Feast day: November 19

St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn

Virgin, Mystic · 1241–1298

Patron of —

A German Benedictine nun of beautiful voice and deep prayer whose visions, written down by her sisters, became one of the most loved devotional books of the Middle Ages.

Mechtilde of Hackeborn was a German Benedictine nun and mystic of the thirteenth century, one of the cluster of great women mystics who made the convent of Helfta, in Saxony, the most luminous centre of spiritual life in the Germany of its day. Born about 1241 into a noble family, she entered the convent as a girl and spent her whole life there.

Gifted and beloved, she was put in charge of the convent's school and of its choir — she had a beautiful voice and was called 'the nightingale of Helfta' — and was sought out by many, inside and outside the cloister, for her wisdom and warmth. Among the pupils entrusted to her care was the younger nun who would become St. Gertrude the Great.

For much of her life Mechtilde kept secret the rich mystical graces she received — visions and intimate experiences of the love of Christ, centred on his Sacred Heart. Only late in life did she confide them to two of her sisters, including St. Gertrude, who wrote them down, against her wishes, in the 'Book of Special Grace,' which spread her spiritual teaching widely.

She died at Helfta in 1298. Her influence reached far: Dante, in the 'Purgatorio,' is widely thought to have honoured her as the 'Matilda' who guides him in the earthly paradise. She is remembered as a herald, with Gertrude, of devotion to the Heart of Christ.

Dante may have drawn the figure of 'Matelda' in his Paradiso from her, and her recorded prayers spread the devotion to the Sacred Heart across Europe.

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/10105b.htm