Saint Gertrude the Great, Virgin

Saint Gertrude the Great was born on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January 1256, in Germany, traditionally associated with Thuringia. Nothing is known of her parents' names; her own writings suggest they were long dead by the time she recorded her experiences, and she was not born near Eisleben. At about five years of age she entered the alumnate of the monastery of St. Mary at Helfta, near Eisleben in Saxony. The house was then governed by the holy Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn and flourished in monastic observance, learning, and the solemn celebration of the Divine Office according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, with strong spiritual ties to the Cistercian spirit of the age.

The child was confided to Mechtilde of Hackeborn, sister of the abbess and mistress of the school. Between Gertrude and Mechtilde a deep spiritual friendship grew that shaped her whole life. Gertrude received a thorough education in the liberal arts, Scripture, the Fathers, and contemporary spiritual writers; she wrote fluent Latin and later composed smaller works in the vernacular that have not survived. She passed from the school into the community and lived outwardly the ordinary life of a Benedictine nun, marked by the Opus Dei, study, and charity toward rich and poor, the living and the souls in purgatory.

In her twenty-sixth year (1281), she received the first of a lifelong series of visions. She then measured the emptiness of purely worldly learning and, with characteristic ardor, turned from being a "grammarian" to a "theologian," giving herself to Scripture, the Fathers, and works of theology. She copied, translated, and wrote for the good of her sisters. She practiced the nuptial mysticism of the bride of Christ together with Mechtilde. Though she condemned her past negligence with the severity of a soul called to high sanctity, her struggle was chiefly the conquest of a sensitive and impetuous nature; there was no sudden conversion from grave sin, but a steady deepening of contemplation. Her raptures were frequent; she begged that exterior signs of her graces might be spared for the sake of others. She is said to have received invisible stigmata and to have possessed gifts of miracles and prophecy. Her humility was so profound that she wondered how the earth could bear so sinful a creature.

On Maundy Thursday 1289 she began Book II of the Legatus divinae pietatis (Herald of Divine Love), the only book entirely from her own hand; the remaining books were compiled by sisters of Helfta, partly from her dictation. She also composed the seven Spiritual Exercises, leading the soul from baptismal grace to preparation for death, language steeped in liturgy and Scripture. She is closely linked with the Book of Special Grace of Saint Mechtilde. The hallmark of her piety is devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the symbol of the charity that moved the Word to take flesh, institute the Eucharist, and offer Himself on the Cross. In a celebrated vision on the feast of Saint John the Evangelist she rested near the wound in Christ's side and heard the beating of His Heart.

She mourned in turn the deaths of holy companions: Sister Mechtilde (1281), Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn (1291), and her guide Saint Mechtilde (1298). Worn by illness, she died at Helfta on 17 November 1301 or 1302, in her forty-fifth or forty-sixth year. Her body remained at the old monastery; no certain record of translation survives. Though never solemnly canonized in the modern sense, a liturgical office in her honor was approved in 1606; her name was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology in 1677, and her feast was extended to the universal Church. Pope Benedict XIV styled her "the Great" to distinguish her from Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn and to honor the depth of her doctrine. In answer to a petition of the King of Spain she was declared Patroness of the West Indies; her feast is kept with special solemnity in Peru, and a town in New Mexico bears her name. The Church praises her as a virgin of the Order of Saint Benedict, illustrious for the gift of revelations.

May Saint Gertrude the Great obtain for us a burning love for the Heart of Jesus and the grace to turn every study and every trial into pure prayer.