He was born of noble French parents, and distinguished in his youth
by the innocence of his manners, and his remarkable progress in
learning and piety. Being ordained priest, he was made curate of
Oresscoth in Brabant. St. Frederic afterward, by urgent entreaties,
engaged him, for the greater glory of God, to be his strenuous
assistant in reforming the manners of the fierce Frisons; in which
undertaking it is incredible what fatigues he underwent, and what
proofs he gave of heroic patience, meekness, zeal, and charity.
Contemplation and prayer were the support and refreshment of his
soul under his continual labors and austerities. Several wonderful
predictions of things which happened long after his death, are
recorded in his life. In his old age he resided at Utrecht, and
died canon of the cathedral. To his last moments he allowed himself
no indulgence, and never relaxed his fervor in labor; but rather
redoubled his pace the nearer he saw his end approach, knowing this
to be the condition of the Christian’s hire, and fearing to lose by
sloth and for want of perseverance the crown for which he fought.
His fasts, his watchings, his assiduity in prayer, his almsdeeds,
his zeal in instructing the people, and exhorting all men to the
divine love and the contempt of all earthly things, seemed to gather
strength with his years. Being seized with a fever, he with joy
foretold his last moment, and earnestly exhorting his brethren to
fervor, and commending himself to their prayers, he promised, by the
divine mercy, never to forget them before God, and happily departed
this life in the ninth age, on the 12th of June, on which day his
festival was kept with great solemnity at Utrecht and Staveren.
Several churches and chapels bear his name; but the chapel at the New
Bridge in Amsterdam, called Olofs-Kapel, was erected by the Danish
sailors in memory of St. Olaus, king of Norway and Martyr, not of
St. Odulph, as the Bollandists and some others have mistaken. See
the life of St. Odulph in the Bollandists, Junij, t. 2, and Batavia
Sacra, p. 106.