St. Gertrude the Great

St. Gertrude the Great was born on the feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1256, in Eisleben in Thuringia, Germany. Nothing is known of her family; at the age of four or five she was entrusted to the Benedictine-Cistercian monastery of Helfta, then the most remarkable center of women's learning and mysticism in Europe. There she was educated under St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn and grew into a gifted scholar of Latin letters, though by her own account her early religious life was more studious than fervent. On January 27, 1281, at about the age of twenty-five, Gertrude experienced a vision of Christ that she ever after called her 'conversion.' From that moment she turned from secular studies to Scripture and the Fathers, and her interior life blossomed into one of the most profound mysticisms of the Middle Ages. Her visions centered on the humanity of Christ and above all on His Heart, wounded and burning with love; together with Mechtilde she became one of the great forerunners of devotion to the Sacred Heart, centuries before its formal spread through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque. Gertrude recorded her graces in The Herald of Divine Love (Legatus Divinae Pietatis) and composed the Spiritual Exercises, works of nuptial mysticism deeply woven from the liturgy and the Song of Songs that are still read today. Tradition also associates her with fervent intercession for the souls in purgatory, the origin of her patronage of the holy souls. She died at Helfta around 1302. Gertrude was never formally canonized; in 1677 her name was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology and her feast was later extended to the universal Church, an equivalent recognition of her sanctity. She is the only woman saint whom tradition styles 'the Great.' Her feast is kept on November 16, and she is invoked as patroness of the souls in purgatory and of the West Indies, a patronage sought by the Spanish crown. Though the monastery of Helfta was long in ruins, it has been restored in modern times and again shelters a community of nuns, keeping alive the memory of its greatest daughter.