antique reliquary of saint Gertrude the Great
very nice theca, made of brass with clear rhine stones around
size: 4 x 3 cm // 1.5 x 1.1 inch
with a bail to hang on a chain.
inside the relic is sealed with threads and waxseal..correct in place.
shipping and handling $10
combined shipping
Saint Gertrude the Great
St Gertrude was born in Eisleben in central Germany on 6th January 1256, and died at Helfta, only three miles away, in about 1302. It is doubtful if she ever travelled further than that in the whole of her life. Almost nothing is known about her birth or death. She was probably an orphan when she was put in the care of the Black Benedictine nuns of Helfta.
The community of the castle convent of Helfta was then in the care of the noblewoman, another St Gertrude, St Gertrude of Hackeborn. The intellectual level was high. Even so, our St Gertrude was considered an outstanding student, who devoted herself to study, and especially to literature and philosophy. Eventually she became a professed nun but found that her attention could be distracted. She realised that intellectual pleasures could be a trap. She had to learn not to prefer things to people and ideas to reality, and she had to understand that the study of divine learning was valuable above all other studies. She had to learn to love the real Lord.
Once touched by the Spirit of God, Gertrude was converted to true holiness, devoting herself to prayer and contemplation. She studied the Bible, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and the liturgy. Her visions and ecstasies began when she was 26. Many of her writings are lost, but fortunately she left behind an abundance of spiritual joy in her book The Herald of Divine Love, in which she tells of the visions granted to her by Our Lord. She wrote this small book because He told her that nothing was given to her for her own sake only. She also wrote her Exercises, which deal with many matters – spiritual conversion, the renewal of baptismal vows, religious vows, love, praise, gratitude to God, reparation, and preparation for death. She also began to record her mystical experiences in what eventually became the Revelation of Saint Gertrude. There was also another saintly woman at the convent, Saint Matilda, whose prayers and insights she also helped to write down.
St Gertrude’s great importance lies in the influence that her writings had in helping to spread devotion to the Sacred Heart (though it was not called by this name until the devotion was revealed to Saint Margaret Mary Alocoque in the 1670s). Our Lord granted her the privilege of seeing His Sacred Heart. The graces flowing from it appeared to her like a stream of purest water flowing over the whole world.
St Gertrude had many visions of Our Lord in which she received wonderful teaching. Regarding suffering, Our Lord said to her, “When man, after applying the remedy for his suffering, patiently bears for love of Me that which he is unable to cure, he gains a glorious prize.”
Regarding frequent communion, Jesus told her: “Those who have received Me oftener on earth shall be more glorious in heaven. At each Communion, I increase, I multiply the riches which are to constitute the Christian’s happiness in heaven!”
Our Lord wishes people to pray for the souls in purgatory. He told Gertrude that he longs for us to ask Him to release souls from purgatory. Jesus stated, “I accept with highest pleasure what is offered to Me for the poor souls, for I long inexpressibly to have near Me those for whom I paid so great a price. By the prayers of your loving soul, I am induced to free a prisoner from purgatory as often as you utter a word of prayer.”
St Gertrude was “the Great” because of her single-hearted love for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the souls in purgatory. Though she was never formally canonized, Pope Clement XII in 1677 directed that her feast be observed throughout the Church. St Gertrude’s feast day is 16th November. Although she was neither an abbess nor a Cistercian, she is depicted in religious art as a Cistercian abbess holding a flaming heart. There may be a mouse, since a mouse running up the crozier represents the Temptations of the Devil which she so notably defied.
You will see from the picture above that the corbel on the right hand side of the church porch, a notional portrait of Gertrude, has a black face. It was not originally so. Her face has weathered this way over the past century, and many in the parish understand this to be a manifestation of Saint Gertrude’s patronage of the West Indies.
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