"When you communicate, desire all the love that any soul has ever had for Me, and I will accept your love in proportion to the fervor with which you wished for it.” - Jesus to St. Matilda
Matilda of Ringelheim, also known as Saint Matilda, was a Saxon noblewoman. Due to her marriage to Henry I in 909, she became the first Ottonian queen. Her eldest son, Otto I, restored the Holy Roman Empire in 962. Matilda founded several spiritual institutions and women's convents. She was considered to be extremely pious, righteous and charitable. Matilda's two hagiographical biographies and The Deeds of the Saxons serve as authoritative sources about her life and work.
She was daughter of Reinhild and the Saxon count Dietrich (himself a descendant of the Saxon duke Widukind who fought against Charlemagne) was born in around 892, and was raised by her grandmother Matilda in Herford Abbey. She had three sisters; Amalrada, Bia and Fridarun, who married Charles III, king of West Francia; and a brother, Beuve II, the Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne. Due to Fridarun's marriage to count Wichmann the Elder, there was an alliance between the House of Billung and the Ottonian family, which expanded their possessions to the west. In 909, she married Henry, at the time Duke of Saxony and later East Franconian king, after his first marriage to Hatheburg of Merseburg was cancelled.
In 929, Matilda received her dowry, which Henry gave to her in the so-called Hausordnung. It consisted of goods in Quedlinburg, Pöhlde, Nordhausen, Grona (near Göttingen) and Duderstadt. As queen, she took an interest in women's monasteries and is said to have had an influence on her husband's reign by having a strong sense of justice.
After Henry's death in 936 in Memleben, he was buried in Quedlinburg, where Queen Matilda founded a convent the same year. She lived there during the following years and took care of the family's memorialization. Thus, Quedlinburg Abbey became the most important center of prayer and commemoration of the dead in the East Franconian empire.
Like in other convents, daughters of noble families were raised in Quedlinburg, to later become Abbesses in order to secure the families influence. One of them was her own granddaughter, Matilda, daughter of Otto I and Adelheid of Burgundy, to whom she passed on the conducting of the convent in 966, after 30 years of leadership. The younger Matilda therefore became the first abbess of the convent in Quedlinburg. With her other goods, Queen Matilda founded further convents, one of them in 947 in Enger. Her last foundation was the convent of Nordhausen in 961.
Queen Matilda died on 14 March 968, after a long illness, in the convent of Quedlinburg. She was buried in Quedlinburg Abbey, next to her late husband. Throughout her life, Matilda was dedicated to charity and her spiritual foundations – as expressed several times in her two hagiographies. A commemorative plaque dedicated to her can be found in the Walhalla memorial near Regensburg, Germany.
Matilda is the patron of the St. Mathilde church in Laatzen (Germany), the St. Mathilde church in Quedlinburg (Germany), the Melkite church in Aleppo (Syria), and the Mathilden-Hospital in Herford (Germany).
Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Boniface Curitan
2. Saint Diaconus
3. Saint Eutychius
4. Saint Alexander of Pydna
5. Saint Giovanni of Genoa
-catholic.org