PONTIFICIUM ATHENAEUM S. ANSELMI
Matriculation
number: 8231
THE HEART OF
PIETATIS OF
Thesis ad Licentiam
in Sacra Theologia
Moderator:
Romae 2006
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Abbreviations and Initials 4
Bibliography 5
Introduction 10
CHAPTER
1.1 Biography and education 12
1.2
1.3 Historical, monastic, and theological context 20
1.4 Helfta's openness to newer spiritual currents 24
CHAPTER
CORDIS: CONVERGING IN THE HEART OF
2.1
2.2
2.3 The St. John
the Apostle in
2.4 Pietas as divine attribute 41
2.5 Libertas cordis as fulfillment of the human heart 49
CHAPTER 3. THE DIVINE AND DEIFIED HEART OF
3.1
3.2 Wound of love 62
3.3 Seal of the covenant 65
3.4 A comparison with William of St. Thierry 68
3.5 Exchange of hearts 71
3.6 The divine
heart of
3.7 Divine heart as lamp 74
3.8 Divine heart as musical instrument: harp and lyre of the Trinity 78
CHAPTER 4. THE HEART OF
THE HEAVENLY LITURGY, AND THE INNER CLOISTER 82
4.1 Sacrament and sacrifice 82
4.1.1 Divine heart in the form of a chalice 82
4.1.2 Divine heart and the host: sacramental kenosis of Christ 84
4.1.3 Sacrifice and communion for the holy souls in purgatory 88
4.1.4 Heart of
4.2
4.2.1 Divine heart as the altar in heaven 99
4.2.2
4.3 Per Cor
Conclusion 108
Abbreviations and Initials
CCL Corpus
Christianorum, Series Latina
CCCM Corpus
Christianorum,
Cf. Confer
CSQ Cistercian
Studies Quarterly
DIP Dizionario degli
DSp Dictionnaire
de spiritualité ascétique et mystique
RB Rule of
SBO
SC Sources
Chrétiennes
tr. translated
vol. volume
All Biblical citations follow the abbreviations used in the New Jerusalem Bible.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
SOURCES
Works of
____, Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. 1.
____, Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. 2.
____, Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. 3.
____, Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. 4.
____, Oeuvres spirituelles. Vol. 5.
____, Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude the Great, Virgin and Abbess of the Order of St. Benedict, tr. Poor Clares of Kenmare, TAN, Rockford IL 2002.
Other Sources
AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, Confessionum libri tredecim, ed.
____, Sancti Bernardi Opera. Vol. 2. Sermones
super Cantica Canticorum 36-86, ed.
____, On the Song of Songs. Vol. 1, tr.
____, On the Song of Songs Vol. 2, tr. K. Walsh, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo 1976.
____, On the Song of Songs Vol. 3, tr. K. Walsh - I.M. Edmonds, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo 1979.
____, On the Song of Songs Vol. 4, tr. I.M. Edmonds, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo 1980.
IRENAEUS OF LYONS, Contre les hérésies, ed.
New Jerusalem Bible,
New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Revised Standard Version, ed. H. G. May - B.M. Metzger, Oxford University Press, New York 1977.
Nova
____, La contemplation
____,
STUDIES
BIFFI, I., Tutta la dolcezza
BOTTE, B. -
CAROLA, J.,
CASEY, M., «Gertrude of Helfta and Bernard of Clairvaux», in Illumined by God: Essays on Medieval Monastic Women from Tjurunga, ed. K. Harris, Benedictine Union of Australia and New Zealand, Croydon 2000, 173-195.
____, «Nature and
CLEMONS, C., The Relationship Between Devotion to the Eucharist and Devotion to the Humanity of Jesus in the Writings of St. Gertrude of Helfta, Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1995. Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
COLOMBÁS,
DOLAN, D. G.,
DOYÈRE, P., «
FINNEGAN,
GUILLOU, M.-G., «La louange à
l'école de sainte
____, «Pour répondre à un amour infini: la découverte de deux moniales I», Collectanea Cisterciensia 56 (1994) 171-191.
____, «Pour répondre à un amour infini: la découverte de deux moniales II», Collectanea Cisterciensia 56 (1994) 261-279.
LECLERCQ, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. A Study of Monastic Culture, tr. C. Misrahi, Fordham University Press, New York 1982.
____Regards monastiques sur
____,«
LUISLAMPE, P., «Gnade ist
LUNARDI, G., «
MCGINN, B., The Flowering of Mysticism. Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200-1350), Crossroad, New York 1998.
MINGUET, H., «Théologie
spirituelle de sainte
____, «Théologie spirituelle de
sainte
____, «Théologie spirituelle de
sainte
MIRONES, E., «Trutta: libertad sin ira», Cistercium (2001) 523-570.
NATALI,
OAKES,
OTT, L., Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, tr. P. Lynch, ed. J.C. Bastible, Herder, St. Louis MO 1954.
PORCILE,
____, «
____, «Teología metafórica en el vocabulario de Santa Gertrudis de Helfta», Cuadernos Monásticos 101 (1992) 135-165.
QUÉNARDEL, O., «La communion
eucharistique dans Le Héraut
RUH, K., Storia
SARATXGA, C., «Místicas cistercienses», Cistercium 210.1 (1998) 1051-1081.
SCHMITT, M., «Freed to Run with Expanded Heart: The Writings of Gertrud of Helfta and RB», CSQ 25 (1990) 219-232.
SHANK,
TOMLINS, D., «
VAGAGGINI, C. «La dévotion au
Sacré-Coeur chez
____, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy. A General Treatise on the Theology of the Liturgy, tr. L. Doyle and W. A. Jurgens, Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN 1976.
VILANOVA, E. Historia de la teología
Introduction
The glorified heart of
The primary source is the text of the Legatus itself, in Latin and in English
translation. The Latin text is cited from the Sources Chrétiennes edition, with the notes and commentary of
This is supplemented by the writings of
The first chapter
of this study will summarize the life and writings of
This study seeks to show that the glorious and deified
heart of the Savior unifies seemingly disparate aspects of
CHAPTER ONE
1.1
Biography and education
The primary source for the life of
It is evident that
This was the spirit of Helfta, at once mystical and open
to humanistic learning: the development of the mind was considered the
indispensable preparation for contemplation, and the girls educated at Helfta
were taught that such learning would give glory to God and deepen their monastic
life.[7]
She would read sacred scripture very eagerly and with great delight whenever she could, requiring her subjects to love sacred readings and often recite them from memory. Hence, she bought all the good books she could for her church or made her sisters transcribe them. She eagerly promoted the girls to learn the liberal arts, saying that if the pursuit of knowledge were lost they would no longer understand sacred scripture and the religious life would also perish.[8]
Through her excessive attachment to secular studies up to that time, she had neglected to adapt the high point of her mind to the light of spiritual understanding. By attaching herself with such avid enjoyment to the pursuit of human wisdom, she was depriving herself of the taste of true wisdom.[9]
Nevertheless, this learning was the intellectual
backdrop for her later conversion: if
The second period, when she began to experience this
mystical union, provides the substance of the Legatus. The decisive event occurred on 27 January 1281, when
It is only at the age of twenty-five that the "conversion" came about--that is to say, the discovery of mystical realities… She responded to this grace with a magnificent generosity. She found confidantes, as well. At certain points, in the writings there is an allusion to a small group of nuns who share more intimately their mystical graces of prayer; to this group belongs first of all St. Mechthild of Hackeborn, then another nun to whom is due the gathering together of the saint's writings and memories in Book III to V, and the redaction of Book I.[15]
It is clear, then, that
1.2
The rest of the Legatus
is derived from
Although Books III-IV do not come to us as directly from
Gertrude as does Book II, it seems an overreaction to say, as K. Ruh does, that
they therefore have nothing to tell us about Gertrude: he goes so far as to say
that it is illegitimate to read and interpret Book II in the light of the other
books of the Legatus, which he
dismisses as reflective more of Mechthild and of the unnamed compilatrix than
of Gertrude herself.[30] Ruh maintains that this
anonymous compilatrix, whom he calls Sister N., is the real author of Books
III-V and that therefore these writings reveal only her own outlook rather than
Gertrude's.[31]
However, Ruh's reaction seems excessive: in his effort to distance
In effect,
It is therefore impossible to arrive at an "unmixed"
For this reason, in this work, Book II will receive
special but not exclusive emphasis; for while priority should be given to what
is clearly Gertrude's own writing, the rest of the Gertrudian corpus also
deserves attention as derived from Gertrude's teaching and also as an early
indication of the way in which she was interpreted within Helfta's monastic and
spiritual tradition. With regard to
1.3 Historical, monastic,
and theological context
The monastery at Helfta was founded in 1229 by Burkhard of Mansfeld and his wife Elisabeth of Schwartzburg; the community was initially located within the precincts of their Thuringian castle but moved to Rodarsdorf in 1234. The monastery relocated in 1258 to Helfta, near Eisleben.[36] The original group of nuns was composed of Cistercians from Halberstadt and therefore the community was Cistercian in spirit though canonically independent since the General Chapter of Cîteaux had decided in 1228 not to accept the supervision of any additional houses of nuns, as the Cistercians were already hard-pressed to take care of those already entrusted to them. However, the same General Chapter also declared that any communities wishing to adopt the usages of Cîteaux were free to do so, on the understanding that such houses retained their independence and that Cîteaux was not responsible for them.
This gives rise to the old question about Helfta (and
consequently about
Monastic life had, at the beginning of the century, something like a
new elan under the Cistercian impulse. The foundation [of Helfta] in 1229
undoubtedly belonged to this movement. From that fact, must one conclude that
the monastery does not count as part of the Benedictine order? It's a
badly-phrased question. There is no warrant for speaking of a Benedictine
"order" distinct from the Cistercian order: the women's monasteries
have never formed a Benedictine order, properly so-called, any more than the
men's houses. The nuns coming from the Mansfeld castle are daughters of St. Benedict
who understand themselves to be "gray sisters"--that is to say that
they adopt the usages of Cîteaux but, frankly, with considerable freedom; they
do not depend on the jurisdiction of Cîteaux, not having benefited from any
exception to the prescriptions of the General Chapter of 1228, which forbade
Cîteaux to found new monasteries of women or to assume their direction. Helfta
thus preserves a sort of autonomy that is well within the particularist spirit
in political matters, to which allusion has already been made. This autonomy
explains how the monastery has preserved, alongside the Cistercian observance,
certain proper usages which later (when the Cistercian influence had abated)
would make it easy for the community to give up their character as "gray
sisters" in order to be simply Benedictine. But it is no less certain that
in
In summary, one may fittingly describe Helfta as an autonomous house following the Rule of St. Benedict and, for the most part, Cistercian in spirit and in style of observance. Still, one of the key features of the Cistercian reform was precisely its juridical structure and the wide-ranging authority of the General Chapter over individual houses. However Cistercian in spirit and aspiration, the difference in canonical status was important: by being outside the control of the General Chapter, Helfta was at liberty to modify certain aspects of Cistercian practice according to need and circumstance. Perhaps this explains why the personal friendships and learned interests of the Helfta nuns seem to go beyond what would have been common among Cistercian nuns of that period, not to mention the nuns' educational work in the monastic school of Helfta.
Helfta's very
independence left it in a vulnerable and dependent position vis-à-vis the
political turmoil and intermittent warfare engaged in by the local feudal
nobility. Having been founded by a pious noble couple, Helfta was inevitably
tied to noble benefactors and canonically subject to the bishop of Halberstadt.
For this reason, J. Hourlier and
The sheer
complexity and volatility of the social bonds between Helfta and its neighbors
provides the human background for
Despite the patronage of noble families, life was difficult at
Helfta. The rigors of the daily routine were compounded by the pressure of
debts, losses by theft, and exposure to assault. These trials were intensified
during the Great Interregnum, a period of anarchy and turmoil from the death of
The nuns of Helfta consequently had constant experience of both
generous gifts and terrible crimes from their neighbors, who were often their
blood relations; the necessity of vicarious atonement and of constant pardon as
well as thanksgiving and mutual obligation was evident from the very structure
of the society in which they lived. This is the social setting from which
1.4 Helfta's openness to newer spiritual currents
Helfta's status as
an autonomous monastery also opened it up to the influence of the newer
mendicant orders, especially from the Dominicans. Since the Cistercians were
both unable and unwilling to exert direct spiritual guidance to the nuns, it
was the Dominicans of Halle who did so by acting as their chaplains and
confessors. Indeed, when the Béguine mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg took refuge
at Helfta after encountering opposition in her native city, she probably did so
on the advice of her Dominican confessor, Henry of Halle, who knew and
respected Helfta.
The nuns had learnt from St. Bernard a mystical love for Jesus, from St. Benedict the solemn splendour of the liturgy, and from the Dominicans of Halle, their neighbours and spiritual directors, a special devotion to the Passion; but the decisive influence that made Helfta a vigorous centre of devotion to the Sacred Heart was the supernatural one, the sublime mystical graces of which it was the focus.[45]
The strength of this Dominican influence at Helfta is
evident from the community's concern to have Gertrude's writings examined and
approved by these distinguished Dominican theologians: Henry of Mulhausen;
Henry of Weriungerode from Halle; Nicholas of Hildesheim, later prior of
Halberstadt; Hermann of Loweia, lector at Leipzig; and Theodore of Apoldia, who
knew Gertrude personally and approved of her writings both for their style and
for their content. There was also a Franciscan named
The same conceptual problem arises when one attempts to
categorize her mysticism as Brautmystik
(the "bridal" mysticism of the soul's affective union with
Learned and highly critical German authors of the last century believed in the existence of two radically different kinds of mysticism in the medieval Church: an abstract mysticism, essentially philosophical, that of Meister Eckhart and his disciples and followers; and, on the opposite side, what they contemptuously called "the mysticism of the nuns," precisely that of Gertrude and her sisters, halfway between Cluny and Cîteaux. Now that Hadewijch of Antwerp has been rediscovered, and it is clear that the mysticism of Eckhart, vulgarized by Tauler and finally decanted by Ruusbroec, has its roots in the feminine mysticism of the thirteenth century in Flanders (itself clearly a development of those German contemplative nuns so disparagingly treated by some nineteenth-century scholars), it is obvious that the supposed opposition between a "high" and a "low" mysticism is merely a misconception of both. Eckhart's spirituality, whatever may have been his enthusiasm for a Neoplatonism more or less happily Christianized, is not a mere metaphysical abstraction at its deep core, nor is the "mysticism of the nuns" just sentimental and naively erotic.[51]
In the final analysis, Bouyer writes, these diverse experiences
described as Brautmystik and Wesenmystik are the fruition within very
different temperaments of what St. Paul describes as "
CHAPTER TWO
ST. BERNARD'S SERMONS, PIETAS, AND
CONVERGING IN THE HEART OF
2.1
As a monastery that
was Cistercian in spirit though not in law, Helfta was inevitably influenced by
the writing of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
The most obvious way to begin an analysis of St.
