SAINTS ADALBALD AND RICTRUDE | KAIROS GLOBAL | MAY 2020

Author: Joseph Santhosh & Bijie Santhosh

Adalbald and Rictrudis got married around 630AD. Adalbald was the son of a noble family from Flanders, Belgium. While on a mission to subdue the rebellious natives of Gascony, he met and became friends with the nobleman Ernold and married his daughter Rictrude. The wedding was performed with great pomp, although some of Rictrude’s relatives did not approve of this union. Their marriage was a happy one and early in to the marriage, the young couple became interested in performing works of mercy and spent time visiting the sick and the poor, feeding the hungry and converting prisoners. 

They were also well matched in their desire to pursue holiness and were helped in this by their friend, the missionary Bishop (later saint) Amandus of Maastricht.

They had four children - a son and three daughters - and all four of them imitated their parents in the ways of virtue and acts of charity.

Adalbald and Rictrude had been married for sixteen years when Adelbald’s business took him back to Gascony. While he was there, Rictrude's vindictive relatives, hurt from his earlier military exploits, set upon him and killed him.

When news of her husband’s death reached Rictrude, she was overcome with grief; she took possession of her husband's body and buried him with honour. The people acclaimed him a martyr. Rictrude retreated into prayer and family life and although many of the nobles and her family insisted that she marry again, she went instead to Bishop Amandus who gave her a veil.  After her children grew up, she entered the monastery at Marchiennes where she became abbess. Accompanying their mother, her two younger daughters Adalsind & Clotsind and her only son Mauront, left the world to join the monastery. Thus Rictrude and her three children sought holiness in religious life and all three are revered as saints today.

This is an excellent story on the impact parents’ holiness can make on their children. Like St. Therese of Lisieux’s family, here we have another family of saints with 5 from the same family.

As Jesus Youth, we are all called to be saints. In our journey to holiness, there is joy, pain and suffering and the call to completely abandon ourselves to God’s will. If our master received such treatment for us to enjoy such joy, we must show our gratitude by giving ourselves fully to God.

For it is for your sake that I am taunted and covered in confusion: 

I have become a stranger to my own brothers, 

  a wanderer in the eyes of my mother’s children –

because zeal for your house is consuming me,

  and the taunts of those who hate you

  fall upon my head.

Hear me, Lord, for you are kind and good.

  In your abundant mercy, look upon me.

Psalm 69: 8-10, 16

Lord Jesus, pray for us families to live in holiness and help us to form our children to be saints.