Spiritual Exercises: Volume 49

By Gertrude the Great

Book Overview

The remarkable monastery of Helfta was a 'place where learning and art, courtesy and holiness flowered in a dark season' of interregnal warfare.* The nuns drew their inspiration from the twin roots of Citeaux: the Rule of Saint Benedict and the constitutions of Citeaux; their spirituality, liturgy, customs, and habits were modelled on those of the White Monks, even though juridically they were not part of the Cistercian Order.

Under the guidance of the thirteenth-century abbess Gertrud of Hackeborn, the nuns of Helfta steadfastly pursued learning and holiness. Among them were three outstanding women whose works have come down through the centuries: Mechtilde of Hackeborn, Mechtilde of Magdeburg, and the scholarly Gertrud the Great.

Having entered monastic life at the age of five, Gertrud combined a deep knowledge of the Church Fathers and earlier medieval writers, an intimate familiarity with Scripture, and innate common sense. Her Spiritual Exercises--prayers, litanies, meditations, and hymns--articulate a spirituality that is both traditionally monastic and authentically, but unself-consciously, feminine.

Hers is a mysticism of light and love, of humility and commitment, of freedom and discipline and--most of all--of joy.

*M. Jeremy Finnegan OP, 'The Women of Helfta', Peace Weavers, Medieval Religious Women, 2:212.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879074493
• ISBN13: 9780879074494
• Release Date: November 1989
• Publisher: Liturgical Press
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Spiritual Exercises by Gertrude of Helfta

This is a wonderful feminine approach to being present to the universal patterns of experience. I use it as reading matter when a woman is doing the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola. My opinion is that Gertrude covers the matters of the Ignatian Exercises from a feminine perspective.