Bernard's influence on
There is no doubt that she was one of his elect, one of those
blessed ones of whom St. Bernard has written in his Sermons on the Song,
saying: "I think that a soul in a state of grace is not only heavenly on
account of its origin, it is not even unworthy itself to be called heaven on
account of its imitation of heaven: it is heaven in its manner of life… I am
confirmed in this belief by the promise: 'To him (that is, to the holy man) we
shall come and shall make our dwelling with him' (Jn 14.23). The prophet was
making the same point when he said: 'But thou dwellest in a holy place, the
praise of Israel' (Ps 21.4). And the Apostle declares that
This passage from Book I cites St. Bernard's words concerning the
contemplative soul as capax Dei and
applies it in a special way to
The Legatus cites
The characteristic of true and chaste contemplation is that the soul, aflame with divine fire, conceives such a vehement desire to attract other souls to God to love him equally, that it gladly leaves the leisure of contemplation for the active work of preaching. It returns again to contemplation with an ardor that is all the greater for being able to take into consideration the fruits of its labor.[63]
It is St. Bernard's teaching that the Legatus itself cites as the guide to a proper understanding of
In his Sermons on the Song of Songs,
Notice that the love of the heart is, in a certain sense, carnal,
because our hearts are attracted most toward the humanity of
The importance of this passage for a proper
understanding of the heart of
2.2
It is above all in Sermon 61 that
But as for me, whatever is lacking in my own resources I appropriate
for myself from the heart of the Lord [ex
visceribus Domini], which overflows with mercy. And there is no lack of
clefts by which they are poured out. They pierced his hands and feet, they
gored his side with a lance, and through these fissures I can suck honey from
the rock and oil from the flinty stone--I can taste and see that the Lord is
good. He was thinking thoughts of peace and I did not know it. 'For who has
known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?' (Rm 11.34). But
the nail that pierced him has become for me a key unlocking the sight of the
Lord's will. Why should I not gaze through the cleft? The nail cries out, the
wound cries out that God is truly in
In this sermon, the implications of
I shall be as the dove nesting in the highest point of the cleft, so that like Moses in his cleft of rock I may be able to see the back of the Lord as he passes by (Ex 33.22-23). For who can look on his face as he stands, or the glory of the unchangeable God, but he who is introduced not only to the holy place but to the holy of holies?[67]
In this way, the contemplative's union with God is always immediate
in one way, yet always mediated through
Again, while she was devoutly praying for another person, she was taught how that person should regulate the conduct of his whole life, in this manner: He should build his nest in the hollow of the wall (Sg 2.14), that is, in the most sacred side of the Lord Jesus, and resting in this deep abyss, he should suck honey from the rock (cf. Dt 32.13), that is, the sweetness of the aspirations of the divine heart of Jesus… Whenever he is about to do or to say anything, he should begin with the intention of recommending it to the Lord in union with the divine will and for the salvation of the world. Then, having completed it, he should offer it again, in union with the same, to the Son of God, that he may deign to correct it and make it worthy of being presented to God the Father, to his eternal glory.[68]
In this passage,
In other passages
of the Legatus, Gertrude reveals
another key element derived from St. Bernard's teaching: the figure of St. John
the Apostle whom Jesus loved, who reclined on the Lord's breast at the Last
Supper and who beheld the opening of Christ's side on the Cross and the
effusion of blood and water from his wound. For both
For his soul was pleasing to the Lord, entirely worthy both of the
name and the dowry of a bride, worthy of the Bridegroom's embraces, worthy that
is, of leaning on
As she lies back he cushions her head on one of his arms, embracing
her with the other, to cherish her at his bosom. Happy the soul who reclines on
the breast of
Happy the mind which frequently works at hollowing a place for
itself in this wall, but happier still the one which does so in the rock [i.e.,
In each of these passages, Bernard points to St. John as the
privileged witness to the Incarnate Word and therefore as the true
contemplative who has entered most deeply into the mystery of Christ, by having
reclined on his breast: John imbibes divine wisdom from his heart (sinu). Though
Then she proceeded with constancy to renounce all pleasure, both heavenly and earthly. Reposing on the breast of her beloved, cleaving firmly to him, it seemed to her that no creature would be powerful enough to remove her, ever so little, from this refuge where she was always ready to draw with joy (cf. Is 12.3) from the Lord's side and taste of the flood of life-giving sweetness, far surpassing the sweetness of balm.[72]
Here the Lord's wounded side is the source of her consolation, in a
time when she felt overwhelmed by sadness and discouragement; the way out of
this impasse is to draw from the vivifying sweetness of his breast. Though
"Come,"
She then inquired of St. John why he placed himself on the left hand, and had given the right to her. He replied: "It is because I have become one spirit with God, and am able to penetrate where flesh cannot enter; but you are not yet able to penetrate into such things, because you are still in the flesh. I have therefore placed you at the opening of the Divine Heart, from whence you may drink in all the sweet consolations which flow from it with such impetuous abundance, that it is capable of satisfying all who desire to taste thereof." Then, as she felt the constant pulsations of the Divine Heart, and rejoiced exceedingly thereat, she said to St. John: "Beloved of God, didst not thou feel those pulsations when thou wert lying on the Lord's breast at the Last Supper?" He replied: "Because I was charged with instructing the newly formed Church concerning the mysteries of the uncreated Word, that those truths might be transmitted to future ages, as far as they would be capable of comprehending them, for no one can comprehend them entirely; and I deferred speaking of these Divine pulsations until later ages, that the world might be aroused from its torpor, and animated, when it had grown cold, by hearing of these things." Then, as she contemplated St. John reposing upon the bosom of the Lord, he said to her: "I now appear to you in the same form as when I lay on the bosom of my beloved Lord and only Friend at the Last Supper; but if you wish it, I will obtain for you the favor of beholding me in the form in which I now enjoy the delights of Heaven." And as she desired this favor very ardently, she beheld an immense ocean within the Heart of Jesus, in which St. John appeared to float with ineffable joy and perfect freedom; and she learned that the Saint became so filled and inebriated with the torrent of pleasure which he tasted in God, that a vein came from his heart, whereby he poured forth over the face of the earth the sweet waters of the Divinity--that is to say, his instructions, and above all, his Gospel: In the beginning was the Word.[73]
This vision from the Legatus
portrays
Thus
This vision of "Johannine love" is characteristic of the
era in which Gertrude of Helfta was born. To me, it seems that it symbolically
contains the saint's message: behold
Luislampe emphasizes the breadth of
2.4 Pietas as divine attribute
The very title of the Legatus divinae pietatis requires some explanation, as the word pietas has a complex history and a wide
semantic range.
Ancient pietas is directed toward three objects: the gods, family members, and the fatherland. That which unites these three objects is that they each appear to ancient man as something sacred. Someone is pius who has respect for the sacred, whether it is a matter of the worship of the gods, or of blood kinship. That is confirmed by the word's equivalence to the Greek eusebes, which also expresses a religious respect.[77]
From this original meaning, pius
came to refer to a virtuous man; in pagan usage, the gods themselves were never
described as pii. In Christian usage,
however, God is sometimes called pius,
where it is equivalent to misericors,
and refers to God's mercy and fidelity despite human unfaithfulness.[78] It is in this sense that
In the Rule of St. Benedict, the word pietas appears only once, in the
Prologue: "See how the Lord in his love [pietate]shows us the way of life."[81] God is himself called pius in Prol. 38: "And indeed the
Lord assures us in his love [pius Dominus]:
'I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he turn back to me and
live."[82] In RB 7.30, Benedict speak of God as a pius Father who patiently awaits his
son's amendment;[83]
and in RB 27.8, the abbot is admonished to follow the pium exemplum of the Good Shepherd with regard to the
excommunicated.[84]
Benedict describes his own teaching as that of a pius pater in Prol. 1;[85] in RB 2.24, the abbot is
to be capable of being both a stern taskmaster and a merciful father, according
to the need and circumstances.[86] And finally, the aged and
the young are to be treated with kindly consideration [pia consideratio], according to RB 37.3.[87] O. Quénardel underlines
the importance of the Rule of St. Benedict in Gertrude's monastic formation and
considers it likely that she was influenced by Benedict's use of the word pietas generally to regard it as an
attribute of God himself, while allowing that pius is applicable to a human being insofar as he participates in the divine pietas or represents it in the community. For this reason,
Quénardel counts in the Legatus 242
appearances of the word pietas in
reference to God, but only
Gertrude's use of pietas
in reference to God indicates that she regards it as the divine attribute per eminentiam.[89] Quénardel links
Gertrude's understanding of pietas to
Bernard's Sermon
G. Colombás notes that in a passage clearly alluding to the Benedictus, Gertrude substitutes viscera pietatis for the usual viscera misericordiae of the actual text of the canticle.[91] In this context, Gertrude is recounting a special grace received on the feast of the Annunciation, when God manifested his pietas toward mankind by espousing human nature in the Virgin's womb.[92] Quénardel therefore considers this a sign of Gertrude's theological closeness to Bernard of Clairvaux, with her emphasis on the wound in the side of Christ, through which the contemplative soul beholds the viscera pietatis.[93] As is clear from Bernard's Sermon 61, viscera is practically interchageable with cor in this context; for the heart of Christ itself is the embodiment of the divine pietas. Quénardel emphasizes the centrality of divine pietas in the mystical theology of Helfta:
For these nuns, pietas is not an aspect of the love of God among others. It is that which is most divine in divine love, the marrow, the heart, the center, the source that, for Gertrude, has manifested itself to her in the beloved face of the Lord Jesus Christ. From the evening of her conversion…, she does not cease to drink from this Face--and, better yet, from the Heart of this Lord whose first words she can never forget: "Return to me and I will inebriate you with the torrent of my divine delight." Nothing for her can better translate this inebriation than pietas.[94]
The following texts from the Legatus show the various meaning of the word pietas: according to the context, it can be translated as tenderness, mercy, grace, benevolence, or love:[95]
"And what, O God of Love, do you expect of her that you make so much of her and so tenderly incline your heart toward her?" The Lord replied: "It is my own love [pietas mea gratuita], freely given, which impels me; that love, by a speical gift, perfects and conserves…"[96]
You enticed my soul with your faithful promises, showing me the benefits you were ready to confer on me at death and after my death, so that, had I never had any other gifts from you, for this hope alone my soul would never cease to desire you with ardor. And still the ocean of your boundless love [pelagus tuae incontinentissimae pietatis] is not exhausted. For you constantly grant my prayers, whether for sinners, for souls, or for other intentions, answering them with incredible benefits. I have never found a human friend to whom I would dare to tell all I know; the human heart is too small to bear it.[97]
Whenever she was desirous of receiving the sacrament, she asked that the Lord would grant her as many souls from purgatory as there were particles into which the host broke in her mouth and, as she tried to divide it into as man pieces as she could, the Lord said to her: "That you may know that my mercies are over all my works (Ps 144.9) and that there is no creature that can exhaust the abyss of my love [abyssum pietatis meae], behold I am ready to grant you, through the merits of this life-giving sacrament, a much greater number than you would presume to ask me for."[98]
Then, in admiration at the Lord's incomparable goodness, she said: "And how, most loving Lord [piissime Deus], can you justify the comparison of such infamous people [i.e., enemies and persecutors of the monastery] to your arm?" He said: "Because they belong to the body of the Church, of which it is my glory to be the head" (cf. Eph. 5.23). To this she protested: "My Lord, they are now separated from the Church by an interdict, having been publicly denounced and excommunicated because of the injury they have inflicted on our community." To which the Lord replied: "Nevertheless, as long as they can still be reconciled to the Church by absolution, my love obliges me [propria pietate coactus] to take care of them, as I have an ineffable desire for their repentance, and I long for their conversion to me.[99]
In each of these passages, the divine pietas is God's love, freely given, beyond all human merit or deserving: understood as grace, it is always a free gift of God, prevenient to the human response. The second example recalls Gertrude's vision of St. John in Book IV,[100] in that the divine pietas is compared to an ocean in which Gertrude is immersed; this boundless pietas is the source of the efficacy of her prayers, whether for sinners or for the holy souls, and is the only love that ultimately satisfies the human heart. From this, Gertrude moves easily in the same chapter to speak of her praises as offered on the harp of the divine heart of Christ, which alone makes them acceptable to the Trinity: for the heart of Jesus is the visible and embodied sign of divine pietas and of its efficacy in the human heart.[101] In the third example, this pietas is explicitly connected with the reception of communion and with the consecrated host as the sacramental effusion of divine pietas; and yet, it is also made clear that the Lord's pietas infinitely overflows the bounds of the sacramental sign, so that its efficacy for the holy souls cannot be quantified. In the fourth example, Gertrude significantly addresses God as pius, and wonders that he should regard even the excommunicated enemies of the monastery as wounded members of the body of Christ. Here the divine pietas (which is perfectly free in itself, since God is perfectly free) seems nevertheless almost constrained out of love for sinners to seek their conversion and amendment of life. When Gertrude wonders at this, she receives an answer similar to the one she received with regard to sacramental communion: just as the grace of communion overflows the sacramental sign, so the divine pietas overflows even the juridical bounds of ecclesial unity, in order to effect the conversion of sinners and their absolution. The implication is that Gertrude and her community, having received a special effusion of this pietas, have a particular role in the body of Christ, by which their prayer and contemplation are efficacious even on behalf of their enemies and persecutors.
Quénardel draws attention to the close similarity between the meanings attached to pietas in the Legatus and that which is found in the liturgical texts that Gertrude had studied and meditated upon. [102] He considers it likely that two particular liturgical texts helped to shape Gertrude's use of pietas: first, the Latin collect for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost (now used on the 27th Sunday of the year); and second, the hymn Jesu, nostra redemptio, which was sung on the Ascension and on the following days, before Pentecost.[103] The collect is as follows:
Almight and eternal God, who in the abundance of your loving-kindness [pietatis] exceed the merits and desires of your suppliants, pour out upon us your mercy, so that you may forgive what conscience fears and grant what prayer does not presume to ask.[104]
The thoughts expressed in this collect are thoroughly Augustinian in giving liturgical expression to the doctrine of prevenient grace. What is important in this context is that in this collect the meaning of divine pietas approximates what is termed uncreated grace, with its efficacy for man being mercy and the granting of the human heart's deepest desires.
The fourth strophe of the hymn Jesu, nostra redemptio is as follows:
Let your loving-kindness [pietas] take hold of you,
so that you may overcome our wrongs,
by sparing us; and partakers of your promise,
you will fill us with your face.[105]
In this hymn, as in Gertrude's Legatus, God's pietas almost compels him to come to man's aid; it is as if God cannot restrain himself. In one of her visions, Gertrude makes explicit mention of this Ascension hymn and links the effusion of divine pietas to the reception of communion and to the consecrated host as the bond that joins Gertrude to Christ's wounded side:
On another day before communion she abased herself according to her frequent custom on account of her unworthiness, imploring the Lord to receive his most sacred host for her himself in his own person in her place and to incorporate it into himself; and then to breathe into her with his sweet and noble breath just as much as he kew to be suitable to her small capacity. After that, she reposed for a time in the bosom of the Lord, as it were beneath the shadow of his arm. She was so placed that her left side seemed to be held against the Lord's blessed right side. After a little while, raising herself, she perceived that through the contact with the wound of love in the Lord's most sacred side, her left side had been drawn into a sort of ruddy scar. Then, as she was going to receive the body of Christ, the Lord himself seemed to receive the consecrated host in his divine mouth. It passed through his body and proceeded to issue from the wound in the most sacred side of Christ, and to fix itself almost like a dressing over the life-giving wound. And the Lord said to her: "Behold, this host will unite you to me in such a way that on one side it touches your scar and on the other my wound, like a dressing for both of us. You must cleanse it, as it were, and renew it every day by turning over in your mind with devotion the hymn Jesu, nostra redemptio. After this it pleased him, as if to show the growing intensity of her desire, to increase this practice of piety every day; so that one day she recited the hymn once, the second day twice, and the third day three times, and so on until the day when next she was to go to communion.[106]
In accord with the humanization of divine pietas in Christian usage and with the
sentiments expressed in the hymn Jesu,
nostra redemptio, Christ himself seems almost unable to resist coming to
the aid of Gertrude in her weakness--even to the point of himself receiving communion
on her behalf. Gertrude abases herself before communion, and Christ himself is
moved to receive the consecrated host for her, to breathe out his Spirit upon
her, and to join her to his wounded side by means of the host itself. The
blessed sacrament is likened to the dressing of a wound because it covers both
the Lord's wounded side and Gertrude's scar; but, since it is the sacrament of
sacraments, the host also effects union between Gertrude and her divine
Bridegroom. As a sacrament, the host simultaneously reveals and veils the
divinity; and it therefore reveals God as utterly accessible and utterly
transcendent--a truth that is especially recalled on the feast of the
Ascension, on which the hymn Jesu, nostra
redemptio was sung. Having been
lifted out of her desolation by the divine pietas,
she is enabled to minister to her wounded Lord by "cleansing" the
dressing (i.e., renewing the fruits of communion received on that occasion)
through a prayerful remembrance, using the hymn Jesu, nostra redemptio.
