❤️Among the saints whom God granted to His Church in the Middle Ages, St. Gertrude the "Great" is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable. Born in 1256, she was entrusted at a young age to the Benedictine monastery of Helfta in Saxony, a center of great spiritual and cultural fervor. After a youth dedicated to humanistic studies, she experienced a profound conversion at the age of 25, turning entirely to theology and the mystical life. From then on, God granted her extraordinary graces and visions, particularly related to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, making her one of the earliest and most important propagators of this devotion. Her writings, compiled in the work "The Herald of Divine Love" (Legatus Divinae Pietatis), are not just a diary of her mystical experiences, but a profound meditation on the liturgy and the union of the soul with Christ, the divine Bridegroom. Her life was a continuous dialogue of love with the Lord, fully living the nuptial spirituality celebrated in today's liturgy. She passed away around 1302, leaving a legacy of love and wisdom that continues to illuminate the Church.
📖Epistle (II Cor 10:17-18; 11:1-2)
Brethren: He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he who commendeth himself is approved, but he whom God commendeth. Would to God you could bear with some little of my folly: but do bear with me. For I am jealous of you with the jealousy of God. For I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
✝️Gospel (Mt 25:1-13)
At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to His disciples: "The kingdom of heaven shall be like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to meet the bridegroom and the bride. And five of them were foolish, and five wise. But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not take oil with them: But the wise took oil in their vessels with the lamps. And the bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made: 'Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him.' Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise: 'Give us of your oil, for our lamps are gone out.' The wise answered, saying: 'Lest perhaps there be not enough for us and for you, go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.' Now whilst they went to buy, the bridegroom came: and they that were ready, went in with him to the marriage, and the door was shut. But at last came also the other virgins, saying: 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' But he answering said: 'Amen I say to you, I know you not.' Watch ye therefore, because you know not the day nor the hour."
🤔Reflections
🕯️The parable of the ten virgins, proposed in today's Gospel, is an urgent call to vigilance and interior preparation for the definitive encounter with Christ, the Bridegroom of the soul. The lamps represent the faith we profess, a gift received at Baptism that illuminates our path. However, faith by itself becomes a dim light if it is not nourished by the oil of charity and good works. St. Augustine teaches that this oil is the love that burns in the heart, the inner joy of a good conscience that cannot be borrowed or bought at the last moment. "The oil signifies charity... If you remove it, faith is extinguished and the lamp goes out. But who can buy charity when it is lacking? It cannot be borrowed as if it were something external" (St. Augustine, Sermon 93). The warning is clear: preparation for the eternal nuptials is a personal and non-transferable task, requiring a life of union with God, manifested in acts of love.
🕊️St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians deepens this nuptial dimension of the Christian life. The Apostle presents himself as the friend of the bridegroom, the one who prepares the bride—the community and each soul—to be presented to Christ as a "chaste virgin." This "jealousy of God" that moves him is none other than the ardent desire that the Church be found faithful, with her lamp lit and overflowing with oil. The exhortation "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord" connects directly to the folly of the foolish virgins, who perhaps gloried in their external status as "virgins in waiting" but lacked the inner substance. True glory, the true oil, resides not in our merits, but in the grace of God that works in us and leads us to perform works of charity. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, Christian vigilance is the expectation of "the blessed hope': the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ" (CCC 2849), an active waiting, filled with prayer and service.
🌹St. Gertrude the Great sublimely embodies the figure of the wise virgin. Her life was a continual storing up of the oil of divine love. After her conversion, she did not merely wait for the Bridegroom, but sought Him unceasingly in the Liturgy, in Sacred Scripture, and, in a special way, in His Sacred Heart, the inexhaustible source of the oil of grace. Her mystical writings are the overflowing of her vessel, a testament to how the soul can live in intimate union with Christ even on this earth, transforming the wait into a joyous anticipation of the heavenly nuptials. The life of St. Gertrude teaches us that to watch is not a state of passive anxiety, but an active immersion in the love of God, a love that prepares the lamp, adorns the soul, and makes us ready to hear, at any hour, the cry: "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet him!".
🌐See English version of the critical articles here.
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