St Amand

Amand is one of the largest missionary figures of the Merovingian age, and the life gives him that breadth. He leaves home young, embraces austerity, preaches through many districts, rebukes kings when conscience requires it, and spends years founding churches and monasteries while trying again and again to bring the Gospel to rough, unstable, and often resistant peoples in what is now Belgium and northern France. The detailed sources are not ideal, but the historical importance is not really in doubt. What matters most is the sense of tireless motion.

Failure does not end the work. Political trouble does not end the work. Difficulty in one region simply sends him to another. Amand is the kind of missionary who would rather be in the field than anywhere else, and whose perseverance mattered as much as any single visible success.