2.5 Libertas cordis as fulfillment of the human heart
As P. Doyère points out, Gertrude can often seem profound in her spiritual intuitions and in her openness to God's grace; and yet, she can also appear rigoristic, scrupulous, somewhat condescending, indifferent to detail, and in some respects rather non-conformist.[107] Gertrude's biographer in Book I attempts to unify these disparate impressions by describing her salient trait as libertas cordis:
The freedom of her spirit was so great that she could not tolerate for an instant anything that went against her conscience. The Lord himself bore witness to this, because when someone asked him in devout prayer what it was that pleased him most in his chosen one, he replied: "Her freedom of heart." This person, most astonished and, so to speak, considering this an inadequate answer, said: "I should have thought, Lord, that by your grace she would have attained to a higher knowledge of your mysteries and a greater fervor of love. To which the Lord answered: "Yes, indeed, it is as you think. And this is the result of the grace of the freedom of her heart, which is so great a good that it leads directly to the highest perfection. I have always found her ready to receive my gifts, for she permits nothing to remain in her heart which might impede my action."[108]
M. Schmitt connects this libertas cordis with the Rule of St. Benedict, seeing in it a close echo of Benedict's dilatato corde inenarrabile dilectionis dulcedine[109]--that is, a heart expanded by the love for which it was created, and therefore set free from the constraints of sin and self-will. In this perspective, Gertrude's first vision effected her conversion by giving her the very qualities required by St. Benedict for pure prayer[110]: compunction of heart with tears;[111] purity of heart;[112] simple heartfelt devotion[113]; and humility of heart,[114] which together constitute the goal of monastic perfection.[115] Immediately following the above-cited passage follows the description of a vision received by Mechthild, in which Gertrude's libertas cordis consists precisely in her living always in Christ's presence and finding her freedom in docility to his divine heart:
One day Dame Mechthild, our chantress, saw the Lord seated on a high throne. She of whom we write [Gertrude] was walking up and down, coming and going before him, frequently turning to look at the face of the Lord and eagerly attending with the most ardent desire to the aspirations of his divine heart. As Mechthild looked on in wonder, she receive this response: "You see what the life of my chosen one is like. She is always in my presence, as though walking ceaselessly up and down. She ardently desires and seeks every moment how to please my heart. As soon as she has found out what I want, she at once sets about busily to do my will…"[116]
According to the Legatus, Gertrude's way to the attainment of the cor dilatatum was union with the heart of Christ himself.
As Schmitt explains Benedict's heart-language in the Rule, compunction of heart (together with the gift of tears) is the necessary turning away from sin and from all inordinate loves, in order to make way for the love of God. Therefore Gertrude constantly implores Christ to purify her heart from dross[117] and from sin,[118] to compensate for her defects,[119] and to wash her of all her offenses.[120] The gift of compunction is what Gertrude desires when she prays to be pierced with the arrow of Christ's love.[121] When Gertrude is confused and discouraged that she has not received the gift of tears, her prayer is answered at last in an unexpected way:
Once when I was assisting at a Mass during which I was to go to communion, you let me feel your presence; and with wonderful humility, you instructed me with this similitude: I saw that you were thirsty and asking me to give you to drink. As I was lamenting my inability to help you, because, in spite of all my efforts, I was unable to wring from my heart a single tear, I saw that you were offering me a golden cup. As soon as I had taken it, my heart melted with tenderness and a flood of loving tears gushed forth.[122]
The striking aspect of this vision is that it is the humility of Christ, in approaching Gertrude in such
a weak and vulnerable form, that effects a change in Gertrude. It is only when
he holds out a golden cup (possibly suggestive of a chalice) to Gertrude, as if
in supplication for her help, that her own heart opens up and releases the
tears of compunction. Christ, who embodies the divine pietas in a state of kenosis, is nevertheless
"prevenient" to Gertrude's response: for grace precedes the human
response and yet does not coerce it. In the humiliated Christ, the divine pietas can take possession of Gertrude's
heart and set it free to love him whom she most wishes to love. This
corresponds not only to St. Benedict's teaching on the expanded heart but also
to
What has occurred in Gertrude's writings is a kind of communicatio idiomatum made possible by the Incarnation: in Christ, God has become pius toward humanity, and in Christ the human heart has received a deific freedom by union with his heart. The heart of Christ in Gertrude's Legatus is the divine pietas humanized by kenosis and glorification, in order that the human heart may be transformed.[124] The heart-language of St. Benedict (compunctio cordis, puritas cordis, intentio cordis, humilitas cordis) converges with the Bernardine contemplation of the divine pietas revealed in Christ's wounded side. Gertrude takes this a step beyond even Bernard, to an explicit affirmation of the heart of Christ as the life-giving center of his glorified humanity.
The convergence of divine pietas with libertas cordis in the heart of Christ is also the key to a proper interpretation of something that inevitably surprises modern readers of the Legatus: that is, Gertrude's exercise of the power of the keys in the forgiveness of sins. This is the how Gertrude's biographer recounts this aspect of Gertrude's ministry to others:
Afterward, when she was praying for someone, she was afraid that this person hoped to obtain through her intercession more than she could have obtained for herself. The Lord very kindly replied: "Whatever people aspire to obtain through your intervention, they will certainly receive. Moreover, I shall most certainly give them everything which you have promised in my name; even if they are prevented by human frailty from feeling the effects of it, I shall work in their soul to bring about the perfection you had promised them."
After some weeks had passed, remembering these words of the Lord and unable to forget her own unworthiness, she asked the Lord how he could perform such wonders by means of a creature so base. The Lord replied: "Does not the whole Church possess what I promised to Peter, when I said: "And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven"? (Mt 16.19). He touched her tongue, saying: "Behold, I have given my words in thy mouth (Jr 1.9). And in truth I confirm all the words which, inspired by my Spirit, you shall speak for me. And whatsoever you promise on earth, relying on my goodness, I shall ratify in heaven.[125]
This leads some (like G. J. Lewis)[126] to see in Gertrude an implicit challenge to the power of an all-male hierarchical priesthood and to its role in the forgiveness of sins. Does Gertrude really claim to by-pass the ordained clergy by absolving sins and exercising the power of the keys? P. Doyère says that this is not the case and that one should not understand Gertrude as acting in a properly sacramental role.[127] Colombás agrees and suggests more plausibly that Gertrude's role in the forgiveness of sins is complementary, rather than alternative, to the ordained priesthood's power of the keys in the granting of absolution. Colombás emphasizes that the priestly and prophetic dimensions have always existed in the Church, and that Gertrude's approval by eminently orthodox Dominican and Franciscan theologians shows that the Church of her time saw no opposition between Gertrude's writings and the Church's penitential practice.[128] This seems the most reasonable conclusion. It would certainly be anachronistic to project the later Reformation and post-Tridentine controversies about penance and priesthood upon St. Gertrude. The theological climate of the thirteenth century was in many respects less defensive than subsequent periods. In any event, confession to a layman was not unknown in the Middle Ages. Ludwig Ott summarizes as follows the opinions of diverse medieval theologians on confession to a layman:
In the early Middle Ages the main emphasis was laid on the acknowledgment of sins as a salutary self-accusation, and in consequence significance of the priestly absolution substantially receded. For these reasons, it was customary in the early Middle Ages to confess to lay people also if a priest could not be reached. The greatest extension of lay-confession was due to the pseudo-Augustinian treatise De vera et falsa poenitentia (eleventh century). Many Scholastic theologians--for example, Petrus Lombardus (Sent. IV, 17,4) and St. Thomas Aquinas (Suppl. 8,2) declare that it fulfills the obligation. Scotus, who wrongly placed the essence of the sacrament exclusively in the priest's absolution, declared against the necessity of lay confession. The post-Tridentine theologians contested it, because it could easily be conceived in the sense of the Reformers' view of the general lay priesthood. As an expression of a penitential disposition and of a desire for the sacrament, the lay confession could effect justification ex opere operantis.[129]
What is often forgotten is that
According to Augustine's exegesis of Matthew 16.19, Christ bestowed the keys of the kingdom of heaven upon the whole Church represented in Peter. In a similar act, breathing forth his Spirit upon the Apostles in the upper room, Jesus imparted to the Church the power to forgive man's sins. By means of their prayers the holy faithful of the Church exercise this authority. They are the members of the one perfect dove which binds and looses… Augustine draws upon the image of the dove from the Canticle of Canticles to symbolize the Church without spot or wrinkle. No less than the Donatist, Augustine argues for a pure Church. But unlike his schismatic brothers, he does not insist that she must live her pristine purity isolated from those in the world who threaten to contaminate her. On the contrary, the dove tolerates the wicked and sighs within their midst for the sake of their salvation. Her sighs and supplications in fact play a key role in the remission of their sins.[130]
In this way, Gertrude's spiritual doctrine brings together several
strands: the Bernardine mysticism of the Sermons
on the Song of Songs, the Augustinian teaching on the Church (the Dove
signified in the Song of Songs) exercising the power of the keys, and the libertas cordis that provides the
confidence to believe in the efficacy of the Dove's prayer for the forgiveness
of sins. Gertrude personalizes the dove of the Song of Songs so as to apply this to herself in a special way: she
is herself such a "dove", a bride of Christ, though not in an
exclusive sense. Rather, her mystical prayer and her ability to assure others
of the pardon of their sins reveal what is true of her community as a whole,
and also of the entire Church, as the true Bride and the true Dove. In
receiving insight into human hearts and in exercising the power of intercessory
prayer for the forgiveness of sins, Gertrude was simply applying
CHAPTER THREE
The divine and deified heart of Christ
3.1 Gertrude's
theological anthropology and the heart of Christ
The question that
often arises in connection with devotion to the Sacred Heart (to use the later
terminology) is whether the devotion is directed primarily to the physical
heart of Jesus or whether the expression "heart" is a sort of
metaphor for the Person of Christ as the Incarnate Word. The question cannot be
posed in the same way regarding the heart of Christ in the Legatus since it presupposes a view of "mere cardiac
physicality" or "mere
symbolism of love" that would have been alien to Gertrude's own thinking
about the way in which words and images communicate what they signify. If she had
been presented with such a dichotomy, she would likely have dismissed it as
fallacious and based on false premises, and especially on a defective
theological anthropology. Already in the visible creation, this possibility is
already latent, as is implied in Rm 1.20, in which
In order to refer to things familiar to this lower world and to come
down to the level of human weakness, Holy Scripture describes things by means
of visible forms, and thus impresses on our imagination spiritual ideas by
means of beautiful image which incite our desires. Thus they speak now of a
land flowing with milk and honey, now of flowers and of perfumes, now of the
songs of men and of the chorus of birds, and in this way the joys and harmonies
of heaven are designated. Read the Apocalypse of St. John and you will find
Gertrude is well aware that in all her visions, God has accommodated himself to her human temperament and capacity; or, to express it theologically, she knows that grace perfects and presupposes nature:
And yet I add with joy that, if things are with God as they are with humankind, no doubt the power of your gaze surpasses this vision by far, so that I truly believe that, unless the vision were mitigated by divine power, a soul on whom this favor were conferred even for an instant, would by no means be permitted to remain in the body. Although I know that in the inscrutable, infinite power of your boundless love in showing such visions, embraces, kisses, and other manifestations of love, you always adapt them without the least incongruity to suit places, times, and persons, as I have frequently experienced; because (and I thank you for it, uniting myself with the mutual love of the ever adorable Trinity) I have often experienced the flavor of your infinitely sweet kiss… For this and for all the other graces known to you alone, may you be offered that dew of sweetness, a sweetness transcending every sense, which is most joyously distilled from Person to Person in the heavenly storeroom of the divinity.[135]
In this passage, we see Gertrude's awareness of the seeming incongruity of the infinite God manifesting himself in visions and images that can only be univocally true when applied to finite created things. She is astonished that Christ would manifest himself to her, in the awareness that to see the living God in his own essence would be the annihilation of the creature (cf Ex 33.20). And yet, this self-revelation is most profound when Christ reveals his love for Gertrude in personal, embodied, and even sensual symbols: kisses, caresses, honeyed drinks, fragrance, the gaze of the lover on his beloved. Gertrude accounts for this seeming paradox by interpreting her visions as manifestations of the divine condescension in revealing Christ in a way that her finite mind can grasp. Since the human mind cannot grasp the eternal God in his essence, it is God himself who must take the initiative ("prevenient" grace) in order to reveal himself. In such a revelation, as in any other form of meaningful personal communication ("efficacious" grace), the one receiving the communication needs to receive it in a language or symbolic form that he can grasp, in however limited a degree. Gertrude is philosophically and theologically astute enough to understand that this must be the case if her visions are both supernatural in origin and also received and assimilated by a human mind. She considers that there is not the least incongruity in God accommodating himself to her in this way with his infinitely sweet kiss because her visions are consonant with the inner logic of the Incarnation itself. Gertrude's particularity and finitude necessitate the imaginal aspect of her mystical experiences; from the standpoint of faith, this simply extends the "scandal" of the Incarnation as it unfolds in the life of faith. This culminates for Gertrude in the revelation of the Savior's heart.[136] In the Incarnation, God is revealed as truly the lover of mankind, amator hominum, as Gertrude writes in the Legatus.[137]
Book I has already said that Gertrude's immersion in worldly knowledge had left her "far from God, in a land of unlikeness"[138]; for when the human mind stops only at the natural level of phenomena, the creation can become a "land of unlikeness", opaque to the divine radiance. Gertude's biographer indicates that this is precisely what happened in Gertrude's early life: "By attaching herself with such avid enjoyment to the pursuit of human wisdom, she was depriving herself of the sweet taste of true wisdom."[139] One who wishes to attain to God must pass from the beauty of the creation to the glory of the Creator, ex imaginibus in veritatem, by abstracting from created goods to the eternal Good.
