Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn

She was born at the castle of Helfta, near Eisleben, into the family of the Barons of Hackeborn, which Benedict XVI calls "one of the noblest, richest and most powerful barons of Thuringia". ¹² The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia dates her birth to 1240 or 1241; Benedict XVI, to 1241 or 1242; Catholic Culture, to 1241. ¹²⁴ Gertrude Casanova, who wrote the encyclopedia's article, notes that some writers took Mechtilde of Hackeborn and Mechtilde of Wippra for two people, but the Hackeborns were also lords of Wippra and used either name. ¹

She was so frail at birth, Casanova says, that she was hurried to a priest for baptism for fear she would die, and the priest told the family, "This child most certainly will not die, but she will become a saintly religious in whom God will work many wonders, and she will end her days in a good old age." ¹

At seven she went with her mother to visit her elder sister Gertrude, then a nun at Rodersdorf, and was so taken with the place that her parents let her stay as a pupil. ¹² Casanova spells the convent Rodardsdorf. ¹ In 1258 she followed her sister, by then abbess, when the community moved to Helfta, to land given by her brothers. ¹²

Gertrude of Hackeborn was abbess for forty years, and Benedict XVI credits her with bringing the convent to flourish as "the centre of mysticism and culture, a school for scientific and theological training", with a spirituality founded on Scripture, the liturgy, the Fathers and "the Cistercian Rule and spirituality". ² Casanova and Vatican News call Mechtilde a Benedictine. ¹³ The sources describe the community in both ways, and this page does not choose between them.

Mechtilde was put in charge of the school and of the choir while still young. ¹² Benedict XVI adds that she was novice mistress, and says she held these offices "with talent and unflagging zeal". ² Casanova says she had a beautiful voice and kept the office of domna cantrix all her life, and that Christ in her revelations called her his "nightingale". ¹ An excerpt printed by Catholic Culture says the opposite about office: that none of the mystics of Helfta "held any notable office in their community" and that their authority came from their visions. ⁴

In 1261 a five-year-old girl was entrusted to her. ¹² That child became Saint Gertrude the Great, and Benedict XVI says Mechtilde, then about twenty, taught and guided her until she was not only her disciple but her confidant. ² Casanova adds that it was from Mechtilde that Gertrude first learned that the gifts she was receiving came from God. ¹ A third mystic, Mechtild of Magdeburg, entered the convent in 1271 or 1272, and Benedict XVI counts "two Gertrudes and two Matildas" as "the glory of German monasticism". ²

Benedict XVI quotes the Book of Special Grace on what she was to her sisters: "She distributed doctrine in an abundance never previously seen at the convent", and "the sisters would cluster round her to hear the word of God, as if she were a preacher." ² People came from outside as well, religious and lay, and testified that she had freed them from their troubles. ² Casanova adds that learned Dominicans consulted her. ¹ She composed and taught so many prayers, the book says, that gathered together they "would make a book larger than a Psalter". ²

Her prayer grew out of the liturgy. ² Benedict XVI says the first part of the book records what she said on the feasts of the Lord, the saints and the Virgin, and that she had "a striking capacity for living the various elements of the Liturgy, even the simplest". ² She loved the Gospel so much that she was often unable to finish reading it aloud, and in choir she was sometimes so absorbed that she did not hear people calling her. ² In one vision, he recounts, Christ showed her his heart and told her that nowhere would she find his love "more clearly expressed than in the Gospel". ²

Catholic Culture's excerpt describes her first vision, at Communion, in which Christ left his imprint on her heart "like a seal in wax", and her devotion to his humanity as the "door" through which creation enters into union with God. ⁴ Casanova, for her part, says that "Divine praise was the keynote of her life as it is of her book." ¹

Around her fiftieth year, in a time Benedict XVI describes as a grave spiritual crisis and physical suffering, she confided the graces of her life to two sisters who were her friends. ¹² She did not know they were writing it down. ¹² When she found out, she was deeply troubled, and Casanova says she took it to prayer and saw Christ holding the book and saying, "All this has been committed to writing by my will and inspiration; and, therefore you have no cause to be troubled about it." ¹ She went on to correct the manuscript herself. ¹

Benedict XVI says the book was written by Gertrude and another sister of Helfta, and is "the principal source to refer to for information on the life and spirituality of our Saint." ² Its title, according to Casanova, came from Christ's wish that it be called "The Book of Special Grace", because it would prove so to many. ¹ After her death it was copied quickly, largely through the Dominicans, and Casanova cites Boccaccio for its arrival in Florence, where it was known as "La Laude di donna Matelda". ¹

Casanova goes further, and argues that the lady Matelda whom Dante meets in the Purgatorio, after the seven terraces of the mountain, is Mechtilde: the Purgatorio was finished while her book was popular in Florence, and the book describes the place of purification as a mountain of seven terraces. ¹ Most commentators, she admits, have identified Matelda with Countess Matilda of Tuscany, and she offers her own reading in the words "the conclusion may therefore be hazarded". ¹

She was ill for much of her life. ¹² Benedict XVI speaks of "continuous and intense bouts of suffering", to which she added harsh penances for the conversion of sinners, and of eight years of serious illness at the end. ² He says that when the Lord came to take her, she asked to live longer and suffer for the salvation of souls. ² She died at Helfta on November 19, 1298, at fifty-eight by his count. ¹² Gertrude, who described her last moments, wrote of her, "Never has there arisen one like to her in our monastery." ¹ Casanova says her body probably still lies at Old Helfta with Gertrude's, though the place is unknown. ¹

Catholic Culture lists her patronage as "against blindness", and says she is often shown healing a blind nun. ⁴ It is the only source consulted here that names a patronage; the encyclopedia, Benedict XVI and Vatican News name none. ¹²³

Saint Mechtilde's feast is November 19, the day she died. ³⁴ Vatican News lists "St. Matilda (Mechtilde), Virgin" on that day, and Catholic Culture says the Roman Martyrology commemorates her then. ³⁴ It was not always so: Casanova wrote in 1911 that her feast was "kept 26 or 27 February in different congregations and monasteries of her order, by special permission of the Holy See." ¹

Most of her life was spent teaching other people to pray: children in the school, the novices, the choir. ¹² Benedict XVI called her a teacher who, "starting from the Liturgy, helped her sisters to live intensely every moment of monastic life", and said the liturgy is "a great school of spirituality." ²

She did not want her own experience written down, and was upset when she learned it had been. ¹² What reconciled her, in Casanova's telling, was the assurance that it would serve God's glory and lead many to love him more. ¹ It was copied widely after her death. ¹

Benedict XVI was frank that some of her images "are at times distant from our sensibility today". ² What he drew from her was simpler: that her prayer was rooted in Scripture, the Mass and the Hours, and lived "ever in full fidelity to the Church." ²

She was in pain for much of her life and asked, at the end, to stay longer in it for others. ² The sources record that request without explaining it away.