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Edited with a Note by Patrick Hart, OCSO
Editor's Note
Sometimes referred to as "Gertrude the Great of Helfta," the subject of this biographical sketch by Thomas Merton has become better known in our times through Alexandra Barratt's recent translation The Herald of God's Loving-Kindness published by Cistercian Publications. But in the mid-forties Father Louis was using the 1877 French translation by the Benedictines of Solesmes.
Ailbe Luddy, a monk of Mount Melleray Abbey in Ireland, published a small booklet on "St Gertrude the Great: Illustrious Cistercian Mystic" in 1930 in which he explained the origin and expansion of the institution of Cistercian nuns. The first convent of nuns to adopt the Cistercian Observance and to submit to the jurisdiction of the Cistercian General Chapter was Tart, near Dijon, founded in 1132 from the Benedictine house of jully, which was then governed by Saint Bernard's sister, the Blessed Humbeline. To Tart therefore belonged the title of Motherhouse of the Cistercian nuns. It rivaled Citeaux itself in the reputation for austerity and holiness enjoyed by its nuns as well as in the number of its filiations. Before the close of the twelfth century convents of the new Order were to be found in almost every country of Europe. In time they actually outnumbered the monasteries [of men].
Luddy then explained that with the blessings of such a phenomenon, there also followed some difficulties. The Cistercian abbots who were responsible for the spiritual direction and canonical visitation of these convents found the burden becoming increasingly heavy. So they declared they would no longer undertake the charge of communities of women that were established under a different observance and that desired to join the Cistercians. As this restriction did not sufficiently ease the situation, they finally decreed in the General Chapter of 1228 that they would accept responsibility for the spiritual direction and canonical visitation of no more convents than those already subject to their jurisdiction but added that, provided their own active co-operation was not claimed, they had no objection to religious communities of women adopting their rule and imitating their manner of life.
This discouraging announcement failed to stop or retard the movement, according to Luddy. The foundation of new establishments went on apace as...