St. Eusebia

Eusebia, a native of Ostrevant (near the Belgian-French border), was the daughter of two saints, the couple Adalbald and Rictrudis, and the granddaughter of another saint, Gertrude of Hamage. Following the tragic death of her father, Eusebia, still a child, was placed in the French convent of Hamage, where her grandmother was abbess. Gertrude trained her granddaughter for religious life before dying and leaving the government of the convent to the twelve-year-old girl. The understandable concern that Eusebia was too young for such a charge led to the merger of the Hamage convent with that of Marchiennes, where Eusebia’s widowed mother Rictrudis was abbess. But with the passage of time, both Eusebia and Rictrudis came to recognize the value of restoring religious life to the abandoned convent of Hamage. Eusebia thereupon returned to Hamage with all the other Hamage nuns, and succeeded in re-instituting the faithful observance of the convent rule that had existed when Eusebia’s grandmother was alive. Those present at Eusebia’s death saw her room fill with light immediately before her passing.