Sts. Harlindis and Relindis

As children, Harlindis and her sister Relindis were educated in the French convent of Valenciennes. Having expressed their desire to become nuns, the two girls subsequently made their religious profession in the Valenciennes community. Thereafter they went to establish a convent built for them by their father in their native city of Maaseyk, Belgium. Other young women came to join Harlindis and Relindis in this new religious community, which received the blessing of the missionaries Saints Boniface and Willibrord. As abbess, Harlindis corresponded regularly with these two bishops. She and Relindis undertook as their particular monastic labor the making of ecclesiastical furnishings and the copying of liturgical manuscripts for the divine office. Relindis excelled in ecclesiastical embroidery and painting. Several miracles were attributed to the intercession of the two sisters in the course of their lives. Harlindis died around the year 745, after which her sister succeeded her as abbess. The parents of Harlindis and Relindis were buried in their daughters’ convent.