Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,<\/p>\n
Blessings and peace to you all this day! Thank you so much for the great feedback on being able to journey through Msgr. Gray\u2019s study of the autobiography of Blessed Fulton J. Sheen. I personally enjoyed it as well! As I mentioned a couple weeks back, I thought we might spend some time with the saints in the weeks ahead. Each year as we celebrate All Saints Day, I am always struck by the thought that there are saints from every part of the world, every family background, age, health conditions, vocations, occupations, etc.\u2026in truth, there really is a saint for each of us! One of the great gifts of those saints is they remind us that we can also live a faithful life in Christ\u2026we also can be faithful in the midst of challenges and persevere in living the love of Christ\u2026we also have been given what we need to walk the path of sainthood!<\/p>\n
This week, I thought we’d spend a little time with one of our \u201cgreat\u201d saints and the only woman saint who is regularly called \u201cGreat\u201d: St. Gertrude the Great (1256-1301 AD). According to the Pocket Dictionary of Saints<\/em>: St. Gertrude, \u201cOf unknown parentage and often surnamed \u201cthe Great,\u201d she was placed in the care of the Benedictine nuns at Helfta in Saxony when five and became a pupil and close friend of St. Mechtilde. When older Gertrude became a nun and when 26 had the first of many visions of Christ she was to experience during her lifetime. She became versed in the Bible and the writings of Augustine, Gregory, and Bernard and began to record her supernatural and mystical experiences, a record that eventually appears in her Book of Extraordinary Grace<\/em> (Revelation of St. Gertrude<\/em>), together with Mechtilde\u2019s mystical experiences\u2026which Gertrude recorded. She also wrote with St. Mechtilde a series of prayers that became very popular, and through her writing helped spread devotion to the Sacred Heart. She died on November 17 at Helfta and though never formally canonized, Pope Clement XII directed that her feast be observed throughout the Church in 1677.\u201d (Pocket Dictionary of the Saints<\/em>, 211-212).\u00a0 We could also add here that Pope Benedict XIV (+1758 AD) gave St. Gertrude the title \u201cGreat.\u201d<\/p>\n Adding in a few more details for her life, Enzo Lodi writes that St. Gertrude \u201cwas extremely devoted to the mystery of the Incarnation, expressed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Holy Eucharist (she promoted frequent Communion). She authored several volumes of spiritual works although they were not discovered until 1536, after which her influence spread throughout Europe\u201d (Saints of the Roman Calendar<\/em>, p.373).\u00a0 Lodi notes that the opening collect of the Mass for St. Gertrude\u2019s memorial hints at her spirituality: \u201cFather, you filled the heart of St. Gertrude with the presence of your love.\u201d Lodi notes that \u201cher union with Christ was so intense that Jesus said to St. Mechtilde, the novice mistress: \u2018If you want to find me, look for me in the heart of Gertrude\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Lodi continues, \u201cA second theme in the spirituality of St. Gertrude is found in the petition of the Opening Prayer: \u2018Bring light into our darkness.\u2019\u00a0 It is through her writings that St. Gertrude became widely known and venerated. In her treatise, Herald of Divine Love<\/em>, she states that Christ said to her: \u2018I want your writings to be indisputable evidence of my goodness.\u2019\u00a0 Numerous scholars have been impressed by her profound understanding of the theology of the Incarnation and the Trinity. She is rightly called \u2018Gertrude the Great,\u2019 not only because of her lofty mystical experiences but because she is a forerunner of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus\u2026The relevance of this \u2018herald of divine love,\u2019 as Christ named her, is her intimate union with Christ and her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the Office of Readings [from the Liturgy of the Hours which priests and consecrated pray each day\u2026anyone else is welcome to pray] we find her statement that God gave her \u2018the inestimable gift of your intimate friendship, and in various ways allowed me to possess your Son\u2019s own heart, that most noble ark of God united with the Godhead\u2019.\u201d (p.374)<\/p>\n For a couple more nuggets about St. Gertrude, we can look online: \u201cOne day, Jesus said to Gertrude: \u2018It would be good to make known to men and women how they would benefit from remembering that I, the Son of God and of the Blessed Virgin Mary, always stand before God for the salvation of the human race, and that should they commit some sin through their weakness, I offer my unblemished Heart to the Father for them\u2019.” (catholicculture.org). From another online source, \u201cToday, we celebrate St. Gertrude\u2019s feast day on November 16th and she is known as the patroness of the dead because of her special devotion to the souls in purgatory. St. Gertrude\u2019s \u2018little way\u2019 was to regularly pray for the souls in purgatory. Catholic tradition says that Jesus promised St. Gertrude that 1,000 souls would be released from purgatory every time the following prayer is recited with devotion:<\/p>\n