It therefore becomes possible and valid to speak of God by analogy with created things. The Incarnation of the Word raises this divine self-communication to a new level, inasmuch as God assumes human nature and thereby validates the revealed symbols in a new way. After her conversion, Gertrude proceeded ex imaginibus in veritatem; but only because Christ as the Incarnate Word assumed also these human images (especially the image of the heart of flesh) in order to draw Gertrude to himself. [140] Gertrude consequently addresses deep theological issues: creation, redemption, the relation between transcendence and immanence, the analogy of being, and the theology of symbol; ultimately, however, she contemplates these Incarnation-related mysteries because she seeks (according to the pattern of Mary) for Christ to be incarnate within her own heart and soul.[141]
In this perspective, it becomes possible to speak meaningfully of divine mysteries while recognizing both the human dimension of their symbolic expression, and also the inevitability that the images will fall short of the mysteries they signify. Gertrude is so aware of this human dimension of her visions that she even expresses doubt about whether the imaginal aspect of the visions is of supernatural origin: could they not be simply the projections of her mind? But the Lord answers her:
Why, then, would it have to lessen the value of My gift if in fact I have given it in a more subtle way, by means of your natural abilities which were created by Me to serve Me? What I said in a deliberate way in creating man, 'Let us make man in Our image and likeness (Gn 1.26), is more wonderful and more pleasant than what I said in creating the other things, 'Let light be made, let the firmament be made."[142]
Christ goes on to affirm that even the imaginal aspects of her visions come from him: for, although Gertrude's visions transcend the dimensions of her own mind and temperament, the possibility of revelation presupposes a theological anthropology based in the Incarnation and on the analogy of being. Gertrude explains this as follows:
Just as students attain to logic by way of the alphabet, so, by means of these painted pictures, as it were, they may be led to taste within themselves that hidden manna (Rv 2.17), which it is not possible to adulterate by any admixture of material images and of which one must have eaten to hunger for it for ever. Deign, almighty and most generous God of all goodness, to give us a sufficiency of this nourishment along the way of our exile, until we contemplate the glory of the Face of the Lord, no longer veiled, proceeding from glory to glory, transformed by the breath of you most sweet Spirit (2 Co 3.18).[143]
According to H. Minguet, the depth of Gertrude's understanding of the heart of Christ is evident from her affirmation of the corporeal nature of this "heart" while not allowing it to be understood in a purely anatomical sense. The heart of Jesus then becomes the fitting symbol and image of Christ's humanity precisely because it recalls the biblical usage of the word "heart" as the very core of the person's identity, encompassing body and soul, intellect and affections.[144] The Lord's heart is therefore the "sacrament" of union from which the divine life and the Spirit are poured out on those who love him. In the Legatus, the heart of Christ therefore becomes the locus liturgicus par excellance.[145]
3.2 Wound of love
What becomes evident in the Legatus divinae pietatis is that by the second half of the twelfth century, the objective sense of redemption is complemented by a more affective and personal emphasis on the contemplation of Christ's mysteries, especially his Passion and Cross.[146] However, this was not a separation of the two currents, since they mingled freely; Jean Leclercq emphasizes that the devotion to the Lord's heart forms a part of a larger whole, as the personal assimilation of the symbolic meaning of Christ's wounded side, out of which poured blood and water. Leclercq sees a gradual progression from the contemplation of the crucified Lord's pierced side (the original "wound of love") to meditation on Christ's wounded breast, and finally to the affective focus on Christ's heart as the source of the love that pours itself out in death and in sacrifice for sinful humanity.[147] The affectivity of Jesus' human heart therefore meets the affectivity of those he has redeemed and who respond to him with gratitude and adoration.
In speaking of the wound of love in her own heart, Gertrude exemplifies this convergence of spiritual currents, as mediated to her through St. Bernard and her Dominican confessors. She received the wound of love about seven years after her conversion, when before Advent one year, she had asked someone (quite likely Mechthild of Hackeborn) to pray for her each day before the crucifix in these words: "By your wounded heart, most loving Lord, pierce her heart with the arrow of your love, so that it may become unable to hold anything earthly, but may be held fast solely by the power of your divinity."[148] This prayer was answered on Gaudete Sunday:
After receiving the life-giving sacrament, on returning to my place, it seemed to me as if, on the right side of the Crucified painted in the book, that is to say, on the wound in the side, a ray of sunlight with a sharp point like an arrow came forth and spread itself out for a moment and then drew back. Then it spread again. It continued like this for a while and affected me gently but deeply. But even so my desire was not fully satisfied until the Wednesday when, after Mass, the faithful venerate the mystery of your adorable Incarnation and Annunciation. I, too, tried to apply myself to this devotion, but less worthily. Suddenly, you appeared inflicting a wound in my heart, and saying: "may all the affections of your heart be concentrated here: all pleasure, hope, joy, sorrow, fear, and the rest; may they all be fixed in my love."[149]
Gertrude recalls that she had heard it said that wounds needed to be bathed, anointed, and bandaged; she then applied this human analogy to her mystical experience, and wished to know how she might tend the Lord's wounds and anoint them. Gertrude was instructed (mostly likely by St. Mechthild) about how she should do this:
She now advised me to meditate devoutly on the love of your heart as you hung on the cross, so that from the fountains of charity flowing from the fervor of such inexpressible love I might draw the waters of devotion that wash away all offenses; and from the fluid of tenderness exuded by the sweetness of such inestimable love, I might derive the ointment of gratitude, balm against all adversity; and in efficacious charity perfected by the strength of such incomprehensible love, I might derive the bandage of holiness, so that all my thoughts, words, and deeds, in the strength of your love, might be turned toward you and thus cleave indissolubly to you.
What the malice and wickedness of my own perversity have done to
corrupt this devotion can be made good by the fullness of the power of the love
which dwells (
Gertrude can now go on to pray with confidence that her contrition for her own sins is accepted in Christ, as she meditates on Christ's heart and desires to show compassion to her Savior, in the awareness that she has been saved by his own compassion. Gertrude applies the language of spousal union, expressed in Genesis of the union of Adam and Eve, to her indissoluble union with Christ; this union alone makes Gertrude's sentiments of love and penitence acceptable. The objective redemption and the personal human response are inter-twined in Gertrude by virtue of the union between Christ and those he has redeemed to become members of his body and therefore "flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone."
One more notable feature of this vision is the timing: it takes place in Advent, when the liturgy's emphasis is on the Incarnation, and yet Gertrude finds it difficult to focus on this mystery. The Lord tells her to concentrate on his pierced heart: the implication is that the Incarnation itself is the precondition for the redemption but that it is the Cross that actually effects redemption from sin. The heart of Christ holds these two moments of the divine economy together: the same heart that was formed in the womb of Mary at the Annunciation is the heart that is revealed on the Cross and from which grace and salvation flow to those who stand, like Mary, at the foot of his Cross and contemplate his wounds. In the glorified heart of Christ in heaven, as in the liturgy and in the mystical life, the Incarnation and the Cross are present as aspects of the one mystery of redemption.
3.3 Seal of the covenant
Among Gertrude's many visions of the divine heart of Jesus, one in particular stands out for its clearly covenantal and nuptial symbolism: in this vision, Christ opens with his hands his own deified heart and reveals it as the true ark of the Covenant, the seal of the alliance that unites Gertrude to him. Before recounting this vision, however, Gertrude thanks God for having chosen and predestined her from all eternity to be a vessel of his grace through her monastic consecration and through the special graces of union she has received:
And I am bound to confess that I owe this to the gentleness and goodness of your nature. You have won this rebellious heart of mine (which in all justice deserves to be bound in iron chains), drawing it to yourself by your sweet caresses, as though you found in me a fit consort for your gentleness, and were quite delighted by union with me…
As though the number of the just were not sufficiently great to occupy your great love, you have called me, the least suitable, but so that the miracle of your condescension might be reflected with greater brilliance in the least suitable…
You […] take pleasure in this union. This I can only ascribe to the folly of your love, if I may dare to speak in this way. As you have yourself asserted, you find your happiness in some incredible way in uniting your infinite wisdom with a being so unlike you and so unfitted for such a union…
…You are leading me graciously toward a blessed end. I humbly and firmly believe that I shall receive this gift from you, in the sweet kindness of your beneficent love, according to your faithful promise and despite my great unworthiness; and I embrace it with unshakable love and gratitude. It is not through any merit of mine, but solely through the free gift of your mercy, O my all, my supreme, my only true, eternal Good![151]
Two things are most striking about this passage: first, that Gertrude insists that she owes everything to God's grace and not to her own merits; second, that her rebellious heart deserved to be bound in iron chains. The grace of Christ's heart sets her own heart free to love and to be transformed in his likeness. Gertrude then recounts the following vision of the divine heart in these words:
One day, as I was turning all these things over in my mind, rejoicing to see that your love so much outstripped my wickedness (cf. Rm 5.20), I was led to the presumption of reproaching you with not having sealed this pact in the customary way, by clasping hands. With you infinitely compliant sweetness, you promised to satisfy me, saying: "Cease these reproaches and come and receive the confirmation of my pact." And immediately (in my nothingness) I saw you opening with both hands the wound of your deified heart, the Tabernacle of divine faithfulness and infallible truth, and commanding me (perverse, like the Jews asking for a sign (Mt 12.38) to stretch forth my right hand. Then, contracting the aperture of the wound in which my hand was enclosed, you said: "See, I promise to keep intact the gifts which I have given you. And if it happens that at times, in the wise disposition of my providence, I deprive you of their effects, I oblige myself to give you afterward threefold gain, in the name of the Omnipotence, Wisdom, and Goodness of the sovereign Trinity, in which I live and reign, true God, for ever and ever."
After these words of sweetest love, when I withdrew my hand, there appeared on it seven circles of gold, like seven rings, one on each finger and on the ring finger three, in faithful testimony of the seven privileges for the confirmation of which I had asked. In the exuberance of your love, you added these words: "Whenever, mindful of your misery and knowing yourself to be unworthy of my gifts, you abandon yourself trustfully to my goodness, by so doing you will be offering me payment of the tribute which is due on the goods which are mine." [152]
The clasping of hands is a sign of betrothal, a pledge of the nuptial union with the divine Spouse: it is both a present promise and a sign of that which is yet to come. Gertrude sees her desire for a sign as blameworthy, as indicating impatience and lack of faith. The Lord responds to her by revealing that the true sign of his faithfulness is his heart, the ark of the new Covenant; he bids her put her hand in his heart, as if she were a latter-day doubting Thomas. Then when she withdraws her hand, she sees that they are covered with seven rings, not merely one: for the Lord's faithfulness far surpasses even the highest human faithfulness, even when he seems distant and when his consolations are withdrawn for a time. He pledges spousal fidelity in the name of the Trinity; and Gertrude sees in this also a manifestation of the divine filiation, through which God is merciful to his children even when they fall into sin and impatience:
Oh, with what ingenuity your fatherly love cares for the needs of your children who have fallen into the greatest degradation! After the goods of innocence have been squandered, and as a consequence, the grace of devotion to you, you graciously accept what I cannot conceal, the recognition of my own unworthiness!
Grant that I may recognize this in all your gifts, both interior and exterior, for your glory and for my salvation, and also that in everything I may have perfect confidence in your love, Giver of gifts, from whom all good things proceed, without which nothing is reliable, nothing good![153]
From this passage, it is clear that Gertrude is proceeding outward from the particularity of her own affective union with the divine Spouse to a more universal application of this insight to all who become God's children by grace and who have received the Holy Spirit. Gertrude echoes both the sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus[154] and the words of St. Paul in Rm 8.14-17 and Ga 4.6-7: for apart from the vivifying Spirit, there is nothing in human nature that is untouched by the corruption of sin, by which the natural man is enslaved; but those who have received the Spirit have become children of God in Christ. Like Gertrude, they have received the libertas cordis that is the fruition of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, and which renders their prayers and sacrifices acceptable through Christ's mediation and the Father's mercy.
In this connection, it is important to recognize the influence of William of St. Thierry on Gertrude's Legatus and especially on the above passages. And although his influence on Gertrude is not as great as St. Bernard's, he does speak of the heart of Christ in a way that clearly helped to shape Gertrude's own descriptions. Here are the relevant passages from William of St. Thierry's On Contemplating God and his Meditations:
For I indeed I am as yet wholly in my sins, I have not learned yet how to die to myself in order to live to you. And yet it is by your command and by your gift that I stand upon the rock of faith in you, the rock of the Christian faith, and in the place where you are present. On that rock I take my stand meanwhile, with such patience as I can command, and I embrace and kiss your right hand that covers and protects me. And sometimes, when I gaze with longing, I do see the "back" of him who sees me; I see your Son Christ "passing by" in the abasement of his incarnation.
But when in my eagerness I would approach him and, like the woman with the issue, am ready to steal the healing for my poor ailing soul by furtively touching even the hem of his garment, or when like Thomas, that man of desires, I want to see and touch the whole of him and--what is more--to approach the most holy wound in his side, the portal of the ark that is there made, and that not only to put my finger or my whole hand into it, but wholly enter into Jesus' very heart, into the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant, the golden urn, the soul of our humanity that holds within itself the manna of the Godhead--then, alas! I am told: "Touch me not!" and I hear the word from the Book of Revelation: "Dogs outside!"
Thus, and deservedly, my conscience harries and chastises me, forcing me to pay the penalty for my presumption and my wickedness. Then I return to my rock, the rock that is a refuge for the hedge-hogs that bristle all over with sins. And once again I embrace and kiss your right hand that covers and protects me.[155]
Those unsearchable riches of your glory, Lord, were hidden in your secret place in heaven until the soldier's spear opened the side of your Son our Lord and Savior on the cross, and from it flowed the mysteries our our redemption. Now we may not only thrust our finger or our hand into his side, like Thomas, but through that open door may enter whole, O Jesus, even into your heart, the sure seat of your mercy, even into your holy soul that is filled with the fullness of God, full of grace and truth, full of our salvation and our consolation.
Open, O Lord, the ark-door of your side, that all your own who shall be saved may enter in, before this flood that overwhelms the earth. Open to us your body's side, that those who long to see the secrets of your Son may enter in, and may receive the sacraments that flow therefrom, even the price of their redemption. Open the door of your heaven, that your redeemd may see the good things of God in the land of the living, though they still labor in the land of the dying.[156]
Lord, whither do you draw those whom you thus embrace and enfold, save to your heart? The manna of your Godhead, which you, O Jesus, keep within the golden vessel of your all-wise human soul, is your sweet heart! Blessed are they whom your embrace draws close to it. Blessed the souls whom you have hidden in your heart, that inmost hiding-place, so that your arms overshadow them from the disquieting of men and they only hope in your covering and fostering wings. Those who are hidden in your sweet heart are overshadowed by your mighty arms; they sleep sweetly…[157]
The similarities and the differences between Gertrude and William of St. Thierry are equally striking. Both have a deep sense of their unworthiness in daring to approach Christ at all; William even applies the harsh words of Rv 22.15 to himself, as if he were a dog to be exluded from the Kingdom. Nevertheless, he is commanded to place his trust in Christ the Rock, and he does so. He fears approaching with presumption and over-confidence, even though he likens himself to the woman with the hemorrage who wishes to touch the hem of Jesus' garment. Gertrude, on the other hand, is rewarded for her confidence and for her desire to have her union with the Divine Spouse sealed by a special sign. William of St. Thierry speaks with similar awe of the divine heart of Christ and desires it; but he seems rather to prostrate himself in awe and wonder before the heart he beholds through the wound in Christ's side. Gertrude is so confident that she is the Lord's dove that she does not hesitate to approach the Savior's heart with a kind of trustful familiarity.
In all these passages from the Legatus, there is a sort of dialectic between the particularity of the grace given to Gertrude and its more universal implications: her election is due to no merit of her own and is meant to build up the entire body of Christ. In this sense, her extraordinary visions and graces simply confirm what is true of all who are redeemed by Christ and who have received the Spirit through the mediation of the glorified humanity of Jesus, as symbolized by his deified heart. The mystical union of which Gertrude speaks is expressed in both nuptial imagery and in that of divine filiation: this, too, is in accord with the divine economy. In the Incarnation, God the Son has "espoused" human nature and thereby made mankind capable of divine sonship (deification by grace) and of the most intimate union with the Trinity.[158] Christ's mystical espousal of Gertrude (symbolized in the vision of his heart and her reception of the seven rings) is a grace intended to make others aware of the divine union that flows to all Christians from the Incarnation and the Cross.
3.5 Exchange of hearts
Gertrude in the second book of the Legatus divinae pietatis attests that she has at various times experienced the exchange of hearts with Christ:
All that I have read or heard about the
Among these favors are two which I will mention in particular. They are the seal put on my heart (cf Wisd. 9:10) with those brilliant jewels which are your salvific wounds and the wound of love with which you so manifestly and efficaciously transfixed my heart. Had you given me no other consolation, interior or exterior, these two gifts alone would have held so much happiness that, were I to live a thousand years, I could never exhaust the fund of consolation, learning, and feelings of gratitude that I should derive from them at each hour.
