marsh, "Elizabeth Barrett Browning's death" (in 1861) "led to Rossetti being hailed as her natural successor as (Britain’s) female laureate.” Her Christmas poem "In the Bleak Midwinter" (1982 Hymnal #112) became widely known after her death when set as a Christmas carol first by Gustav Holst, and then by Harold Darke: in this setting it was judged in 1998 the best carol in a poll of some of the world's leading choirmasters and choral experts. Her poem "Love Came Down at Christmas" (1982 Hymnal #84) has also been widely arranged as a carol. She continued to write and publish for the rest of her life although she focused primarily on devotional writing and children's poetry. In her final decade of life, she suffered from Graves Disease, developed cancer in 1893 and died the next year.
