GERTRUDE THE GREAT, Saint
— Great mystic, b. Jan. 6, 1256; d. in 1302 or 1303.
I. LIFE
The biographical information available about St. Gertrude is quite scarce and for the most part contained in her own works.Her birthplace is unknown. She entered, while still a child (1261), the Cistercian monastery of Helfta near Eisleben (Germany), where she spent her entire life. In her youth she devoted herself passionately to classical studies, which were highly esteemed in the monastery to which she belonged; this led her to a state of lukewarmness, from which she was delivered after an interior crisis and a vision of the Savior on Jan. 27, 1281, which she later called her “conversion.” From that time she devoted herself to the study of the Fathers of the Church and of Holy Scripture, making the most of her brilliant natural gifts, especially her eloquence, for the benefit of her fellow nuns at Helfta. A habitual union with God and a rich succession of interior mystical gifts (visions, revelations, invisible stigmata, etc.) characterized her existence, so that she was called the greatest mystic of the 13th century (cf. R. Medici, Questioni critiche intorno a S. G. la G., in Rivista storica benedettina, 15 [1924], p. 256).
Cultus was approved by the Holy See, first (1606) for individual monasteries, then for the Order of St. Benedict (1647). In 1731 it was extended by Clement XII to the universal Church. Feast: Nov. 16.
She was sometimes confused with St. Gertrude of Nivelles, but more often with St. Gertrude of Hackeborn, her contemporary (1232-92) and abbess in the same monastery.
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II. WORKS
Of her intrinsic mystical experiences. She left writings of great spiritual value that had a great influence on later ascetics and mystics. She wrote in the vernacular some little treatises, now lost, on obscure passages of the Bible, and made collections of maxims drawn from the Holy Fathers. It is thought that she had a part in the compilation of the *Liber specialis gratiae* of St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn, sister of Gertrude of Hackeborn. Works certainly hers and handed down are the *Revelations* or *Legatus divinae pietatis*, and the *Exercitia spiritualia*. The *Revelations* consist of 5 books, of which only the second was written in the Saint’s own hand, while the first was compiled by her fellow nuns after her death, and the following were written under her inspiration or dictation. The work was submitted to the censorship of theologians while Gertrude was still alive and was approved.---
III. SPIRITUALITY
St. Gertrude’s works are not treatises of speculative mysticism, but are an expression of her lived experience: they are largely a dialogue between the soul and God. Particular circumstances in which the monastery of Helfta found itself in the century of its foundation had a great influence on her attitude: first, the great influence of the Cistercian Order to which she belonged, the writings of St. Bernard widely circulated, the spread of the Franciscan spirit, and also the formation of the great German Dominican mystical school at the end of the 13th century.Gertrudian piety is essentially liturgical, being linked as it is to Benedictine traditions. The entire fourth book of her *Revelations* is composed of meditations and elevations on the feasts of the liturgical year and on the mysteries of the Savior’s life. Choral liturgy manifests itself very frequently in all the writings of the Saint.
In keeping with Cistercian traditions and the Franciscan spirit, Gertrude cultivated a tender devotion to the humanity of Christ, and a lively supernatural sense of nature, which she regarded with innocent eyes, finding in it a reflection of divine perfections. She cultivated in a particular way devotion to the Sacred Heart of the Savior, as did St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn and Mechtilde of Magdeburg (d. 1280), who also entered the monastery of Helfta, creating there a fervent environment for this devotion that soon spread beyond the cloister into German medieval Christendom (cf. K. Richstätter, *Die Herz-Jesu Verehrung des deutschen Mittelalters*, 2nd ed., Paderborn 1924). A profound Eucharistic piety dominates the *Revelations* of St. Gertrude, and there is also a lively devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
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