In addition to all these favors, you have granted me the pricelsss gift of your familiar friendship, giving me in various ways, to my indescribable delight, the noblest treasure of the divinity, you divine heart, now bestowing it freely, now as a sign of our mutual familiarity, exchanging it with mine. How often have you revealed to me your secret counsels and your pleasures, melting my soul with your loving caresses! Did I not know the abyss of your overflowing goodness, I wonder whether I could understand how you show such tokens as these marks of your lavish affection even on the creature of all others most worthy of them, your blessed Mother who reigns with you in heaven.[159]
The experience of the exchange of hearts is a particular kind of experience in which there is such a profound supernatural transformation of the will and the affections that the one so favored no longer wills or loves anything other than what God wills or loves. This may be experienced and manifested by an intellectual or imaginal vision in which the sacrum commercium of mutual self-giving is represented by an exchange of hearts between Christ and the visionary.[160]
Gertrude has evidently experienced this exchange of
hearts; but it has not taken place in isolation from the other mystical graces
she has received. She herself emphasizes two such graces: the seal that the
Lord has put on her heart with his five wounds, and the wound of love by which
he has pierced her heart. Both of these mystical graces entail the conforming
of Gertrude's heart with the heat of Jesus; these graces, in turn, culminate in
the exchange of hearts, a union so intimate that Christ raises her to such a
height that she can share with him on equal terms, like a queen who shares in
the king's rank and splendor. Gertrude is convinced that all the magnificence
of Solomon's temple or of the
3.6 The divine heart
of Jesus as complex symbol
Although it is always clear that, for Gertrude, the primary image of her visions is Christ's glorified heart of flesh, her descriptions do not always adhere closely to this image in every literal physical detail. Christ sometimes also manifests his heart to her in ways that are difficult to visualize: for example, as a lamp, or as a harp, or as a lyre. Since each of these images, in its literal sense, is quite different from that of a heart of flesh, it is clear that for Gertrude the heart of Christ sometimes needs to be understood in a more expansive and symbolic sense. Though the primary sense remains Christ's heart of flesh as the living center of his sacred humanity and of his divine person, the heart of Christ can include within itself also other symbols and visual images that seem initially to be discordant. The most significant of these subordinate images in Gertrude's visions are those of the lamp, the harp, and the lyre.
3.7 Divine heart as
lamp
Gertrude is well aware of her human limitations, especially in her efforts to pray the divine office faithfully and attentively. Christ responds to her anxiety by giving his heart to her in the form of a lamp in order to sustain and perfect her:
Another time, when she was striving to pay the greatest attention to each single note and word and seeing that in this she was very often hindered by human frailty, sadly she said within herself: "And what profit can there be in a labor in which I am so inconsistent?" The Lord could not bear her sadness and gave her, with his own hands as it were, his divine heart in the form of a lighted lamp, saying, "Behold, here is my heart, the sweetest instrument of the ever adorable Trinity. I hold it in front of the eyes of your heart; it will supply all that you lack, faithfully making up for all that you entrust to it. And so everything will appear most perfect in my sight. Because, like a faithful servant who is always ready to do what his lord pleases, from now onward my heart will always cleave to you, so that it may make up at any time for all your negligences."
Awestruck in her amazement at such unheard-of condescension on the Lord's part, she deemed it most incongruous that the heart of the Lord, the unique, most precious treasure-house of the divinity, containing all goodness, should be placed at the service of such a little creature, waiting, like the servant of a lord, to supply for all her negligences.[162]
It is possible that the language and imagery of this vision are derived
in part from a passage in Pr
Conserva, fili mi,
praecepta patris tui
et ne reicias
legem matris tuae;
liga ea in corde tuo
iugiter
et circumda
gutturi tuo.
Cum ambulaveris, dirigent
te,
cum dormieris,
custodient te
et, cum
evigilaveris, colloquentur tecum.
Quia mandatum lucerna est,
et lex lux,
et via vitae
increpatio disciplinae,
ut custodiant te a muliere
mala
et a blanda
lingua extraneae;
non concupiscat
pulchritudinem eius cor tuum,
nec capiaris
nutibus illius:
pretium enim scorti vix est
torta panis,
mulier autem
viri pretiosam animam capit.
Numquid potest homo
abscondere ignem in sinu tuo,
et vestimenta illius non ardebunt?[163]
(My son, keep your father's commandment,
and forsake not your mother's teaching.
Bind them upon your heart always;
tie them about your neck.
When you walk, they will lead you;
when you lie down, they will watch over you;
and when you awake, they will talk with you.
For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is a light,
and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,
to preserve you from the evil woman,
from the smooth tongue of the adventuress.
Do not desire her beauty in your heart,
and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;
for a harlot may be hired for a loaf of bread,
but an adulteress [Vulgate: a woman] stalks a man's very life.
Can a man carry fire in his bosom
and his clothes not be burned?)[164]
By a Christological appropriation of the imagery contained in this biblical passage, Gertrude has given it a completely new content. In her vision, the Lord's own heart (rather than the divine law itself) is the lamp that lights the way of life and that gives Gertrude an inner illumination. She finds that she is too weak and inconstant to keep the Lord's commandments in her heart, as the proverb advises; but the luminous divine heart of Christ supplies for her inability and remedies her defects. The proverb warns prudently that that the attraction of a seductive woman is like fire in the bosom that will inevitably burn the man who loves her; in contrast, Gertrude audaciously takes the image of fire in the bosom and applies it to the Savior's heart, since the charity of Christ knows nothing of merely human prudence or calculation. In Gertrude's vision, the Lord does not follow the proverb's counsel and rather allows his bosom to burn with love for one who is unworthy of it. Christ gives his heart to Gertrude precisely because she has need of it, and not because she is deserving; under the image of the divine heart, the Lord's "fire in the bosom" becomes the lamp that illuminates the beloved. In this imparting of himself to his beloved, Christ purifies and transforms her, making her one with him through the union of their hearts. Just as Gertrude has applied the image of the Church as the holy Dove to herself, so she also implicitly applies the images used in Pr 6 to herself, as well. In doing so, she identifies herself with the figure of the Church as the Casta Meretrix who, by unmerited union with Christ's burning heart, becomes the Immaculata Ecclesia.[165] Gertrude does not hesitate to speak of the necessity of offering up the heart of Christ for the sins of the Church; and as an ecclesial soul, she emphatically includes herself in the need for purification by the heart of Christ.[166]
In Gertrude's vision, the divine heart appears as
luminous, because Christ is the light of the world and because his glorified
humanity is now radiant; and yet, the light is also veiled in his heart, as a
lamp that sheds light even while it is enclosed in a lantern. So it is with
Christ's humanity, as symbolized by his heart: the light is adapted to the
capacity to Gertrude's capacity to receive it. This lamp-heart is the organ of
the Trinity: for it reveals the Father and the Spirit, and mediates to man the
Trinitarian life. There are clear echoes here of Christ's words in John's
Gospel: "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in
the darkness, but will have the light of life" (Jn 8.12; cf. also Jn 9.5).
Jesus says this in the context of the Feast of Tabernacles, when the golden
lamps were lit in the
After this, while she was thinking with gratitude of the more-than-magnificent gift just mentioned, she asked the Lord how long he would graciously deign to let her keep it. The Lord answered her: "As long as you wish to keep it I shall not cause you to suffer by withdrawing it from you." Then she said: "O God, author of inestimable marvels, how is it that I am aware of your divine heart hanging in the form of a lamp in the midst of my heart (alas, so unworthy), and yet, whenever, by the favor of your grace, I may dare to approach you, I have the joy of finding it within myself, offering me an abundance of all delights?"[167]
This light, according to John, is the light which enlightens every man that comes into the world (cf Jn 1.9); Gertrude has received the special grace to know this light in a unique way in the image of the luminous heart of Christ.
3.8 Divine heart as
musical instrument: harp and lyre of the Trinity
One of the surprising similitudes expressed in Gertrude's revelations for the heart of Jesus is that of a musical instrument whose music gives glory to God. Before examining the passages in which these images occurs, it is right to recall that these visions took place in a liturgical and monastic setting, in which the singing of the psalmody and other forms of sacred music formed the nuns' spiritual outlook. When the Lord wishes to console and encourage Gertrude, he uses a musical analogy:
The Lord kindly came to the rescue of such faintheartedness and deigned to encourage her with this similitude: "Suppose," he said, "that having a very musical and supply voice, and moreover a great love of singing, someone near you who had a very loud and harsh voice were singing very badly so that even after making great efforts she could hardly sing a note correctly, wouldn't you be indignant if she would not let you sing what you are able and most ready to render, and what she would do with so much difficulty? So, without any doubt, my divine heart, recognizing the frailty and inconstancy of human nature always waits with ineffable longing to supply for whatever is entrusted to it, if not by words, at least by a sign, so as to do for you whatever you are unable to do for yourself. Its omnipotence makes it act with ease; its impenetrable wisdom enables it to know what is best; and the goodness which is natural to me makes me desire with sweet and joyful benevolence to accomplish this end."[168]
In the vision of the divine heart in the form of a lamp, Christ describes his heart as the "sweetest instrument (Latin, organum) of the ever adorable Trinity": the word organum can indicate a musical instrument as well as a bodily organ. The Lord himself here compares his perfecting of Gertrude's prayers with the way in which a good voice in choro fittingly compensates for the defects of a poor voice. In this way, the revelation of the divine heart can include also musical metaphors and images.
In Book II, Gertrude recounts that she has experience a relapse into indifference and distaste for the graces she has received:
Now, as time passed, most wretched, unworthy, and ungrateful of creatures that I am, I began to lose the taste for these graces which should make heaven and earth continually dance for joy, rejoicing that you, from your infinite height, should graciously descend to my extreme lowness; you, O Giver, Renewer, and Preserver of all good things, aroused me from the torpor and revived my gratitude. And this you did by revealing the secret of your gifts to several persons whom I knew to be particularly faithful friends of yours. I am perfectly certain that they could have had it from no human source, for I revealed it to no one. And yet I heard it from their lips in words which I recognized in my heart.
With these words and all the others which now crowd into my mind, I want to render that which is your due. With the sweetly melodious harp of your divine heart, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, I sing to you, Lord God, adorable Father, songs of praise and thanksgiving on behalf of all creatures in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Ph 2:10); all which are, were, and shall be.[169]
Here Gertrude is once more aware of her inconstancy and weakness even when she has received revelations that should make all creation dance for joy (for dancing, too, is a musical image, present in the Psalms). In this time of lukewarmness, Gertrude is revived by her sisters' humanly inexplicable awareness of the graces that Gertrude has received; and her own heart responds with joy at this realization, leaving her resolved to offer to God a fitting song of gratitude. Just as a strong voice compensates for a weak voice in the choral office, so the fervor of the other nuns makes up for Gertrude's spiritual lassitude. Gertrude finds the harp to be the most apt metaphor for the heart of Jesus: it is the instrument often depicted as played by the angelic choirs in heaven, and is mentioned in the Psalms as the musical accompaniment of worship. There is also a clear echo of Ps 137, whose words recall the Jewish exiles who hung up their harps since they could not sing the Lord's songs in a profane land. However, for Gertrude, the heart of Christ in heaven overcomes the sense of exile from God's presence, so that her praises of the Trinity can become acceptable on the "harp" of Christ's glorified humanity. In using this harp-metaphor for the heart of Christ, Gertrude is recognizing that not even the best human or angelic liturgy can truly glorify God as God should be glorified, unless it is offered through the mediation of the glorious heart of Jesus, the one Mediator.
The symbolism of the lyre is similarly applied to the divine heart in Gertrude's visions, especially as the symbolic representation of the way in which the glorified humanity of Christ glorifies the Trinity. On the feast of the Holy Trinity, Gertrude received the following vision:
While Vespers was afterwards being sung, the Son of God, holding in His hands His most worthy Heart in the form of a lyre, presented it to the most glorious Trinity. By means of that Heart in the form of a lyre, all the words which were being sung on that feast resounded most sweetly in the presence of God. The song of those who sang without any special devotion and just because it was the custom, or who sang for human pleasure, those heavier strings, they sent forth a low grumbling of bass notes. But those who wanted to sing with devotion the praise of the venerable Trinity sent forth, as if with higher notes, a clear melody of sweetest music…
During the morning Office, while the antiphon Te jure laudant was being sung at Lauds, Gertrude praised the venerable Trinity with the same antiphon and with all her strength… Then it seemed to her that the whole resplendent and ever tranquil Trinity, with great kindness deigned to incline Itself toward the most worthy Heart of Jesus, which, like a lyre, began to vibrate wonderfully and to resound sweetly in the presence of the Trinity. And the Trinity set three strings in that lyre-like Heart which would be able without interruption to supply for Gertrude's every defect, with the invincible omnipotence of God the Father, the wisdom of the Son of God, and the benevolence of the Holy Spirit, according to the good pleasure of the Most Blessed Trinity.[170]
In this passage, the image of the musical instrument--in this case, a lyre--is employed to express the mediatorial role of Christ's heart in heaven in glorifying the Trinity. The songs and praises of the Church on earth (in particular, the psalms and canticles sung by the nuns in the divine office) are perfected and harmonized by the "lyre" of the Savior's heart; even the lukewarm praises are played on the strings of this lyre, and together with the more fervent praises (which sound the higher notes), all becomes a fitting hymn to the glory of the Trinity. In this way, Gertrude makes clear that no one can be presumptuous or complacent about imperfection and lukewarmness; and yet, she is confident that the divine heart in heaven will harmonize and purify all these defects, in the perfect music made by the lyre of the Lord's glorified humanity, in the inner life of the Trinity.
CHAPTER FOUR
HEART OF CHRIST: UNITIVE
CENTER OF THE MASS,
THE HEAVENLY LITURGY, AND
THE INNER CLOISTER
4.1 Sacrament and
sacrifice
The Mass can be considered under its twofold aspects of sacrament and sacrifice: as sacrament, the consecrated host is the true presence of Christ's body and blood, which are received in communion; while as sacrifice, it is the Church's sacramental oblation of the one redemptive sacrifice of the Cross. Therefore, as sacrament, the Eucharist is received in Holy Communion, with the emphasis being placed on the descending of the heavenly gift; while, as sacrifice, the Mass is offered to God, in an ascending movement, on behalf of the entire Church. It is evident that these two aspects, descending and ascending, are both integral to the Mass, though they can be distinguished conceptually. For St. Gertrude, the Savior's heart is the unifying center that encompasses both aspects of this mystery, as well as her own personal union with Christ through the sacrament.
4.1.1 Divine heart in the
form of a chalice
In the context of a Mass offered during Advent, the heart of Jesus appeared to Gertrude in the form of a chalice--though of a very unusual kind:
Now she offered her heart to the Lord with these words: "See, Lord, here is my heart, empty of all creatures. I offer it to you with my whole will, praying that you will wash it in the sanctifying water from your most sacred side, and that you will adorn it becomingly with the precious blood of your most sweet heart, and that you may prepare it for yourself most fittingly in the fragrant ardor of your divine love."
