GUDULE (died 712) laywoman (January 9)
and WAUDRU (Audrey) (died 688) patroness (April 9)
Today the reason we celebrate these two saints together is that they both have short stories and they have a couple of things in common: they both have at least one other saint in the family and they were both a great comfort to all those around them!
When you see pictures of saints in churches and museums, you generally can tell who’s who even without nametags because of what art historians call their “attributes,” that is, what they’re carrying in their hands, whether there’s a dog sitting next to them, that sort of thing. Gudule’s “attribute” is a lit candle, because they say that every morning before dawn, Gudule would walk the two miles – and that’s a good step! -- from her father’s castle (which was in Belgium, not far from Brussels, where the sprouts come from) to the little church where she liked to pray, and she got up soooo early that she had to carry a candle. She and her sister Raineld had pledged each other to do holy things all their lives. Gudule had decided she would stay in Belgium and be holy there, but Raineld thought she would go to the Holy Land, which she managed to do safely, but after she got back, she was killed by some barbarian pirates in Antwerp, in Belgium, itself: those were the “Bad Old Days,” all right!
Anyhow, the very first morning Gudule tried walking to the church before dawn, at the part of the road where it was the darkest and she was the most scared, the candle in her little lantern suddenly blew out, whoosh! and Gudule thought she heard some mean laughter, so she suspected that the Devil was having a little fun with her. Then she prayed really hard for a little light, her candle came back on again with a pop! and she could go on praying and doing her good work for people in need, for the rest of her life. When Gudule finally died, as an old, old lady, they buried her under the front steps of her little church, and declared her a saint, and made her “attribute” a lit candle.
Now, Waudru (or Waldetrudis for long, or Audrey for short) was also from Belgium, from a place called Mons. She was married for a while, but her husband decided to become a monk, so Waudru became a nun, helping the poor and sick and later starting her very own convent near when Mons is today, and eventually became a saint. It was not too surprising because her whole family were saints, from her parents Walbert and Bertilia to her sister Aldegund of Mauberge to her husband Madelgaire and their four children, Landric, Dentelin, Aldetrude, and Madelberte. As it said in one book, “a very remarkable family!”