Praised be Jesus and Mary.
St. Gertrude, the abbess, is the most well-known of several saints with that same name.
And for this reason, the ancient authors named her Gertrude the Great.
She was born of a noble family and placed with the Benedictine nuns at the age of five for her education.
And she lived there as a simple religious.
Very mistrustful of herself.
The abbess's sister, St. Matilda, was the mistress and the friend of the young Gertrude.
Who consulted her excellent teacher whenever she was tempted by vain and useless thoughts or troubled by doubts.
St. Gertrude.
St. Gertrude learned Latin in her youth, which in those days was customary for persons who consecrated themselves to God.
And who prayed the divine office in Latin.
She also had an uncommon knowledge of Holy Scripture and all the different branches of theology.
But one day our Lord reproached her for having too great an interest.
On to her studies.
And afterwards she could find in them nothing but bitterness.
But soon our Lord came to instruct her Himself.
For many years.
She was never without His presence.
Except for eleven days when He decided to test her fidelity.
Prayer, contemplation.
Prayer and contemplation became God's calling.
were her principal exercise.
And to those, she consecrated the greater part of her time,
taking our Lord's advice in today's Gospel.
Zeal for the salvation of souls
was always present in her heart.
Thinking of the souls of sinners,
she would shed many tears at the foot of the cross
and before the Blessed Sacrament.
And she especially loved to meditate on the Passion
and on the Eucharist.
And at those times, too,
she could not restrain the tears that flowed from her eyes.
She received a great...
a great number of extraordinary graces.
Our Lord engraved his wounds in her heart,
placed rings on her fingers,
and presented himself to her in the company of his mother.
All of these astonishing graces
only increased her love for suffering.
It was impossible for her to live
with the pain of her life.
It was impossible for her to live with the pain of her life.
without some kind of pain.
And the time that she did spend without suffering
seemed to her to be wasted.
During the long illness of five months,
from which she would die,
she never gave the slightest sign of impatience or sadness.
Her joy actually...
her joy actually...
increased with her pains.
her joy actually...
increased with her pains.
When the day of her death did arrive in 1334,
she saw the most blessed virgin descend from heaven to assist her.
And one of her sisters saw her soul go straight to the heart of Jesus,
which opened to receive it.
A sister, Saint Gertrude,
is one of the great mystics of the Church.
A sister, Saint Gertrude, is one of the great mystics of the Church.
is one of the great mystics of the Church.
The book of her revelations,
recorded out of obedience,
remains well received.
In it, she traces, in words,
of indescribable beauty,
the intimate conversations of her soul with Jesus and Mary.
the intimate conversations of her soul with Jesus and Mary.
She was gentle to all, especially sinners,
filled with devotion to the saints of God,
to the souls in purgatory,
and above all to the passion of our Lord and His most sacred heart.
She took to heart Saint Paul's words to Timothy.
You know, if we have died with him,
we shall also live with him.
You know, there's no better preparation for death
than to resign ourselves constantly
to the divine will.
Humbly, lovingly,
and with unbounded confidence
in our Most Holy Mother,
and in the infinite mercy
and wisdom and goodness of God.
You know, we forget that His plans are better than ours,
and if we're experiencing
crosses that seem too heavy to bear,
or spiritual dryness,
we have to remember that that is God's will,
and that He is purifying us.