Then the Son of God appeared, offering to God the Father her heart united with his divine heart, in the likeness of a chalice, made of two parts, joined with wax. Seeing this, she said to the Lord in devout supplication: "Grant, most loving Lord, that my heart may cleave always to you, like a flagon which is offered for the refreshment of lords, that you may always, at your pleasure, have it at hand, clean, and ready to pour into it or out of it at any time you please, and for whomsoever you please." The Son of God kindly accepted this and said to his Father: "To your eternal praise, O holy Father, may that heart pour forth all that my human heart contains for distribution."[171]
These images seem to combine incompatible features: a heart of flesh, in the form of a chalice, divided into two parts, with the two parts united by wax: these details are difficult to visualize or to harmonize on a literal level. It is clear therefore that Gertrude intends something ineffably beyond the literal meaning of these images since the images derive from a liturgical context, and in particular from the sacrificial action of the Mass. As elsewhere in Gertrude's visions, the objective piety of the liturgical-sacramental life is intertwined with the more personal and affective response to Christ's humanity. At Mass, she offers her own heart in a personal application of the Sursum corda; and the Lord receives this oblation into his own heart, in the form of a chalice. The chalice is Christ's own heart, which encompasses and includes Gertrude's heart; and yet the chalice has two parts, which are distinct but not separated. This symbolism of differentiated union is applicable to Gertrude's union with Christ, by which Gertrude belongs wholly to him, yet without losing her own identity. This possibility of union without confusion itself derives from the differentiation of the two natures of Christ, divine and human, which are distinct and yet never confused, though harmoniously united in one Person. Gertrude's own humanity (her heart) experiences a transforming union in the Sacrifice of the Mass precisely because it is included within the self-offering of Christ's glorified humanity (his heart) to the Father. The chalice which holds the Precious Blood images the heart of Jesus, from which the Precious Blood flows and is communicated to all the members of Christ's body. This is clear from Gertrude's vision of the nuns at this Mass, when she sees each of them joined to Christ's heart by a golden tube, which she identifies with the graced freedom of each one of them, so that they can draw the grace of Christ upon themselves according to their degree of affective union with his heart.[172] This symbol of the golden tube is itself suggestive of communion, since a golden tube was often used in order to receive the Precious Blood from the chalice, even as late as the twelfth century. In this way, Christ's heart is the living chalice from which Christ's blood flows; and the chalice at the altar is a sacramental image of the divine heart. Thus, for Gertrude, the two symbols of heart and chalice co-inhere in the Mass and in communion.
4.1.2 Divine heart and the
host: sacramental kenosis of Christ
Gertrude sees the Eucharist as a manifestation of the Lord's condescension and humility, as a sacramental kenosis by which he abases himself in order to raise her up to himself:
She had received communion, and while she was recollecting herself, the Lord showed himself to her in the form of a pelican, such as it is usually represented, piercing its heart with its beak. Looking at it in wonder, she said: "O my Lord, what are you trying to teach me by this similitude?" The Lord replied: "That you may consider what ineffable ardor of love compels me to offer such a precious gift; and, if it does not sound too paradoxical to say this, that I should prefer that this gift would lead to my death, rather than that I should deprive a loving soul of this gift of myself. Moreover, you must consider the excellent way in which your soul, in receiving this gift, is invigorated and receives the life which lasts eternally; just as the little pelican is invigorated with blood from the father's heart."[173]
Gertrude's vision of Christ in the form of a pelican piercing his
heart is in one way profoundly conventional but in another way quite
surprising. The symbolism of the pelican is traditional because of the legend
that the mother pelican pierces her heart in order to feed her young with her
blood; thus the pelican's self-sacrifice symbolizes Christ's death, and the
outpoured blood symbolizes his Eucharistic blood.
Pie pellicane, Iesu Domine,
me immundum munda
tuo sanguine; cuius una
stilla
salvum facere,
totum mundum quit ab
omni scelere.
(Deign, O Jesus, Pelican of heaven,
Me, a sinner, in thy Blood to lave,
To a single drop of which is given
All the world from all its sin to save).[174]
Gertrude departs from this traditional symbolism in one important way: in her vision, it is the father pelican who pierces his heart and sheds his blood.[175] This difference harmonizes with Gertrude's consistent emphasis on Christ's maleness--for her, the Lord Jesus is always the divine Bridegroom. Gertrude's insistence on the symbolism of the father pelican also serves to emphasize that the Son is one with the Father, and that there is no internal opposition within the Trinity as regards man's redemption. In Gertrude there is no suggestion of the Father as a wrathful deity who demands to be placated by the crucifixion of an innocent third party, as if the attribute of justice applied only to the Father and the attribute of mercy only to the Son. On the contrary, in the entire economy of salvation, the Son is wholly obedient to the Father, whose mercy is incarnate in the Son's self-sacrifice. Thus the heart of the pelican represents the heart of Christ as wholly one with the "heart" of his Father, and which therefore is capable of satisfying both justice and love in a way beyond human comprehension.
From the very next paragraph of Gertrude's Legatus, it is evident that Gertrude knows that God has shown himself both just and merciful in the self-abasement of the Incarnation and the Cross, and that justice and mercy are consequently also one in the Lord's sacramental presence:
Another day, the preacher had given a long sermon on divine justice, which made such an impression on her that she was alarmed and trembled to approach the divine sacrament. God in his loving kindness encouraged her with these words: "If you forget to see with the eyes of faith the signs of the goodness I have shown you in many, many ways, do at least see with the eyes of your body this small pyx in which I am enclosed in order to come to you; and be assured that the strictness of my justice is quite as completely enclosed in the meekness of my mercy; and it is that mercy which I show to all in this visible sacrament."
On another occasion, at a similar hour and in the same manner, the divine Love invited her to taste of his gentle sweetness with these words: "Observe the smallness of the material form in which I show you the whole of my divinity and my humanity, and compare this size with the size of the human body; judge, then, to what extent I stoop in my benevolence; for just as the size of the human body exceeds the size of my body--that is, my body under the species of bread--it is my mercy and my charity which induce me in this sacrament to permit the loving soul in some sort to prevail over me."[176]
In this passage, the host is portrayed as a sacramental extension of the Incarnation, which bridges the abyss between the all-holy God and the reality of human finitude and sinfulness: in the host, as in the Incarnation in Mary's womb, the impassible and invisible God becomes accessible and intimate through his assumed and now glorified humanity.
Christ himself needs nothing from any creature and yet his heart longs for Gertrude's response of love through the reception of the sacrament of his body and blood:
It happened once that many of the community had been obliged to abstain from going to communion; and she, after having received the sacred mystery, was the more devoutly making her thanksgiving, saying to the Lord: "You invited me to your banquet and I came giving thanks." The Lord rejoined with these most tender words, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb (Ps 18:11): "Know that I desired you with my whole heart." Then she said: "And what delectable glory, O Lord, could accrue to your divinity from me, when in my unworthiness I break up your immaculate sacrament between my teeth?" To which the Lord answered: "The heart's love makes the words of the loved one sound sweet. And so my own love make me take delight sometimes in what my chosen ones would find little to their taste."[177]
Gertrude realizes that the notion of breaking the Lord's flesh and blood with her teeth seems offensive to reason and even lacking in love, by any merely human criterion; and yet, the divine heart desires this communion in order for Gertrude to be more perfectly united with her Savior. At a more fundamental level, Christ humbles himself in the Mass by waiting upon the free response of one he has created and redeemed, and who owes him everything. In this way, Gertrude in receiving Holy Communion is wholly receptive but more than simply passive in responding to the invitation to approach the Lord's table.
4.1.3 Sacrifice and
communion for the holy souls in purgatory
In receiving the sacrament of Christ's body and blood, Gertrude is always aware that the reception of the sacrament is inseparable from the offering of the sacrifice, since her personal sanctification is not merely for her own sake, but also for the good of the entire mystical body of Christ. This is evident in the following passage:
On another communion day, as she was offering to the Lord the victim which is the Lord's body for the alleviation of the souls in purgatory, she perceived that by this offering the sufferings of the faithful souls had in fact been much relieved. Then, full of wonder, she said to the Lord: "O my most loving Lord (and I can say this only through your grace), although I am, alas, so very unworthy, yet you always deign to honor me with your presence, or, rather, to dwell within me; how is it that you do not always bring about in me the same effect as that which I now experience after having received your most sacred body?" to that the Lord replied: "Just as when a king is dwelling in his palace, access is not always easy for everyone, but when, overcome by his love of the queen who dwells nearby, he deigns to quit his palace in order to pass through the city to visit her, then all the citizens and inhabitants of the city (thanks to the queen) may more easily and more fully enjoy his royal liberality and wealth. And so it is with me when, moved by the tenderness and sweetness of my heart, through the life-giving sacrament of the altar, I incline toward a faithful soul who is without mortal sin: all the inhabitants of heaven as well as of earth and of purgatory receive an increase of priceless benefits."
As she was preparing for communion on another day, she felt a great desire to abase herself in the lowest valley of humility and to hide herself in it out of reverence for the amazing graciousness of the Lord in communicating his precious body and blood to his chosen ones. And now the profound humiliation of the Son of God when he descended into limbo to overthrow it became clear to her. By trying to unite herself to him in his humility, it seemed to her that she had descended into the very depths of purgatory. Then, abasing herself as much as she could, she understood that the Lord was saying to her: "When you receive me in the sacrament, I will draw you so close to myself that you will draw with you all those who have inhaled the priceless fragrance of your desire which clings to your garments (Sg 1:3)."[178]
This passage reveals several important aspects of Gertrude's
spiritual doctrine regarding the Mass and the heart of Jesus: first, that
Gertrude clearly offers Christ's body
and blood in the Sacrifice before she receives
the sacrament; second, that the Mass, as an act of corporate worship, has a
vicarious and representative dimension, through which even those who cannot
communicate sacramentally (i.e., the souls in purgatory) may benefit from the
sacrifice. Thanks to the communion of saints and the mystical unity of all of the
members of Christ's body, the divine heart of Christ is moved by the love of a
faithful soul to relieve and sanctify those who are not yet perfected in
charity. The heart of Christ loves Gertrude in a unique way, and yet not in an
exclusive way; for her graces are intended to benefit others and to make her a
privileged intercessor by her special union with the Christ in the
In this intercession for the faithful departed, Gertrude
manifests a sense of the unity of the Church that transcends the limits of this
life: for through her self-oblation in the Mass, the entire body of Christ
benefits, whether in heaven, on earth, or in purgatory. In this way, one may
speak of an eschatological dimension in Gertrude's spirituality of the Mass,
though one which focuses on the eschatological Kingdom as present in the Church
and in individual souls. Gertrude is united in charity with all who belong to
Christ; and through her intercession, the Lord's heart will bring the
sanctification of the holy souls in purgatory to its final consummation in the
joy of heaven. As M. L. Natali says, in Gertrude there is a strong sense of an
anticipated eschatology;[179] and this means primarily
individual eschatology, inasmuch as Gertrude is able through the Mass and
communion to transcend the barriers of time and death, on behalf of the holy
souls on purgatory. In the Mass, Gertrude unites her own heart with Christ's
kenosis in descending even in inferos.
In so doing, Gertrude feels herself to be in the most profound spiritual
communion with the souls in purgatory, who are still being purified and
transformed in Christ's likeness. Hence this kenosis is not an end in itself
but the necessary means of eventual glorification in Christ. In this respect,
the conformation of Gertrude's heart to the heart of Jesus in the Mass
faithfully reflects the threefold aspect of the redemption--kenosis, death,
exaltation--of which
This fundamental Pauline scheme is expressed in Gertrude's spirituality of the Mass in the following passage:
After this promise, whenever she was desirous of receiving the sacrament, she asked that the Lord would grant her as many souls from purgatory as there were particles into which the Host broke in her mouth, and as she tried to divide it into as many pieces as she could, the Lord said to her: "That you may know that my mercies are over all my works (Ps 144.9) and that there is no creature that can exhaust the abyss of my love, behold, I am ready to grant you, through the merits of this life-giving sacrament, a much greater number than you would presume to ask me for."[180]
At this point, the Lord corrects a tendency to specify too minutely the fruits of a given Mass or communion: just as the true presence of Christ's body and blood does not depend on the size of the fragments of the host, so also the efficacy of the Mass for the holy souls remains God's secret, a mystery no more quantifiable or measurable than the presence of Christ in the consecrated host. For Gertrude, sacrament and sacrifice are inseparable aspects of the Mass: she offers the Victim in the sacrifice and also offers the fruits of her communion for the holy souls by receiving the sacrament on their behalf.
4.1.4 Heart of Christ and
Mass without communion
One of the most poignant passages in Gertrude's Legatus is her description of her sense of desolation when her community was deprived of the sacraments due to an interdict imposed by the cathedral chapter of Halberstadt in 1295. This penalty was the result of a property dispute with the canons, who had the power to impose the interdict during the vacancy of the see.[181] Gertrude wonders how she and her community can benefit from the Mass when they are deprived of the possibility of sacramental communion:
On another day, at about the time of the oblation of the saving Victim, when she was offering this same Host to the Lord for his eternal praise and for the salvation of the whole community, the Lord himself received the Host within himself, and then, breathing life-giving sweetness from his inmost being, said: "With this breath I will feed them with divine food." Then she said to him: "Now, my Lord, are you giving communion to the whole community?" He replied: "No, but only to those who desire it or who would wish to have such a desire. As for the others, because they belong to the community, they will be granted the grace to receive that strong desire for it; as in the case of a person who, while taking little interest in food, is finally attracted by the savory smell to take pleasure in eating.
On the feast of the Assumption, at the elevation of the Host, she heard the Lord saying: "I am coming, that I may offer myself to God the Father for my members." She replied: "Shall you, most loving Lord, suffer us, your members, to be cut off from you by the excommunication which those who are trying to rob us of our goods inflict on us?" To which the Lord said: "If anyone is able to take from me the very marrow of my bones--for so closely to you cleave to me--let him cut you off from me. This excommunication which has been imposed on you will do you no more harm that would someone trying to cut you with a wooden knife, which cannot penetrate at all, but only leave some slight impression made by its blade."[182]
In the first of these two visions, Christ himself receives communion on behalf of the nuns who cannot do so. From his innermost being--that is, from his heart--Christ breathes forth his life, and spiritually feeds the nuns who wish to receive the benefits of his body and blood. In this way, Christ's reception of the host is implicitly recognized as the opening of Christ's "heart" since the effusion of grace from his innermost being takes place after his communion. The nuns receive the graces of communion ex voto sacramenti and by the working of the Holy Spirit, whom Christ breathed forth on the cross and on the evening of his resurrection (Jn 19.30; 20.22). In his words to Gertrude, Christ promises not only to grant spiritual communion to those who desire it explicitly but also to bless the entire community, for the sake of the fervent nuns who truly hunger and thirst for the sacrament.
In the vision received on the Assumption, the Lord assures Gertrude that he is coming to offer himself in the Mass for the sake of his members, despite the interdict imposed on the community of Helfta. The timing of this vision on the solemnity of the Assumption gives this revelation an implicitly Marian and eschatological dimension: for in the Assumption of his mother, Christ has proleptically glorified her in both body and soul, having already accomplished in her the glorification promised in Jn 6.54 as the effect of the Eucharist for believers. For the Mother of God, the sacramental signs have given way to the perfect union which they signify; and though not an ordained priest, Mary is a privileged intercessor for the faithful on earth. The Marian liturgical setting of Gertrude's vision therefore subtly emphasizes that the res of the Eucharist can be present even in the absence of the sacramentum tantum, if the deprivation is inculpable; and, consequently, that the faith and prayers of the nuns can still be accepted in the sacrifice of the Mass.
