Most love stories talk about a woman trusting a man. But here, the story is reversed. Bishop Boniface—later known as the Apostle of Germany—placed his deepest trust in a woman of God, Sister Lioba.
In the 700s, Bishop Boniface carried the Gospel across Germany, but he knew he could not do it alone. He called Sister Lioba from her convent in England and asked her to guide the women’s communities with wisdom and prayer. She became a leader, teacher, and mother to many. And to Bishop Boniface, she was more than a helper—she was his most trusted friend. He once said she was “beloved above all others.”
Before his final mission to Friesland in 754, where he would be martyred, Bishop Boniface made a personal request to her: “When your time comes, may you rest at my side in Fulda.” Fulda was the monastery he had founded in 744, and where he himself would be laid to rest. It sounded almost like a romance, but it was not. It was something higher—a bond of spiritual love, rooted in God and mission.
Yet when Sister Lioba’s time came in 782, she refused that wish. Out of humility, she said she did not deserve to rest beside a martyr. So she was laid to rest close to him, but not at his side. Their tombs stood apart.
It feels like a sad ending—two who wished to remain together, yet separated in death. And still, it is also a happy ending. Because their closeness was never about the grave. It was about God, about trust, about a love that is not romantic, but eternal. Romantic love ends at the grave. Spiritual love does not. It goes beyond. It lasts forever.
ᴛʸᵖⁱⁿᵍ ᴏᵘᵗ ᵒᶠ ᵗʰᵉ ʙˡᵘᵉ ᵈᵃʳᵉᵐ ᵐᵘˢⁱᶜ ᵇˡᵒᵍ
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