Saint Gertrude the Great 13thC
Saint Gertrude was born on January 6, 1256, and died on November 17, 1302. She was a German Benedictine mystic and nun who was a member of the Monastery of Helfta. Saint Gertrude produced several writings. The most famous is The Herald of Divine Love or The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness. It is sometimes known as Life and Revelations. There is also her collection of Spiritual Exercises. A work known as Gertrudian Prayers. It is also very possible that Saint Gertrude was the author of a part of the revelations of Mechthild of Hackeborn, the Book of Special Grace. We do not know much about the life of Saint Gertrude. Have you heard of him?
Saint Gertrude Biography
Little is known of the early life of Saint Gertrude, who was born on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1256, in the Holy Roman Empire. When she was five, she entered the monastery school at St. Mary at Helfta. Her devout parents probably offered her as a child oblate to the church. However, Gertrude’s parents were long dead at the time. It is possible that she entered the monastery school as an orphan.
It is clear from Saint Gertrude’s writings that she received a thorough education in a range of subjects. She began writing at a young age. In 1281, at age 25, she experienced the first of a series of visions, which shifted her priorities away from secular knowledge and toward studying scripture and theology.
Gertrude died at Helftain about 1302. However, we know her from her many writings, some of which survive today. The Life and Revelations is probably her most famous work. Though she also wrote the Spiritual Exercises and the Book of Special Grace. Saint Gertrude was notable for her veneration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Her Herald of Divine Love describes her visions of Christ’s heart.
Following her death, Saint Gertrude’s works seem to have vanished almost without a trace. Only five manuscripts of the Herald of Divine Love have survived, the earliest one being written in 1412, and only two of these manuscripts are complete. With the invention of printing, Saint Gertrude became more prominent, with Latin, Italian, and German editions being published in the sixteenth century.
Her works were also popular with the Discalced Carmelites in the sixteenth century. Francisco Ribera, the confessor to Teresa of Ávila, recommended that she take Saint Gertrude as spiritual mistress and guide. At the height of Spanish female mysticism, the Spanish Jesuit Alonso de Andrade published a biography of Gertrude, giving Teresa a clear medieval example. Her influence then spread to European colonies in Latin America.
Gertrude was never actually canonized, but a liturgical office of prayer, readings, and hymns in her honor was approved by Rome in 1606, considered the equivalent, interestingly, of a canonization. The feastday of Gertrude was extended to the Latin Church by Pope Clement XII and is nowadays celebrated on November 16, her presumed dies natalis, or date of death.
Images of Gertrude often show her gazing up to heaven, clothed as a nun. In the Baroque period, it became a widespread artistic practice for the habit to be clearly depicted as that of a Benedictine, though this detail is not historically certain. At times she is also shown as an abbess, carrying a copy of the Rule of St Benedict in one hand and often also a crosier in the other hand.
Conclusion
Here we have another saint from long ago, who we know because she left several significant writings. It is the case that she became more noteworthy years after her death. With the advent of the printing press, some famous people, St. Theresa of Avila, took her as their inspiration. Numerous authors mention that with a petition from King Philip IV of Spain, she was declared Patroness of the West Indies in 1609.
