- Galatians 6:2-3 -
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law
of
Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives
himself.
________________________________________________________
No Christian should ever think that he or she is totally independent and
doesn't need help from others, and no one should feel excused from the
task
of helping others. The body of Christ - all believers - the church -
functions only when the members work together for the common good. Do you
know someone who needs help? Is there a Christian brother or sister who
needs correction or encouragement? Humbly and gently reach out to that
person.
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November 16th - St. Gertrude the Great
(1256-1302 A.D.)
Few men have merited the title, "the Great"; fewer women. I know of only
one
nun so honored, St. Gertrude of Helfta, a mystic whose spiritual writings
have remained influential up to the present.
Nothing is known of this German woman's family background. When five years
old, she was entrusted to the sisters of Helfta Abbey to be educated. From
a
very young age she gave evidence of her brilliance and quickly outstripped
her companions. In her teen years she asked to join the community.
Therefore, she probably spent her whole life from childhood on within the
abbey walls.
Her love for secular studies made the common life wearisome, pride and
vanity ate away at her soul and she soon became an unhappy young woman
until
Christ appeared to her. The day was branded in her memory, it was in her
26th year, when as she says "in a happy hour, at the beginning of
twilight,
thou O God of truth, more radiant than any light, yet deeper than any
secret
thing, determined to dissolve the obscurity of my darkness." From then on
her biographer tells us "she became a theologian instead of a grammarian."
She did not give up her intellectual ardor but now, all her labors were
for
her sisters, to cure what she termed "the wound of ignorance". Her many
gifts and mystical graces did not prevent her from giving herself
wholeheartedly to the common life with its joys and sorrows. In fact many
of
her special graces came to her as she took part in the ordinary routine of
convent life. She felt keenly for those whose burdens involved them in
distracting duties, for example those responsible for meeting the debts of
the monastery.
She prayed that they might have more time to pray and fewer distractions.
The Lord's answered "It does not matter to me whether you perform
spiritual
exercises or manual labor, provided only that your will is directed to me
with a right intention. If I took pleasure only in your spiritual
exercises,
I should certainly have reformed human nature after Adam's fall so that it
would not need food, clothing or the other things that man must find or
make
with such effort."
Many of her writings are lost, but fortunately she left to the world an
abundance of spiritual joy in her book The Herald of Divine Love, in which
she tells of the visions granted her by our divine Lord. She wrote this
excellent, small book because she was told that nothing was given to her
for
her own sake only. Her Exercises is an excellent treatise on the renewal
of
baptismal vows, spiritual conversion, religious vows, love, praise,
gratitude to God, reparation, and preparation for death.
She began to record her supernatural and mystical experiences in what
eventually became her Book of Extraordinary Grace (Revelation of Saint
Gertrude), together with Mechtilde's mystical experiences Liber Specialis
Gratiae, which Gertrude recorded. Most of the book was actually written by
others based on Gertrude's notes. She also wrote with or for Saint
Mechtilde
a series of prayers that became very popular, and through her writings
helped spread devotion to the Sacred Heart (though it was not so called
until revealed to St. Margaret Mary Alocoque).
Gertrude is inseparably associated with the devotion to the Sacred Heart.
The pierced heart of Jesus embodied for her the Divine Love, an
inexhaustible fountain of redemptive life. Her visions and insights in
connection with the Heart of Jesus are very enlightening. In one such
intellectual vision, she perceived the unceasing love of Christ for us in
two pulsations of his Heart - one accomplished the conversion of sinners,
the other the sanctification of the just. Just as our own faithful heart
keeps right on whether we advert to it or not, these pulsations will
endure
till the end of time despite the vicissitudes of history.
Our Lord wishes people to pray for the souls in purgatory. He once showed
Gertrude a table of gold on which were many costly pearls. The pearls were
prayers for the holy souls. At the same time the saint had a vision of
souls
freed from suffering and ascending in the form of bright sparks to heaven.
In one Vision, Our Lord tells Gertrude that he longs for someone to ask
Him
to release souls from purgatory, just as a king who imprisons a friend for
justice's sake hopes that someone will beg for mercy for his friend. Jesus
ends with:
"I accept with highest pleasure what is offered to Me for the poor souls,
for I long inexpressibly to have near Me those for whom I paid so great a
price. By the prayers of thy loving soul, I am induced to free a prisoner
from purgatory as often as thou dost move thy tongue to utter a word of
prayer."
In another vision she was given the Prayer which Our Lord told her would
release 1000 Souls from Purgatory every time it is said with love and
devotion. "Eternal Father, I offer You the Most Precious Blood of Thy
Divine
Son, Jesus Christ, in union with the Masses said throughout the world
today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory, for sinners everywhere, those in the
Universal Church, in my home, and in my family."
To her was granted the privilege of seeing our Lord's Sacred Heart. The
graces flowing from it appeared like a stream of purest water flowing over
the whole world. In many of the visions of the Sacred Heart, we find St.
John the Beloved Disciple present. He who leaned back against Jesus' chest
at the Last Supper. On his own feast day, St. John appeared and placed
Gertrude near the wounded side of the Savior, where she could hear the
pulsations of the Sacred Heart. "Why is it, O beloved of God", she asked
him, "that you who rested on His bosom at the Last Supper have said
nothing
of what you experienced then? St. John told her "It was my task to present
to the first age of the Church the doctrine of the Word made flesh which
no
human intellect can ever fully comprehend. The eloquence of that sweet
beating of His Heart is reserved for the last age in order that the world
grown cold and torpid may be set on fire with the love of God."
These visions continued until the end of her life. Jesus said to her at
the
last: "Come, my chosen one, and I will place in you My throne."
Saint Gertrude was "the Great" because of her single-hearted love for the
Sacred Heart of Jesus and the souls in purgatory. Though she was never
formally canonized, Pope Clement XII in 1677 directed that her feast be
observed throughout the Church. It is interesting to note that Saint
Teresa
of Avila had a great devotion to Gertrude.
This version taken from:
http://www.mtep.com/index.htm
Saint Quote:
"O Lord Jesus Christ, in union with Your most perfect actions I commend to
You this my work, to be directed according to Your adorable will, for the
salvation of all mankind. Amen."
-Saint Gertrude
Bible Verse:
Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to entertain
strangers,
for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those
who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. Marriage should be
honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the
adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love
of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never
will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:1-5)
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HOW TO MOLD A SOUL
Just take a large or small soul,
And mix them well with prayer.
Turn them out with flowered hearts,
Away from satan's lair.
Set their paths toward glory,
With sugar or with spice.
Show them that above it all,
The bread is always nice.
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