Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Spiritual Exercises: Volume 49

Spiritual Exercises: Volume 49

Lewis, Gertrud Jaron
Lewis, Jack
Gertrud the Great of Helfta

Paperback

Series: Cistercian Fathers, Book 49

Religious BiographiesReligion General Catholicism

ISBN10: 0879074493
ISBN13: 9780879074494
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Published: Nov 1 1989
Pages: 180
Weight: 0.52
Height: 0.41 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English

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.

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