Benedictine saints & blesseds – Page 13

Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn

The Church celebrates two Benedictine friends in several days: Saints Mechtilde and Gertrude. By today’s standards of canonizations, neither were formally canonized by the Church; until recently Hildegard enjoyed a canonization status only observed in Benedictine communities. Her liturgical observance is recognized more universally today. Pope Benedict XVI spoke eloquently of Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn at a 2010 Wednesday Office. The Pope gives a superb insight into the person of Saint Mechtilde that is extraordinarily helpful.

Saint Mechtilde (1240-1298), the sister of Gertrude of Hackeborn (not Gertrude the Great [celebrated on Nov. 16], thought there is great confusion about this relation) attended the monastery school where her sister was a nun and after graduation she entered monastic life. Like Gertrude the Great Saint Mechtilde was known as a serious and gifted student and teacher. Someone described her having a “voice of a songbird.” Her wonderful personality was an asset for her Benedictine community and it likely led to her being a 40 year abbess. As it turns out, Gertrude the Great was a student of Mechtilde’s. Both of whom had a profound love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Privacy issues today weren’t known in the 13th century. Mechtilde’s spiritual experiences were recorded by Gertrude. Though unnerved by the perceived violation of boundaries, the Lord assured her that it was OK. In time Gertrude’s work was the basis of Mechtilde’s “Book of Special Grace” or later known as “Revelations of Saint Mechtilde,” a book that is oriented to the liturgical year and focussed on Christology and Trinitarian theology. The Pope tells us that Mechtilde’s starting point is the sacred Liturgy and her mystical experiences relate us back to the liturgical experience through the lens of the biblical narrative. Saint Mechtilde ought to be one of the heavenly patrons of liturgical studies.

In several places you’ll read that Dante used Saint Mechtilde for his Donna Matelda of his volume of the Purgatorio, Canto XXVII. Whether is true is not yet known. That Dante’s Donna Matelda and Saint Mechtilde are mystics, one wonders if the saint is fictionalized.

Saint Gertrude the Great

One a few saints with the title “the Great” Saint Gertrude (1256-1301/2) is clearly a woman with a mission. Given by her parents to the Benedictine monastery at Hefta (some say it was a Cistercian house), a monastery known for its learning and saint-making, Gertrude excelled in her studies. One day, around the age 24, she realized that the excellence she had in secular learning was not what she needed, in fact, she considered this way of living vain, and therefore she was called to do by the Lord: to live singularly for Him. Was it earthy wisdom that saved, or heavenly wisdom? She began to change her modus operandi and followed the advice of the Apostle to be totally concerned with heavenly wisdom.

Before it was a popular devotion, Saint Gertrude was known for her devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Eucharist.

Saint Gertrude’s extant writing includes “The Herald of Divine Love,” The Life and Revelations,” and the “Spiritual Exercises.”

May Saint Gertrude’s greatness inspire us to live more intensely for a deeper communion with the Lord, in this life so as to be with Him in the next.

“My heart has said of you, I have sought your presence Lord.

It is your face, O Lord, that I seek.”

Benedictine All Saints

Today is the liturgical observance of Benedictine All Saints. Let’s pray for all those monks, nuns, sisters and oblates who lived a life of holiness and perseverance in the monastic life.

Not to be a “Debby-downer” BUT, it is not likely that many Benedictine monasteries in the USA will observe today as a feast of all holy monks and nuns. Sadly, many of the monastic superiors have given-in to painting life in their in the monastery with the color beige: there’s no vitality of tradition.

Historically, according to a note in an Office book, “Up to the end of the sixteenth century, there was no general feast of this name for the whole Order, since the “Order of St. Benedict”, in the modern sense, was unknown. In individual monasteries, as Monte Cassino, Cluny, Fontenelle, etc., a feast of all the saints proper to the monastery was observed, on different dates; only by the revision of the monastic Breviary by Paul V, in 1612, a general feast of All Holy Monks of the Order was instituted, on the above date.”

Let us pray,

Grant, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that the example of the holy Monks [and Nuns} may stir us to a better life: that so we may imitate the actions of those whose solemnity we celebrate.

Blessed Maria Luisa Prosperi

Today, the Church beatified the Venerable Servant of God Maria Luisa (nee Gertrude Prosperi; 1799-1847), a former Abbess of the Benedictine Abbey in Trevi in what is now known as the Diocese of Spoleto-Norcia (Italy). Her name is now added to the long list of Benedictine saints and blesseds.

Cardinal Angelo Amato, SDB, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints pronounced the papal decree of beatification. His homily may be read in Italian here.

What can we learn from Maria Luisa Prosperi?

Our new blessed was devoted to the Most Blessed Sacrament, the contemplation of the cross with a profound and exemplary love for the infinite mercy of God and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It is Benedict XVI who tells us to recognize in Abbess Maria Luisa a singular love for the Lord’s Passion. Maria Luisa was known as a “woman in love with God.”

Blessed Maria Luisa’s liturgical memorial will be 12 September.

Blessed Maria Luisa was born on 15 August 1779 and died on 12 September 1847. She became a Benedictine nun of the Monastery of Saint Lucy in 1820 in a monastery founded in 1844.

