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 GERTRUDE

534

GERTRUDE

Mass. The prophecy was verified. She was vener- ated as a saint immediately after her death, and a church was erected in her honour by Agnes, the third Abbess of Nivelles. The towns of Geertruidenlierg, Breda, and Bergen-op-Zoom in North Brabant lionimr her as patron. She is also patron of travellcis, and is invoked against fever, rats, and mice, particularly field-mice. There is a legend that one day she sent some of her subjects to a distant country, promising that no misfortune would befall them on the journey. When they were on the ocean, a large sea-monster threatened to capsize their ship, but disappeared upon the invocation of St. Gertrude. In memory of this occurrence travellers during the Middle Ages drank the so-called "Sinte Geerts Minne" or "Gertruden- minne" before setting out on their journey. St. Gertrude is generally represented as an abbess, with rats and mice at her feet or running up her cloak or pastoral staff.

Dunbar, A Dictionary of Saintly Women (London, 1904), I, 342-5; BvTi^ER, Lives of the Saints, 17 March; Baring-Gould, Lives of the Saints, 17 March; Dunbar in Diet. Christ. Biop., 3. v.; Bernoulli, Die Heiligen der Merowinger (Tubingen, 1900), 197-9; Acta SS., March, II, 590-602; Mabillon, Acta SS. O.S.B., ssec. II, 442-44; Daufresne de la Chevalehie, La perle de Nivelles, ou S. Gertrude, fondatrice et premiere abbesse du monastire de Nivelles (Brussels, 1S67). Her earliest biog- raphy was written by a contemporary monk of Nivelles. It was reprinted by the Bollandists, loc. cit., and by Mabillon, loc. cit. In 1888 it was re-edited by Krusch in Mon. Germ. Hist. Meroving., II.

Michael Ott.

Gertrude the Great, Saint, Benedictine and mystic writer; b. in Germany, 6 Jan., 1256; d. at Helfta, near Eisleben, Saxony, 17 Nov., 1301 or 1302. Noth- ing is known of her family, not even the name of her parents. It is clear from her life (Legatus, lib. I, xvi) that she was not born in the neighbourhood of Eisleben. When she was but five years of age she entered the alumnate of Helfta. The monastery was at that time governed by the saintly and enlightened Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn, under whose rule it prospered exceedingly, both in monastic observance and in that intellectual activity which St. Lioba and lier Anglo-Saxon nuns had transmitted to their fovmda- tions in Germany. All that could aid to sanctity, or favour contemplation and learning, was to be found in this hallowed spot. Here, too, as the centre of all its activity and the impetus of its life, the work of works — the Opus Dei, a.s St. Benedict terms the Divine Office — was solemnly carried out. Such was Helfta when its portals opened to receive the child destined to be its brightest glory. Gertrude was confided to the care of St. Mechtilde, mistress of the alumnate and sister of the Abbess Gertrude. From the first she had the gift of winning hearts, and her biographer gives many details of her exceptional charms, which matured with advancing years. Thus early had been formed between Gertrude and Mechtilde the bond of an inti- macy which deepened and strengthened with time, and gave the latter saint a preponderating influence over the former.

Partly in the alumnate, partly in the community, Gertrude had devoted herself to study with the great- est ardour. In her twenty-sixth year there was granted her the first of that series of visions of which the wonderful sequence ended only with life. She now gauged in its fullest extent the void of which she had been keenly sensible for some time past, and with this awakening came the realization of the utter emptiness of all transitory things. With characteristic ardour she cultivated the highest spirituality, and, to quote her biographer, "from being a grammarian became a theologian", abandoning profane studies for the Scriptures, patristic writings, and treatises on theol- ogy. To these she bro\ight t ho same earnestness which had characterized lier Idrriicr studies, and with inde- fatigable zeal copied, tninslated, and wrote for the spiritual benc^lit of others. Although Gertrude vehe-

mently condemns herself for past negligence (Legatus, II, ii), still to understand her words correctly we must remember that they express the indignant self-con- demnation of a soul called to the highest sanctity. Doubtless her inordinate love of study had proved a hindrance alike to contemplation and interior recol- lection, yet it had none the less surely safeguarded her from more serious and grievous failings. Her struggle lay in the conquest of a sensitive and im- petuous nature. In St. Gertrude's life there are no abrupt phases, no sudden conversion from sin to holi- ness. She passed from innocence to sanctity almost unconsciously, and as naturally as she had passed from the alumnate to the community. Outwardly her life was that of the simple Benedictine nun, of which she stands forth preeminently as the type. Her boimdless charity embraced rich and poor, learned and simple, the monarch on his throne and the peasant in the field ; it was manifested in tender sympathy towards the souls in purgatory, in a great yearning for the conversion of sinners, and in a vehement zeal for the perfection of souls consecrated to God. Her humility was so profound that she wondered how the earth could support so sinful a creature as herself. Her raptures were frequent and so absorbed her fac- ulties as to render her insensible to what passed around her. She therefore begged, for the sake of others, that there might be no outward manifestations of the spiritual wonders with which her life was filled. She had the gift of miracles as well as that of prophecy.

When the call came for her spirit to leave the worn and pain-stricken body, Gertrude was in her forty- fifth or forty-sixth year, and had in turn assisted at the death-bed and mourned for the loss of the holy Sister Mechtilde (1281), her illustrious Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn (1291), and her chosen guide and confi- dante, St. Mechtilde (1298). When the community was transferred in 13-16 to the monastery of New Helfta, the present Trud-Kloster, within the walls of Eisleben, thej' still retained possession of their old home, where doubtless the bodies of St. Gertrude and St. Mechtilde still lie buried, though their place of sepulture remains unknown. There is, at least, no record of their translation. Old Helfta is now crown- property, while New Helfta has lately passed into the hands of the local municipality. It was not till 1677 that the name of Gertrude was inscribed in the Roman Martyrologj^ and her feast was extended to the uni- versal Church, which now keeps it on 15 November, although it was at first fixed for 17 November, the day of her death, on which it is still celebrated by her own order. In compliance with a petition from the King of Spain she was declared Patroness of the West Indies ; in Peru her feast is celebratetl with great pomp, and in New Mexico a town was built in her honour and bears her name. Some writers of recent times have considered that St. Gertrude was a Cistercian, but a careful and impartial examination of the evidence at present available does not justify this conclusion. It is well known that the Cistercian Reform left its mark on many houses not affiliated to the order, and the fact that Helfta was founded during the "golden age" of Citeaux (1134-1342) is sufficient to account for this impression.

Many of the writings of St. Gertrude have unfortu- nately perished. Those now extant are: — (1) The "Legatus Divince Pietatis"; (2) The "Exercises of St. Gertrude"; (3) The "Liber Specialis Gratia;" of St. Mechtilde. The works of St. ( !ert rude were all writ- ten in Latin, which she used with facility and grace. The ''Legatus Divinse Pietat is"( Herald of Divine Love) comprises five books containing the life of St. Ger- trude, and recording many of the favours granted her by God. Bk. II alone is the work of the saint, the rest being compiled by members of the Helfta com- numity. In the " Exercises" we have the saint at her best. They were written for her .Sisters in religion,