Gertrude of Helfte

Gertrude entered a German monastery at five years old. It’s a shockingly early age to take up residence in a convent, perhaps bordering on child abuse to our modern sensibilities. But if you wanted your daughter to receive an education in the Middle Ages, the convent was the way to go. Consider that Gertrude became fluent in Latin, had extensive training in seven core liberal arts subjects and was thoroughly trained in church history. While estimates vary on literacy rates in the late Middle Ages, most educated guesses estimate the number to be in the low single digits. Education was reserved for the wealthy elites. If you were raised in a peasant family, learning to read and write was out of reach. There was also significant gender disparity, as boys were far more likely to be educated than girls. We don’t know whether Gertrude of Helfta (1256-1302) came to the convent because she was orphaned or placed there by her parents. The Roman Catholic Church has bestowed on her the designation “Great,” the only woman so honored in Catholic history. There was nothing extraordinary about her early life apart from her capacity as a stellar student. She observed the customary Rule of St. Benedict (a daily ritual of seven prayers plus worship) without any apparent evidence of enthusiasm. While she remained dutiful in her observance, she lacked, by her own admission, any real interest or fervor. So, what makes her great? In 1281, when she was twenty-five, she encountered Christ in a vision, beckoning her to enter closer union with him. Christ spoke to her, “Your salvation is at hand. Why are you consumed with grief? …I will save you. I will deliver you. Fear not.” It became her clarifying moment. She admitted later her literary pursuits had become “a tower of vanity and curiosity.” She came to recognize excessive pride in her academic accomplishments while giving scant attention to Christ’s power coming alive in her. These visitations continued until her death at forty-six. Her writings abound with references to Christ’s visions, such as the day she heard a particularly distressing sermon on God’s justice. She was too shaken to receive Holy Communion, but Christ reassured her that the Eucharist was a source of mercy, not justice. She shared her visions with the one hundred sisters who lived at Helfta, and her reputation as a spiritual counselor spread well beyond the convent. Most of her writings are lost to history, but several books attributed to her were discovered in 1536 and continue to be read in our day. The following prayer expresses her intimate approach to talking with God: