Feast day: April 9

St. Waudru

Abbess · d. c. 688

Patron of Mons

A noblewoman of the Frankish court who, with her husband's agreement, left wealth and rank to found a convent around which the city of Mons grew up.

Waudru — also called Waltrude — was a noblewoman of seventh-century Hainaut, in what is now Belgium, born into a family extraordinarily rich in saints: her parents, her sister Aldegonde, her husband Madelgar, and all four of her children are venerated as saints. She married, raised her family, and for years lived the ordinary life of a Frankish noblewoman.

In time both she and her husband resolved to give themselves wholly to God. Madelgar became a monk, taking the name Vincent, and Waudru, after a period of hesitation and prayer, took the veil and embraced a life of austerity and charity, devoting her wealth to the poor and the Church.

She built a small religious house on a hill, around which a community of consecrated women gathered. That foundation became the nucleus of a town: the settlement that grew up around her convent is the origin of the city of Mons, whose history remains bound up with her memory.

She died about 688. Honoured as the foundress and patroness of Mons, St. Waudru is still celebrated there each year in a famous civic procession, more than thirteen centuries after her death.

Her whole family became saints — husband, sister, and children alike — and the town of Mons in Belgium grew around the religious house she founded.

Image: Jmh2o (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/15434a.htm