Gertrude the Great, Saint

GERTRUDE THE GREAT, Saint. - Great mystic, b. January 6, 1256, d. in 1302 or 1303.

I. THE LIFE

The biographical information available about Gertrude the Great is quite scanty and for the most part contained in her own works.

It is not known where she was born. While still a child (1261) she entered the Cistercian monastery of Helfta near Eisleben (Germany), where she spent her whole life. In her youthful years she devoted herself passionately to classical studies, which were held in high honor in the monastery of which she was a member, and this soon led her into a state of lukewarmness, from which she rose again after an interior crisis and a vision of the Savior on January 27, 1281, which she later called her "conversion." She then began to devote herself to the study of the Fathers of the Church and of Holy Scripture, making the most of her brilliant natural gifts, especially of eloquence, for the good of the sisters of Helfta. A habitual union with God and a rich succession of interior mystical gifts (visions, revelations, the 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).

The cult 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 whole Church. Feast on November 16.

She was sometimes confused with St. Gertrude of Nivelles, but more often with St. Gertrude of Hacheborn, her contemporary (1232-92) and abbess in the same monastery.

II. THE WORKS

Of her interior mystical experiences G. left writings of great spiritual value which had a great influence on later ascetics and mystics. She wrote in the vernacular some short treatises, now lost, on obscure passages of the Bible, and florilegia of maxims drawn from the Sts. Fathers. It is thought that she had a part in the compilation of the Liber specialis gratiae of St. Matilda of Hackeborn, sister of Gertrude of Hackeborn. Works certainly hers and handed down are the Revelationes or Legatus divinae pietatis, and the Exercitia spiritualia. The Revelationes consist of 5 books, of which only the second was written by the hand of the Saint, while the first was drawn up by her sisters after her death, and the following ones were written under her inspiration or dictation. The work was submitted to the censorship of theologians while G. was still living and was approved.

III. SPIRITUALITY

The works of St. Gertrude are not treatises of speculative mysticism, but are the expression of her lived experience: they are for the most part a dialogue between the soul and God. The particular circumstances in which the monastery of Helfta found itself in the century of its foundation had a great influence on her attitude: first of all the great influence of the Cistercian Order to which she belonged, the widely circulated writings of St. Bernard, the spread of the Franciscan spirit, and also the formation of the great German Dominican mystical school at the end of the 13th century.

Gertrudine piety is essentially liturgical, bound as it is to Benedictine traditions. The entire fourth book of her Revelationes is composed of meditations and elevations on the feasts of the liturgical cycle and on the mysteries of the Savior's life. Choral liturgy manifests very frequent traces in all the writings of the Saint.

In conformity with Cistercian traditions and the Franciscan spirit, Gertrude cultivates a tender devotion to the humanity of Christ, and a vivid supernatural sense of nature, which she regards with innocent eyes, finding in it a reflection of the divine perfections. Of the Savior she cultivated in a particular way devotion to the Sacred Heart, as did St. Matilda of Hackeborn and Matilda of Magdeburg (d. 1280), the latter also having entered the monastery of Helfta, creating there a fervent environment for this devotion which soon spread even outside the cloister in medieval German Christendom (cf. K. Richstätter, Die Herz-Jesu Verehrung des deutschen Mittelalters, 2nd ed. Paderborn 1924). A profound Eucharistic piety dominates the Revelationes of St. Gertrude, just as a vivid devotion toward the Virgin Most Holy also manifests itself in them.

IV. THE INFLUENCE

The influence exercised by St. Gertrude is linked in a particular way to her writings. But these remained almost unknown in only two manuscript copies until the 16th century, when the first editions were prepared and circulated (that of G. Lansperger dates from 1536). The Benedictine Louis de Blois (Blosius) made great use of them in his works, nor did St. Teresa escape their influence. An even greater revival of Gertrudian influence occurred from the last century onward, due in particular to the intensification of devotion to the Sacred Heart, which finds so many testimonies in the works of St. Gertrude; and above all to the recent edition of the Saint's works, prepared by the Benedictines of Solesmes, which made them more easily accessible.

Alberto Ghinato

liberal. To this end he increased the library with purchases of works and with new transcriptions. «If study ceased, the Holy Scriptures would no longer be understood and the life of the Order would be extinguished». Under the guidance of G. lived her own sisters, Bl. Matilda of Hackeborn, St. Gertrude the Great and the mystic Matilda of Magdeburg. Art too was diligently cultivated (v. the miniatures of Elizabeth of Mansfeld).

Ignazio Backes