SS. HERLINDIS AND REINULA - 12 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 12th of October

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SS. HERLINDIS AND REINULA, VIRGINS AND ABBESSES

These holy Virgins and Abbesses were venerated together on March 22 at Maaseyk (Masacum) in Belgium (Limburg Province). The monastery they presided over was in the nearby town of Alden-Eyk and was destroyed by the Calvinists. 

Their parents, Adalhard and Grinnara, were of noble blood. Both sisters were brought up in a women's convent in Valencienne (Valencina, Valentina) in Hainaut. It is remarkable what people learned in such institutes back then, at the beginning of the eighth century: reading, writing and painting (which, as the old chronicler notes, "seems so difficult to people of today"), singing and psalters, all female handicrafts. 

At their request, their parents built a monastery for them. The father owned a small forest on the Moselle, which was deemed suitable. The legend tells that the sisters built the building with such joy that they brought stones for it themselves. Once the nunnery was completed, the parents lived here with their daughters and ended their days in fear of God. 

The place was called Eyk (oak, oak on the Meuse, hence Maaseyk). 

In the new monastery, discipline, diligence and piety flourished in the most beautiful way. St Willibrod consecrated both Abbesses, who raised many other noble virgins to be brides of Christ through kind admonitions and virtuous examples. 

Working incessantly, they left behind a great deal of self-made work; among these is a casula, a hand-copied book of the four Gospels, a little book of psalteries with paintings and splendid ornaments. Psalms and hymns were always sung alongside when the nuns worked. 

St Harlindis died on October 12, but her sister Reinula died on February 6 at an old age. Unfortunately, the year cannot be given with certainty; only that they died in the second half of the eighth century. Soon after their death, when their grave was continually glorified by new miracles of divine mercy, their public veneration began; Bishop Franco of Liège organised the first exhumation of their relics around the year 860. 

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)