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346 34(5 THE TWO SS. GERTRUDE OF HELFTA themg^lves to promote, by their prayers in the cloister, the object for which the war was undertaken. She was famous for healing discords and making peace. She collected, in the vase of her conscience, the oil of divine grace, and having lit her lamp and ornamented it with good works, she went to meet the Bridegroom, Aug. 13, and lies buried at Altenberg. Clement VI. ordered her festival to be kept, promising many indulgences to those who should visit her relics, pre- served in her monastery. A.B.M., Mart, of the Canons Begular and nuns of the same order. AA,SS. Helyot. Le Paige, Btbliotheca Prsemonstraterms Or- dinia. Azevedo, Pantheon Sacro, calls her " Saint." The Two SS. Gertrude of Helfta (12, 13), Nov. 17, 15. Cistercian abbess and nun. 13th century. It appears that there were at the same time in the monastery of Helfta two Gertrudes and three Matildas, all dis- tinguished for extraordinary intellectual and spiritual gifts. One of these Ger- trudes was the abbess, and one of the Matildas was her sister. The two SS. Gertrude are confounded together, and St. Matilda, the sister of Gertrude, is constantly credited either with the actions of another St. Matilda, who lived more than a century earlier, or with the inspirations and revelations of the two more famous contemporary Matildas, who were inmates of the same house. One of the Gertrudes was the author of the famous book, Liher Ivsinuationum divinse pietatis. She is called " the Great " in the Cistercian appendix to the Homan Martyrology. She is repre- sented (1) in the dress of her order, holding a heart cut open, and showing a picture of the Saviour seated on a throne ; (2) in her hand, over her heart, a heart oi rays, in the midst of which is the infant Christ holding a ribbon that bears the inscription, "In corde Ger- trudis invenies me." B. Ypres, of Tar- ragona, confessor to Philip II. of Spain, was so delighted with her book of In- sinuations, that he had a great devotion to her, and had her picture copied from one in the royal cabinet at Madrid, re- presenting a Cistercian nun ; and to distinguish this great saint firom any other Cistercian, she holds the above- mentioned heart in her left hand, and on her right hand she wears seven rings. This is called a miraculous picture, because the painter never could get the face like the one he was copying; it was always more beautiful and holy than his ideal, so that it was believed to be, by heavenly intervention, like the real G^ertrude (Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude^ by a religious of the Poor Clares). Alban Butler says that next to the writings of St. Theresa, the lAher Insinuationum is the most useful book for promoting piety in a contemplative life with which any woman has enriched the Church. The writer was about five and twenty when the simple daily round no longer sufGiced to fill her soul : she became deeply sensible of her unprofit- ableness, and felt unfit to be a nun ; for a few months she was very unhappy. Early in 1281 she stood in the dor- mitory of the sisters at the twilight hour. As the mistress went by, Gertrude bowed her head according to the custom. When she raised it, she saw with the eyes of her soul Jesus, in the form of a youth, standing before her. He said, " Thy salvation is coming soon. Why dost thou fret?" Her senses told her she was in the dormitory, yet it seemed to her that she was in the choir of the church where she usually prayed, and that she heard there the words, " I will make thee free and blessed. Fear nothing." The Lord then laid His hand in hers, and went on, " With My enemies hast thou licked the earth, and sought honey among thorns." She tried to approach nearer to the Lord, but found a hedge of thorns, which she could neither get round nor break through. She understood this to mean her sins. Suddenly she found herself standing by Him, and as she looked at His hand, she saw that on it was the mark of the nail. Her religious impressions and opinions were of the sort that have been called in modern times "evangelical." She discovered that the grace of God had greater power than the indulgences of the Church. She thought much of the