In the context of a Mass at which she cannot communicate, Gertrude received the following vision as a confirmation of Christ's promise:
It was the Sunday on which the feast of St. Lawrence fell, together with the anniversary of the dedication of the church. During the first Mass, she was praying for some people who had devoutly asked for her prayers, when she saw the trunk of a green vine reaching from the throne of heaven down to the earth; by means of its spreading foliage ascent could be made from the bottom to the top. She understood this ascent to mean the faith whereby the chosen are raised up to heavenly things. She recognized several of the community in high places at the top, to the left of the throne, as it were, and the Son of God standing with due reverence in the presence of his heavenly Father; it was at the time when the community would have been going to communion, had they not been prevented from doing so by the interdict. She greatly desired that she as well as the others there present might be spiritually favored with the life-giving sacrament, through the divine mercy which no human power can withstand. Then she saw the Lord Jesus holding in his had a Host which he seemed to plunge into the heart of God the Father; then he withdrew it, rosy red, as though it were stained red with blood. Very much at a loss, she asked herself what this might signify, since red is the symbol of suffering, and God the Father could never be marked by any trace of the red color of suffering. And while she was preoccupied with these thoughts, she failed to notice whether the desires she had expressed had been fulfilled, except that after a time she was aware that the Lord had found a peaceful resting-place in the heart and soul of those of the community whom she had recognized before in the high places. But she had no idea how this had come about.[183]
This vision reveals the fruitfulness of the Mass as a corporate and
vicarious sacrifice, even when communion is not possible: for it is faith
(represented in the vision by the green vine) that ascends toward the Father
through the Son's mediation, and in this way connects heaven and earth. Once
again, the liturgical setting carries certain associations: St. Lawrence was
the Roman deacon and martyr who gave all the Church's goods to the poor,
including the sacred vessels, rather than see them profaned or plundered.
In addition, the image of the vine clearly echoes Christ's words, "I am the vine, you are the branches" (Jn 15.5) in expressing the organic union between Christ and his members. The vine also has Eucharistic connotations because the fruit of the vine is consecrated to become the precious blood of the sacrament. Some of the nuns were set in a high place on this symbolic vine, close to Christ himself, in proportion to the faith that united them to him. Gertrude and these other fervent souls in her community desire union with Christ above all things; and God's response is the vision in which she sees Christ holding the host in his hands and plunging it into the Father's heart. This is a significant variation on the usual presentation of the heart of Christ in Gertrude's writings: here it is the Father's heart that is pierced by the sacramental offering of his Son (cf the symbolism of the father pelican in Legatus 3.18).[184] Gertrude finds this vision hard to understand since she knows that it is the Son, rather than the Father, who was incarnate and suffered for man's redemption. And yet, this vision signifies that her prayers for Christ's indwelling in the community's hearts had been answered. It seems, then, that this vision reflects Christ's words in John's Gospel: "I and the Father are one" (Jn 10.30) and "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14.8-9). The implication is that in the Mass, the heart of the Incarnate Word opens the way to the merciful heart of the Father. This is possible because the Persons of the Trinity are distinct yet indivisible in man's sanctification. In addition, Gertrude's vision emphasizes that faith and the mediation of Christ can compensate for any deprivation of sacramental communion, especially because the Mass as a sacrifice can bring graces even to those who do not communicate.
This is evident from the vision she then received of Christ as the eternal High Priest in the Mass:
Then she saw the almighty Lord descending by a sort of scarlet ladder and, shortly afterward, he appeared in the middle of the altar of the church, clad in pontifical vestments. In his hands he was holding a pyx like the one in which consecrated Hosts are usually reserved. During the whole of the Mass until the Preface, he continued seated, turned toward the priest. And such a multitude of angels were present for his service that the whole of the church to the right of the Lord, that is to the north, seemed to be filled with them. These angels showed the special joy they felt, enveloping with extreme affection this place in which their fellow-citizens, that is, the nuns of the community, were so continually offering their prayers to God… She understood that between the Lord and the holy virgins there shone a particular ray of light of snow-white brilliance, which united the virgins with the Lord more closely than all the other saints, seeming to caress them with the sweetest love and wonderfully joyous intimacy. She also understood that some rays of admirable brilliance were falling directly onto some members of the community, as though there were no obstacle between them and the Lord; although she knew that in reality several walls separated them from the church in which she beheld the vision.[185]
In this revelation, Gertrude sees Christ as the true priest and victim of the Mass, as he descends to the midst of the altar, holding the pyx and surrounded by countless angels, who take joy in the prayers of the nuns. The ray of light that illuminates the nuns and joins them to Christ signifies their union with him through the Holy Spirit, the lucis radium and the lumen cordium (cf. the sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus).[186] This light passes even through the wall that separates the nuns from the rest of the faithful, this symbolizes that the Eucharistic graces can reach the nuns even though they are sacramentally cut off from the rest of the Church. The Lord explains this by echoing the words of Ps 127: he gives his spiritual balm to his beloved even while they sleep--suggestive of the unction of the Holy Spirit. Gertrude ponders this and thinks of another similitude: when a man eats, it is only the mouth that tastes the food, though all the members of the body are nourished.[187] This analogy is particularly apt in the case of a community unjustly placed under interdict: their faith and prayers can still benefit the mystical body of Christ, and the sacramental communions of others can benefit them, as well.
As the Mass proceeds, Gertrude beholds Christ as the true priest and victim in the sacrifice, and therefore as the perfect intercessor before the Father:
Meanwhile, as the "Glory to God in the highest" was being intoned, the Lord Jesus, the Sovereign High Priest, sent forth toward heaven, to the glory of God the Father, a divine breath like a living flame. And at the words "and on earth peace to men of good will" he breathed forth this same breath, like gleaming snow, over all those who were present. Afterward, at the "Lift up your hearts," the Son of God arose and through his powerful attraction drew to himself the desires of all those present. Then, turning toward the east, surrounded by the countless angels who were ministering to him, he stood with raised hands and offered to God the Father, through the words of the Preface, the prayers of all the faithful. After this, when they began to intone the "Lamb of God," the Lord raised himself up on the altar, with all his majesty. At the second "Lamb of God," the inscrutable influence of his wisdom flowed into the hearts of each individual who was present. At the third "Lamb of God," concentrating himself toward heaven, he offered in his own person to God the Father the prayers and aspirations of all. Then, in the abundance of this overflowing sweetness, whiles giving the kiss of peace with his divine lips to all the holy ones there assembled, he accorded to the choir of virgins, in preference to all the others, the privilege that, after the mouth's kiss, he laid his tenderest kiss upon their heart. After this, the Lord poured forth, as it were, all the honeyed torrents of his divine love, giving himself to the community with these words: "I am wholly yours; let each of you enjoy me to her heart's content."
After this she said to the Lord: "Lord, although I am now filled with the most incredible sweetness, yet it seems to me that when you were on the altar you were too far from me. Grant me, therefore, during the Blessing of this Mass, the favor of feeling that my soul is united to you." This the Lord accomplished in such a way that she felt herself clasped to his breast and firmly held in divine union in an embrace that was as sweet as it was close.[188]
As in the earlier vision, the Lord sends forth toward his Father a divine breath like a living flame, signifying the Holy Spirit who fructifies the prayers of the Mass offered through Christ's high-priestly intercession. In the very next clause of the Gloria, the same Holy Spirit descends through Christ's mediation, being "breathed forth" upon the congregation. This time, however, the Spirit is compared to gleaming snow that covers the faithful. For Gertrude, the has manifested himself as the lucis radium and the lumen cordium illuminating the nuns in choir; under the image of brilliant snow, the Spirit here appears also the dulce refrigerium, in aestu temperies, whose snowy whiteness covers and sanctifies the community (cf Ps 51.7). As the fire of divine charity that sanctifies the offering at the altar, the Spirit brings warmth where charity has become cold: fove quod est frigidum, rege quod est devium.[189] In Gertrude's vision, the Holy Spirit is constantly ascending and descending in the Mass through the sacred and glorified humanity of Jesus, in order to sanctify the congregation and to make their prayers fruitful.
At the Sursum Corda, Christ draws all the community's hearts to himself, turning eastward in order to offer them and their prayers to the Father. At the Agnus Dei, the Lord arises in majesty, then imparts his wisdom to the worshippers' hearts, and finally offers in his own body the personal oblation of each of them, sealing his union with them by laying his kiss upon their hearts. What is most striking is that the heart of Jesus pervades this vision implicitly, from beginning to end, even though it is the Father's heart and the hearts of the faithful, especially the nuns' hearts, that are explicitly mentioned: the glorified heart of Christ--understood as representative of his mediatorial humanity--is by implication the basis upon which the union of hearts between God and his children is restored and maintained. In the context of the Mass, where these visions take place, the heart of Christ is the host itself, which is accepted by God and which touches the hearts of the community despite their inability to receive him sacramentally. Gertrude begins this series of visions with the host penetrating the Father's heart; and she concludes with her own mystical union with Christ after the final blessing, when she feels herself clasped to his breast. In the context of Gertrude's writings, the bosom of Christ is a near-synonym for his heart.
4.2 Christ's glorious
heart in heaven and the symbolic cloister
Gertrude's revelations of the divine heart depict it as the living center of the economy of grace, especially under two aspects: as an anticipation of the heavenly liturgy, and as the innermost meaning of the monastic vocation. These two are indeed closely linked since Gertrude was well aware from the twelfth step of humility that the monk stands already before God's judgment[190] and that therefore nothing should come before the love of Christ.[191] In the heart of Christ, the eschatological judgment and divine-human charity are one: the monastic consecration seeks to realize this reign of the heart of Christ in the hearts of a vowed community.
4.2.1 Divine heart as the
altar in heaven
In the vision narrated in Legatus 3.17, Christ descends from heaven to the altar on earth in order to offer the sacrifice; but there is also a corresponding aspect of the Mass, in which the liturgy on earth ascends through Christ's heart in order to participate in the liturgy of heaven:
The Lord Jesus, true Priest and High Pontiff, getting up from His imperial throne and elevating His most holy Heart, which appeared in the likeness of an altar of gold, seemed to present it with His own hands to God the Father and to immolate Himself in a manner so incomprehensible and inexpressible that no creature, however worthy, could aspire to understand it in any way at all. At the same moment that the Son of God offered His divine Heart to God the Father, the bell sounded in the monastery chapel for the elevation of the Host. And thus it happened that simultaneously the Lord fulfilled in heaven what was being done on earth through the ministry of the priest, while Gertrude was entirely unaware of what hour it was or of what was being sung in church.[192]
In this way, the earthly and the heavenly liturgies
inter-penetrate each other, in and through the Lord's heart, which is the
living source of all true worship, through whose mediation time is redeemed by
entering into God's eternity in heaven. Gertrude received this particular
vision on the third Sunday of Advent, while the Mass Gaudete was being celebrated in church, and when she was unable to
attend due to illness. In this respect, the situation is similar to her
experience under the interdict, though in this case, she is not deprived of
receiving the sacrament but of personal participation in the sacrifice of the
Thus, even if the altar in the monastic church is inaccessible to Gertrude, by faith in Christ she has unhindered access to the golden altar in heaven and to the mediation of his high priesthood: her prayers are offered on the heavenly altar with those of the saints. Gertrude is approaching her final illness and is becoming more aware of the eschatological dimension of the Mass and of the Mass as an anticipation of the glory of heaven. As her body weakens and her own death approaches, the hope of glory assumes a greater importance in her visions. The Lord's heart remains the unifying core of her spiritual life, as containing the altar and priesthood of the New Covenant; but now her visions speak less of the Lord's heart descending to her, and more of the divine heart raising her own heart up to participate in the life of the world to come.
4.2.2 Christ's heart as
the inner sanctum of the symbolic cloister
Gertrude received a vision in which the body of Christ was revealed as the true cloister, with his heart as the inner sanctum at its center:
At Vespers, while they were singing "Vidi aquam egredientem" the Lord said to her: "Behold my heart; now it will be your temple. And now look among the other parts of my body and choose for yourself other places in which you can lead a monastic life, because from now on my body will be your cloister. To this she said: "Lord, I do not know how to seek further or how to choose, because I find such sweet plenty in your sweetest heart, which you deign to call my temple, that apart from it I am unable to find any rest or refreshment, both of which are necessary in a cloister." Then the Lord said: "If it pleases you, you may find both these things in my heart; for you have heard about others who, like Dominic, never left the temple, eating and even sleeping there. Do choose, however, some other places which you think it would be expedient to have in your cloister."
Then, at the Lord's bidding, she chose the Lord's feet for a hall or ambulatory; his hands for workshop; his mouth for parlor and chapter house; his eyes for library where she might read; and his ears for confessional. Then the Lord taught her that she should always go up to it after each fall, as though ascending the five steps of humiliation, which are to be remembered by these five expressions: "I, a wretch, a sinner, a beggar, evil, unworthy, come to you as to the overflowing abyss of mercy, to be washed from every stain and to be cleansed from every sin. Amen."[193]
The liturgical setting of this passage is particularly striking: the vision evidently took place in Paschaltide, when the community was singing, Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. In accord with the liturgy itself, Gertrude identifies the God's dwelling-place with Christ's body, and the outpouring of life-giving water with the flow of water and blood from Christ's wounded side. But then she goes beyond this by identifying the Lord's heart as the temple that sanctifies the rest of his body, which Christ identifies with the cloister; or, rather, the symbolism of the cloister is applied to his own body. In this way, the monastery is an ecclesiola, a microcosm of the Church as the mystical body of Christ. In this case, however, the emphasis is not upon either the cloister itself or the larger Church, but on the mystery of Christ's heart and of his sanctifying presence within Gertrude, so that her "cloister" goes with her wherever she may be. The mention of St. Dominic is especially significant in this context, for two reasons: first, because it shows the profound influence of the Dominican confessors at Helfta, who imparted to the nuns their devotion to Christ's Passion and to the heart of Jesus;[194] and second, because Dominicans are not bound by monastic stability, as their vocation is to communicate the fruit of their contemplation in their preaching. In a sense, the Dominicans take their cloister with them into the world; Gertrude's vision reflects something of their spirit. She is fully content with the rest and refreshment that the divine heart offers her, just as Dominic was content to remain in the temple in contemplation and prayer; and yet, the Lord bids her to choose other parts of his body that it would be fitting to have in her spiritual cloister. Gertrude then chooses Christ's feet, hands, mouth, eyes, and ears. From this, it becomes evident that the divine heart is understood as being in intimate union with the all of Christ's body, and never separated from it. If the cor dilatatum of Christ is the inner sanctum of the monastic life, then the rest of the cloister becomes its visible extension in the common life.
