Saint Gertrude

Saint Gertrude receives her first vision

      Her Bridegroom Jesus appeared to Saint Gertrude when she was twenty-six years old. 

During Advent, she had been filled with a restlessness and longing to be closer to Jesus.  The more she meditated, the more she began to have a disdain for the things of the world.   One evening, she was about to retire, when Our Lord appeared to her as a very handsome young Man.  He said: "Thy salvation is at hand.  Why are you so consumed by sorrow?"  She had received her first vision!

      Now, she knew that she was in her dormitory, but it seemed as if she was being transported to the corner of the choir. 

Jesus spoke to her:

      "I will save and deliver you.  Fear not." 

      Our Lord opened His Arms wide to embrace her.  She tried to approach Him, but a hedge, made thick with long menacing thorns barred the way, looming between them, separating her from Him.  As she knew that the hedge and thorns were the times she had sinned and displeased the Lord, she began to weep. 

The Lord extended His Hand, and as if some unseen force had lifted her, she was beside Him.  He invited her to rest her head on His Precious Chest.  Her eyes went from His pierced Heart to His Hands and Feet; and there before her were His five Wounds, bleeding out of love for her and us "the radiant jewels of His Sacred Wounds." 

      Saint Gertrude tells us that after this she was converted, not that she had been anything but virtuous.  She had always been a good student, excelling in Latin, History and other worldly subjects.  But after this, she had eyes only for the Word of God in Holy Scripture and the works of such Church Fathers as Saints Augustine, Gregory and Bernard.

      Saint Gertrude lived to love Jesus alone; pleasing Him was her sole objective in life.  She sought and found Him everywhere, but most especially in the Eucharist.  Jesus was consistently in her mind and on her heart; she took to heart His words, when Our Lord said:

      "I delight so much in her, I have chosen to dwell in her.  All that others see and love in her is My work; and whoever loves My work in her, loves Me.  I have decreed that she stand alone, without friends or relatives, that none may love her from ties of relationship, but that I Myself may be the sole cause of her being loved and esteemed."

      She had ultimate confidence in Jesus' Love and Mercy.  He told her:

      "It is impossible that anyone should not receive all that he has believed and hoped to obtain.  It gives Me great pleasure when men hope great things from Me and I will always grant them more than they expect."

      Saint Gertrude turned to Jesus, as she would to an earthly father, with the complete trust of a child.  No petition was too small or too great.  On one occasion, when she had lost a needle in a pile of straw, she asked the Lord to find it for her:

      "It would be in vain that I would search for this needle and so very much a waste of time.  If You would be so kind, find it for me!" 

      She turned her head, groped with one of her hands and immediately found the needle.  Our Lord delighted in her simplicity and innocence, and always rewarded her faith in Him with gifts affirming that faith.

You can read more about Saint Gertrude in Bob and Penny Lord's book, Visions of Heaven Hell and Purgatory.

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