All Saints and All Souls Days in religious orders

The Church is not liturgically monolithic: let’s consider the various observances of feasts of All Saints and the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All Souls) in various religious orders:

All Saints

November 5: the Society of Jesus
November 7: the Order of Preachers
November 13: the Order of St Benedict; Order of St Augustine; the Trinitarian Order
November 29: the Franciscan Families

All Souls

October 5: the Capuchin Order
November 5: the Franciscan Families
November 8: the Order of Preachers
November 13: the Carthusians
November 14: the Order of St Benedict; the Trinitarian Order
November 15: the Order of Carmel
November 16: the Servite Order

Saint Hildegard of Bingen

O Lord, you were generous with your gifts of grace to the virgin Hildegard. By following closely her example and teaching, may we pass from the darkness of this life into your marvelous light.

Saint Hildegard (1098-1179) was a Benedictine of great learning ( a true polymath), a holy woman who was known for her visions, prophesies, poetry and spiritual guidance. Some have likened her to Dante and William Blake. She was given the title of the Sibyl of the Rhine. Since the 15th century Hildegard’s name was in the Roman Martyrology but was not officially canonized. On May 10, 2012 Pope Benedict XVI gave the entire Church the liturgical memory of Saint Hildegard (the equivalent of canonizing her); the Pope stated that on October 7, 2012 he will name the Saint a Doctor of the Church.

We pray for the Benedictine Congress in Rome that begins today and goes until the 25th through the intercession of Saint Hildegard.

Saint Gregory the Great

Blessed Gregory, raised upon the throne of Peter, sought always the beauty of the Lord and lived in celebration of that love.

O God, who care for the your people with gentleness and rule them in love, though the intercession of Pope Saint Gregory, endow, we pray, with a spirit of wisdom those to whom you have given authority to govern, that the flourishing of a holy flock may become the eternal joy of the shepherds.

Let us pray for the Pope, Benedict XVI and his ministry as pastor. Likewise, I would like to remember in prayer the monks of Portsmouth Abbey who live under the patronage of Saint Gregory the Great.

Blessed Ildefonso Schuster

Almighty God, who through your grace, the Blessed Alfredo Ildefonso, by his exemplary virtue built up the flock entrusted to him, grant that we, under the guidance of the Gospel may follow his teaching and walk in sureness of life, until we come to see you face to face in your eternal Kingdom.

Today we honor the Church honors a great 20th century Benedictine monk, priest, bishop and cardinal, Blessed Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster. He died on this date in 1954. At the time of his death he was the cardinal-archbishop of Milan.

Blessed Ildefonso is one of my great Benedictine heros. He’s known for promoting catechetics and the role of the laity in life of the Church in a time prior to it becoming a “normal” thing. Moreover, he diligently looked after the poor, denounced the totalitarian thinking of Facism, Nazism and racism, proposed models of holiness for all people –not just the clerical elite– and he lived the sacred Liturgy and founded the Institute of Ambrosian Chant and Sacred Music.

When the process of beatification came to a certain point, church officials opened Cardinal Schuster’s tomb and found his body to be incorruptible. A more certain sign of holiness. He was announced as a Venerable Servant of God on March 26, 1994 and beatified by Blessed John Paul II on May 12, 1996.

For more info, see his birthday post and another post on his feast day.

Saint Bernard Tolomei

An obscure Benedictine saint is liturgically honored by the Church today. Saint Bernard Tolomei, (1272-1348) the founder of the Benedictine Congregation of the Blessed Virgin of Monte Oliveto (near Siena) in 1319. He was beatified in 1644 but not canonized until 2009, though he was revered as a saint for a long time before Pope Benedict canonized him.

The Olivetan monks have an intense devotion to the Virgin Mary due to the founder’s attribution to the healing of his blindness by the intercession of the Virgin; their life has been one of penance and silence. Hence, Saint Bernard is called the “hero of penance and martyr of charity.” And this is our desire today.

Saint Bernard Tolomei’s brief biography can be read here and a set of photos can be viewed here.

Saint Bernard, 900 years since entering Cîteaux

Nearly 900 years ago Bernard of Fontaine-lès-Dijon led
a group of young Burgundian noblemen, to the Abbey of Cîteaux in 1112 or 1113. The fledgling
new monastery got a burst of new life and from there set the world ablaze with
what became the Cistercian charism.

Let us pray for the Cistercians in the
North America, paying particular attention to the intention of young men and women entering the
monastic life under the gaze of Saint Bernard. Beginning today until a year from now, the Cistercians are observing a Year of Saint Bernard. Let’s join them in knowing more about this pivotal saint and monk.

Most loving Father, in establishing
the New Monastery at Cîteaux our fathers followed the poor Christ into the
desert. Thus they lived the Gospel, by rediscovering the Rule of Saint Benedict
in its purity.

You gave Bernard of Fontaine the ability to make this new life
attractive and appealing to others, in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Grant that
we today, after their example, may live our charism deeply in a spirit of
peace, unity, humility, and above all, in the charity which surpasses all other
gifts.

May men and women of our time be called to follow the Gospel in monastic
life, in the service of the Church’s mission, in a world often forgetful of
You.

May the monks and nuns of our Order continue to live in the
enthusiastic and generative spirit of the founders. And in all of our needs may
we always turn to Our Lady whom Bernard called the Star of the Sea.

Holy
Father, from whom we have already received so much, grant us again your
blessing that our communities may grow in numbers, but above all in grace and
in wisdom, to your glory, who are blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer adapted from the original by Dom Olivier, abbot of Citeaux.