The theme of the spiritual cloister is a frequent one in twelfth- and thirteenth-century monastic literature. Some authors describe the monastery and its various parts according to their utility for the soul; others treat the soul itself as the cloister, in which the consecrated life is lived and internalized. Yet other writers compare the various officials of the monastery to the virtues that should govern the well-ordered soul in its relation to Christ.[195] Gertrude is unusual in going, quite literally, to the heart of the matter: for Christ himself is her cloister and his heart is the sanctuary where the Father is truly worshipped, and out of which the cleansing water continually flows to cleanse her from all stain of sin. Jean Leclercq therefore rightly sees the notion of Christ's suppletio of all human defects as the center of Gertrude's Christological vision and of her monastic vocation:
What is the proper and specific aspect which has represented St. Gertrude's contribution to the evolution of Christology, or rather to the development of the knowledge of the relations between Christ and the salvation of the world? What is it that has been called suppletio--she herself having used the term? To "supply the lack": it consists in thinking on the merits of Christ, on his sufferings, on his desires, on the prayers of the sacred humanity of Christ--in order to unite oneself to this and to offer oneself to the Father, in order that he may make up for one's (that is, Gertrude's) unworthiness, negligences, and sins. Behold, then, humility, which is the basis of monastic life, inspired by the willing humiliation of Christ. This humility makes her become aware that, of herself, she cannot bring anything to salvation history, or to the Church. Rather, it is Christ who makes up for all of our miseries. It is he who fills up our emptinesses. And then Gertrude unites herself to him so that he may make up for all the sins of the world, for her own and for those of the whole world. This practice permits her--though preserving a deep awareness of her own unworthiness (and it is properly humility) of the little value of all her ascetical efforts--to draw near to God with all tranquillity of soul, in order to meet him in liturgical actions. There is no voluntarism in any of this. It is God, it is the mystery of Jesus, that accomplish salvatino: we enter into this mystery. Gertrude has the most lively awareness of the sovereignty of grace and of Christ's making up for the deficiencies of poor human efforts, which are united to him with a good and sincere will and with a pure heart… Many times she contemplates Christ who offers his merits to the Father for her and for those other men who have nothing if not sins and defects. Here is still the idea of suppletio. We have nothing but limits, defects, etc., but he has all the treasures and it is he who offers his own merits to the Father.[196]
In this way, Gertrude's affective piety is inseparable from the liturgical celebration of Christ's mysteries, for her visions often take place in a liturgical context and always presuppose the liturgical life as their background. Her mystical vocation involves no "works-righteousness" but rather puts all faith in Christ and in his Cross, in the awareness that his grace compensates for all her insufficiencies and limitations. For this reason, the objective mediation of Christ's grace through the liturgical and monastic and sacramental life is the basis of Gertrude's confidence that his Cross is for her the sole basis of her acceptance before the Father. Inseparable from this sole reliance on the grace of Christ is her affective union with the Savior under the image of his heart, through whose mediation her personal surrender to Christ in her monastic consecration becomes acceptable to God and fruitful for others.[197] For she is well aware that the heart of Christ has drawn near to her before she responded by surrendering her own heart in the sacrum commercium of the mystical union. This self-surrender is not so much the offering of reparation to the divine heart as it is an affective union with Christ, whose heart is itself the perfect reparation to the Father.[198]
4.3 Per
Cor Jesu Christi Domini Nostri
The visions and mystical experiences recounted by Gertrude make clear that the heart of Christ is not an isolated symbol or image but the unifying center of her spirituality. As such, the Lord's divine and deified heart can encompass within itself various images that differ from the primary image of the bodily heart of Jesus; for the heart in the Legatus is a polyvalent symbol, capable of being understood in a narrower or in a more expansive sense, according to the context. The glorified state of Christ's humanity makes this expansion of meaning and symbolic form possible since the Lord's heart remains fully human in its divine glory yet no longer subject to mortal finitude. In an analogous way, the glorified heart of the Savior is not limited to the form of the heart of flesh. If it is true, as St. Irenaeus said, that the Incarnation reveals that the glory of God is man fully alive and that the vision of God is the life of man, then the humanity of Christ is the dwelling-place of the divine glory and the gateway to the vision of God.[199] In a closely-related vein, if anything authentically human was not assumed by the Word in the Incarnation, then human nature was not truly redeemed; therefore, by another analogy, the human heart is only redeemed if the heart of the Savior transforms and elevates the hearts of those whom he has redeemed by his blood. For Gertrude, this life-giving heart of Christ vivifies her own heart, and vivifies and unites the Church as the body of Christ, as well, especially through the Mass and communion. This conviction underlies St. Gertrude's revelations, for the heart of the glorified Christ is both Jesus' heart of flesh and also a complex and quasi-sacramental symbol of his Person as the God-Man who intercedes in heaven for his members on earth. On this basis, one may conclude that for Gertrude the heart of Christ is not a mere metaphor but truly signifies his heart of flesh, considered, not as an end in itself but as the living image of his glorified humanity, hypostatically united to his divinity. Cipriano Vagaggini expresses how this understanding of the heart of Christ pervades the writings of the mystics of Helfta (not only Gertrude but also Mechthild of Hackeborn):
Such is indeed the essential aspect of the idea that St. Mechthild
and St. Gertrude have of the heart of Jesus; in some way, this represents
concretely the central idea that the liturgy has of Christ: the liturgy sees in
him the Kyrios, the God-Man who,
after having been born and having lived, suffered, died on the earth, is now
risen and glorious at the right hand of the Father, and through him all must
pass in order to return to the Father. It's the vision of Christ in the
primitive catechesis of
For Gertrude, the Savior's heart of flesh is the symbolic core of his sacred humanity and therefore of his heavenly high priesthood, by which he continually intercedes for all the members of his mystical body, and through which their prayers and sacrifices are accepted. As Cipriano Vagaggini makes clear, this reflects and presupposes the liturgical and monastic background of Gertrude's mysticism: for the liturgy emphasizes more the Christus passus et gloriosus rather than the Christus patiens, more the celebration of the mystery of Christ rather than the subjective contemplation of the Passion.[201] However, this distinction between objective and subjective piety should not be exaggerated, as if they were necessarily opposed, or as if either tendency had ever existed in isolation from the other. This point is particularly important in reference to the monastery of Helfta, where the community breathed the spirit of St. Bernard while remaining open to other contemporary forms of mysticism and affective devotion.[202] The Legatus combines aspects of liturgical-monastic piety with a more personal and affective love for the humanity of Christ. For St. Gertrude, these different currents converge in the heart of Christ and become one in her mystical union and espousal.
Conclusion
In concluding this study of St. Gertrude's Legatus divinae pietatis, it is fitting to review the essential points addressed in this work.
St. Gertrude of Helfta lived from 6 January 1256 to 17 November 1301. Despite her death at the age of only forty-five years, she lived for twenty years a life of mystical union with Christ, receiving many visions, in which the divine and deified heart of Christ was of central and pervasive importance.
Gertrude had entered the monastery of Helfta as a child oblate at the age of five, was educated there and eventually made monastic profession. In Gertrude, the community recognized great intelligence and encouraged her in her studies. She was for the most part raised by Mechthild of Hackeborn, herself a visionary and a mystic though Mechthild's spiritual influence on Gertrude only became evident later in Gertrude's life. In her earlier years, Gertrude conformed to the requirements of monastic life and the duties of the choir while her own interests were primarily in secular learning and literature.
The setting within which Gertrude grew up was particularly favorable for a talented pupil since the community of Helfta actively fostered the acquisition of knowledge as an aid to prayer and contemplation. The community had been founded in 1229 by the Count and Countess of Mansfeld, with the first members being Cistercians from Halberstadt. For this reason, the spirit of monastic observance at Helfta was in large measure Cistercian, with St. Bernard as the single most important influence; however, the community was never canonically subject to the General Chapter of Cîteaux due to the Chapter's decision in 1228 not to accept the direction of any additional monasteries of women. This decision preserved Helfta's autonomy, leaving the monastery independent of any general chapter or congregation; but its independent status also left Helfta subject to the bishop of Halberstadt and dependent on noble benefactors, as well as vulnerable to the intermittent feudal warfare of its neighbors. On the more positive side, the community's relative autonomy left it free to adapt Cistercian customs to its own needs and circumstances, and especially to pursue learned and educational interests.
Gertrude benefited from this emphasis on learning; and though she later came to see her early life as excessively absorbed in worldly knowledge, her education at Helfta enabled her to communicate her spiritual teaching to others in her writings. Gertrude was a prolific author, writing many works in both Latin and German. Of these, only the Legatus divinae pietatis and the Exercitia have survived, along with her contribution to the Liber specialis gratiae that recounts the experiences of Mechthild of Hackeborn. Since neither Benedictine nor Cistercian monks were available to act as confessors and spiritual directors, Helfta was under the care of the Dominicans of Halle, who imparted their affective Passion-mysticism to Gertrude, and communicated also a certain openness to newer theological trends. The solemn celebration of the liturgy, in combination with Passion-centered devotion and with St. Bernard's emphasis on the sacred humanity of Christ, formed the spiritual matrix within which Gertrude received her revelations of the heart of Christ.
At the age of twenty-five, she began to have mystical experiences and visions of Christ, in which the Lord's wounded side and his heart were the central though not exclusive images. It was from these experiences that Gertrude dated her conversion from primarily intellectual and human interests to the mystical life symbolized for her in the exchange of hearts with Christ. As Book I of the Legatus expresses it, she went from being a grammarian to being a true theologian (Unde ex hinc de grammatica facta theologa). Even after this conversion, she was aware of the human dimension of her experiences and sought to understand how the infinite and transcendent God could be revealed in such images as she received in her visions. She concluded, under the influence of St. Bernard's teaching, that her visions represented a divine accommodation to her own human finitude, and that this accorded well with the inner logic of the Incarnation.
From Gertrude's interpretation of the human dimension of her mystical experiences in the light of the Incarnation, it becomes possible to see the confluence of several different theological and spiritual influences in her description of the revelation of the heart of Christ. First among these influences is St. Bernard's preaching in the Sermons on the Song of Songs concerning the wounded side of Christ. For Bernard, the wound in the Lord's side is the original "wound of love" from which flows the water that cleanses and the blood that atones for sin (Cf. Jn 19.34). When Gertrude receives this wound upon her heart and contemplates the heart of Christ through the opening in Christ's side, she goes a step beyond Bernard. Bernard spoke at times of the heart of Christ as the inner sanctum of his sacred humanity, using various terms: cor, viscera, and sinus, all of which have a similar semantic range. Equally important is Bernard's conviction that the supreme manifestation of divine pietas (love, mercy, loving-kindness, clemency, benevolence) is the opening of Christ's side, that reveals the place where the contemplative soul (mystically signified by the dove in the Song of Songs) can find its true resting-place.
Gertrude further develops this Bernardine line of thought. For her, the heart of Christ represents the convergence of divine pietas with the ultimate ideal of monastic life, which is the cor dilatatum, the heart expanded with love, of which St. Benedict speaks in the Prologue of his Rule. The heart-language of monastic ascesis (purity of heart, compunction of heart, humility of heart), when combined with an Augustinian and Bernardine doctrine of prevenient grace and an understanding of the full humanity assumed by the Word in the Incarnation, seems to require that the heart of Christ be both the source and the end of the monastic vocation. Gertrude's doctrine of the heart of Christ, expressed in the language and symbolism of the liturgical and sacramental life, is essentially the drawing-out of this Christocentric vision of her monastic consecration. The divine pietas, manifested in the heart of Christ, imparts to Gertrude the gift of libertas cordis, which her biographer in Book I of the Legatus considers her salient characteristic. This grace, in turn, is not solely for her benefit but for that of the entire body of Christ, including not only friends and benefactors but even the enemies and persecutors of the monastery.
Gertrude's description of Christ's heart is no mere metaphor for his love; for this reason, in many contexts she emphasizes its corporeality. For example, when she speaks of the Lord's heart as the wound of love that wounds her own heart, her own response of compassion is likened to a bandage with which she tends the wound. Here, as in the visions of the seal of the covenant and the exchange of hearts, the heart of flesh is the primary image. In other cases, however, the heart of Christ appears in a form that clearly goes beyond the physicality of the primary image: for example, when the Lord's heart takes the form of a lamp, a chalice, or a musical instrument. The lamp recalls the passages from John's gospel, in which Christ identifies himself as the Light of the World; it is also possible that the language of Pr 6 (warning against the "fire in the bosom" that results from loving one who is unworthy) has influenced Gertrude's symbolic language. The chalice contains the Precious Blood and therefore corresponds in a sacramental-liturgical sense to Christ's corporeal heart: just as the blood flows from the heart to the rest of the body, so from the chalice, the Precious Blood flows to sanctify the Church as the body of Christ. When the heart of Christ appears to Gertrude as a harp or lyre, this is clearly an application of the language of the Psalms to the mediatorial humanity of Christ, for the community's praises are only acceptable to the Trinity because the heart of Christ harmonizes and perfects them. The heart of Christ, though evidently a complex and polyvalent symbol, is never spiritualized into pure metaphor since even the subordinate images (lamp, chalice, harp, and lyre) are concrete rather than abstract and have biblical resonances that express some facet of Christ's glorified humanity. In this way, Gertrude follows St. Bernard in simultaneously affirming and transcending all finite images in order to attain to Christ, who as the Incarnate Word is the true Image of the Father and the true fulfillment of the human heart's desire.
Finally, Gertrude's visions portray the heart of Christ as the unitive center of the Mass and of sacramental communion. As a sacrifice, the Mass is perfected in the offering of the divine victim, while communion is perfected in the reception of the sacrament. In Gertrude's spiritual doctrine, these two dimensions of the Eucharist are united in the heart of Christ. For example, after communion on a particular occasion, she receives a vision of Christ in the form of a pelican piercing his own heart to feed his offspring with his outpoured blood. The pierced heart of Christ signifies both the sacrifice of Christ and the inseparable feeding upon this sacrifice in communion. In other visions, Gertrude learns that the heart of Jesus makes fruitful her communion on behalf of the holy souls in purgatory and that, by being united to Christ in his sacramental kenosis, she mystically enters into the depths of purgatory with him. In still other visions, she beholds Christ himself offering the Mass as the Sovereign High Priest and giving from his heart the graces of communion to the community, even when they are excluded from the sacraments. The heart of Christ is seen as both the source and the end of sacrifice and communion; and therefore, the same sovereign divine heart can give the grace of the sacrament even to those who cannot receive the host itself. As in Bernard's teaching, there is simultaneously an affirmation of visible forms (in this case, the Mass and communion) and also a transcending of them, as they are not ends in themselves but rather means of union with God through the heart of Christ. As the center of the body of Christ, the Savior's heart unites the hearts of his members as as to participate in his vicarious intercession on behalf of both the living and the dead, so that even sinners and excommunicates are not utterly excluded from the economy of grace.
The eschatological aspect of the heart of Christ becomes clearer in the later visions, when Gertrude was in her final illness and approaching death. In these visions compiled by her secretaries, Gertrude's visions of the Lord's heart begin to focus more on his glorious heart in the heavenly liturgy and on his heart as the inner meaning of the cloister itself. As she weakens physically, she is sometimes unable to go to Mass in the monastery church. In her distress, she is reassured by a vision of the oblation of Christ's glorious heart in heaven, where this heart is revealed in the likeness of an altar of gold. This eschatological aspect is evident also in the vision of the heart of Christ as the inner sanctum of the symbolic cloister since the monastic life is an anticipation of the life of the world to come. As the outward cloister becomes less accessible to Gertrude, she internalizes its meaning: the heart of Christ is her true temple and his body is her true cloister. The images and signs of the liturgy, the sacraments, and the monastic life give way at last to Christ whom they signify. For Gertrude, however, the heart of the Savior is never transcended since it remains forever the center of Christ's sacred and glorified humanity and the fulfillment of her own heart's deepest desire.
[1] Cf. GERTRUDE OF HELFTA, The Herald of Divine Love, 2.23, ed. Margaret Winkworth, p. 129.
[2] Cf. JACQUES HOURLIER and ALBERT SCHMITT, SC 127, p. 9.
[3] Cf. GERTRUDE, Herald, 2.1, p. 95.
[4] Cf. MARY JEREMY FINNEGAN, O.P., The Women of Helfta, p. 62.
[5] Cf. GERTRUDE OF HELFTA, Herald, 1.16, p. 85.
[6] Cf. PIERRE DOYÈRE, SC 139, p. 14.
[7] Cf. GARCÍA M. COLOMBÁS, La tradición benedictina. Ensayo histórico. Vol. V: Los siglos XIII y XIV, pp. 201-202.
[8] MECHTHILD OF HACKEBORN, Liber Specialis Gratiae 6.1, quoted in BERNARD MCGINN, The Flowering of Mysticism, p. 267: Divinam scripturam valde studiose et mira delectione quandocumque poterat legebat, exigens a subditis suis ut lectiones sacras amarent, et jugi memoria recitarent. Unde omnes bonos libros quos poterat, ecclesiae suae comparabat, aut transcribi a Soror