Saint Richard

Little is known about Saint Richard, and part of that little is probably wrong. For centuries he was called king of England, but that’s almost certainly a mix-up with King Ine of Wessex. More realistically, he was a Saxon nobleman from Wessex who lived between the seventh and eighth centuries. What matters, though, is how his story ended. He set out on pilgrimage to Rome, as people did back then, taking his two sons, Willibald and Wunibald, with him. They crossed the Channel, went up the Seine to Rouen and from there headed toward Italy. Richard never reached Rome: he fell ill and died in Lucca in 722, halfway there. His body is still there, venerated in the Basilica of San Frediano. There’s something moving about a man who dies halfway through a journey he had dreamed of. And there’s also an unusual family: Willibald became bishop of Eichstätt, Wunibald abbot of the monastery of Heidenheim, and a third child, his daughter Walburga, is also venerated as a saint. A father and three children, all saints — in the history of the Church you can count such cases on the fingers of one hand. If your name is Richard, today is your name day: a name that sounds noble without being heavy, and that came to Italy from England much earlier than you’d think. A man who set out and never arrived, and who meanwhile had already handed over everything he had to hand over to the children he was bringing along.