Blessed Saudrade

After the death o f Archbishop Gero, l'archevêque Géron Archbishop of Cologne, died in 974. which occurred in 974, the holy abbot had much to suffer at the hands of his success or Wa Warin Archbishop of Cologne, successor to Gero, who deposed and subsequently recalled Saudrade. rin. Men jealous of his merit denounced him to the new prelate as being too devoted to the Bishop of Liège and forgetting the ties that bound him to the Ar chbishopric of Cologn archevêché de Cologne Ecclesiastical authority to which Gladbach was subject. e. Warin lent an ear to the suggestions of Saudrade's enemies, and deposed him from his office.

Saudrade endured this trial with heroic patience. He left the monastery and went to find Empress Ad elaide, whose confesso l'impératrice Adélaïde Empress and protectress of Saudrade in Alsace. r he was. This princess was then living in Seltz, in Lower Alsace, and in order to better benefit from the wise counsel of this man, she appointed him abbot of Wissembou rg: as this Wissembourg Place of the saint's relic transfer. abbey was located only a few leagues from Seltz, Adelaide had the leisure to often enjoy the pious conversations of Saudrade, for whom she then professed the highest esteem.

The holy abbot did not find in his new monastery the same contradictions he had endured at Gladbach; this community still felt the effects of the fine examples recently given to it by Saint Adelbert, who had shortly before been transferred to the archbishopric of Magdeburg: but his departure had the saddest consequences for Gladbach; for, the new abbot of that house lacking the necessary capabilities to lead such an important establishment, the monks left the monastery, and its properties and rights were alienated. Struck by these disorders, Archbishop Warin recognized his error and decided to recall Saudrade, who was then edifying Wissembourg with all priestly and Christian virtues. The picture painted for him of the decadence of discipline at Gladbach filled him with the deepest veneration for Saudrade, and he employed every means to recall the holy man there: the latter, f or his part, y le saint homme Abbot of Gladbach and later of Wissembourg, restorer of monastic discipline. ielded, not without regret, to the archbishop's solicitations, and returned to the house he had helped to raise from its ruins some time before and of which he was once again to become the restorer. It required all his zeal and all his courage to undertake such a difficult work. But of what are the Saints not capable when it concerns the interests of God and His Church? And what obstacles do they not overcome to extirpate evil and make virtue reign? Saudrade joined to the strength of his examples prayers and mortifications of every kind, and his zeal was not sterile. He succeeded in gathering the religious and gradually re-establishing discipline. But the Lord prepared rewards for him in a better life and called him to Himself in the year 985: he died in the odor of sanctity in his abbey, on August 24, mourned and regretted by his religious, who recognized their injustices toward him too late, and changed their prejudices against him into a profound veneration for his memory.

Taken from the Saints of Alsace, by Abbé Hueckler.