Saint Gertrude the Great

Virgin, Mystic
(1256–c. 1302)

Saint Gertrude the Great was born on January 6, 1256, and was entrusted at the age of five to the Benedictine monastery of Helfta in Saxony, Germany, which was under the direction of the abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn and became one of the great centres of medieval mysticism. She was educated in the liberal arts with great thoroughness and showed exceptional intellectual gifts, pursuing secular learning with great enthusiasm well into her adult years.

At the age of twenty-five she experienced a profound conversion. She had been sitting in the cloister, troubled by the distractions and vanities that were dissipating her spiritual life, when she had a vision of Christ as a young man who took her hand and led her into the presence of God. From this moment her entire life was transformed: she turned from secular learning to the study of Scripture and the Fathers, and devoted herself entirely to the interior life of prayer and contemplation.

What followed over the remaining decades of her life was a mystical experience of extraordinary richness and depth. She received visions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at a time when this devotion was still in its infancy, and the record of her experiences, preserved in her Revelations, also called the Herald of Divine Love, is one of the great mystical texts of the medieval Church. Her mysticism is characterised by intense love of the Humanity of Christ, deep devotion to the Eucharist, and a spirit of joyful confidence in God's mercy.

She was also particularly devoted to the souls in purgatory and offered her prayers and sufferings for their release with great fervour. She died around 1302, having never left Helfta. She was never formally canonised but was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology by Clement VIII and her feast was extended to the universal Church. She is the only woman to be called the Great. Her feast is celebrated on November 16th.