MORE, GERTRUDE. - English mystic, baptized Helen, b. at Low Leyton (Essex) on 25 March 1606, d. at Cambrai on 17 Aug. 1633. At the advice of the Benedictine Dom Benet Jones, her spiritual director, she entered the new convent of English Benedictine sisters at Cambrai, where she was admitted (1623) under the name of Gertrude, and made her profession in 1625.
Dom Agostino Baker guided her with great wisdom, teaching her affective prayer. M. became the support of the young community, which regarded her as its principal foundress. In 1629 M. was elected abbess. Her method of prayer was examined in the General Chapter of 1633, which approved it; but M. died of smallpox while the Chapter was in session. After her death her aspirations and meditations were collected and arranged by Dom
Baker, who published The holy practices of a divine lover, or the Saintly Ideo'ts Devotions (Paris 1657); in 1658 there followed The spiritual exercises of the most virtuous and religious dame G. M. (edited by F. G. Paris). Republished by Fr. Henry Collins (Devotions of dame G. M., 1873), by Lane Fox (1908) and by Weld Blundell (1910).
Enrico Rope
MOREAU, BASILE-ANTOINE - Portrait.