75/365 St. Eusebia

Today is St. Eusebia's Day. Not quite the same as tomorrow's St. Patrick's Day or Friday's St. Joseph's Day. But I like her story, as confusing and medieval as it is. And bizarre.

She lived in the 7th century, at the border of Belgium and France. She's the daughter of Adalbald and Rictrudis, both saints themselves. Her father Adalbald, the son of a St. Gertrude, married Rictrudis and later paid for it with his life--his inlaws murdered him. Rictrudis, fearful that her family would come after her and her daughter, sent Eusebia away to live with her grandmother Gertrude, who by that time was an abbess at Hamage. There she lived and grew to the age of 12, when Gertrude died and named Eusebia as her successor.

Well, a 12 year old in charge of a women's monastery didn't sit too well with several people, including her mother, who herself was an abbess at Marchiennes. Rictrudis ordered that Hamage and Marchiennes merge together under a single abbess (herself) and brought the nuns to live at Marchiennes, mostly against their will.

Eusebia and many of the nuns from Hamage wished to return to their home and rule themselves, but remained at Marchiennes under Rictrudis until enough time had passed that Rictrudis felt it would be prudent for Hamage to reopen under the guidance of Eusebia. The accounts I've read say that upon her return to Hamage with the "dissident nuns" she had grown into the position and ruled well until her death in 680.

The idea that she and those dissident nuns didn't immediately trot back to Hamage and snub Rictrudis is what I focus on here. They waited it out. It is so hard to wait it out, to know when the right time has come to do God's will, when your will and God's might be in alignment after all. It could be that Eusebia would have done a great job even at 12--it could also have been just as true that she would have been weak and petty her whole life and never come to be a good leader. Knowing the moment when one can say to someone in authority "I am ready and I am leaving," is tricky, as a child, a parent, an employee, an apprentice, a student. I know when I have said it--sometimes too early, other times just right. I watch as Sophia and Maeve say it, too. I try not to be too Rictrudis about it all. But I give enough tether to let them try their hand. At least that's my plan.

But the most interesting thing? As I read this account and really looked at the names, I thought to myself, "Adalbald? Gertrude of Ostravant? Wait."

In a bizarre twist, I realized that these names seemed more than just amusingly medieval. These names were familiar. These names were in my family tree, the ridiculously over-researched branches that stem back into France and Germany and Belgium. I'm not a descendant or direct relative of Eusebia, but I am of her grandmother Gertrude (this is not the only medieval saint in my genealogical search, but the first one that I found to be a saint after I already had her name and information in the tree). Just so happened I had nothing to say today and thought, "hey, who is the saint of the day?"

Which makes this kind of creepy.

No, it makes it really creepy.

St. Eusebia, pray for me. I am not about to forget you now!