Saint Gertrude the Great

November 16: Saint Gertrude the Great, Virgin—Optional Memorial

1256–1302
Patron Saint of nuns
Invoked for poor souls in Purgatory
Equivalent canonization in 1606
Added to the Universal Roman Calendar by Pope Clement XII in 1677
Liturgical Color: White

Let the Abyss of Uncreated Wisdom invoke the Abyss of Omnipotent Power to praise and extol the amazing charity which, by an excess of Thine infinite mercy, O most sweet God of my life and only Love of my soul, hast led Thee through a desert, pathless, and dry land,— that is, through the many obstacles I have placed to Thy mercy,—to descend into the valley of my miseries. I was in the twenty-sixth year of my age when, on the Monday before the Feast of the Purification of Thy most chaste Mother, in a happy hour, after Compline, at the close of day, Thou the true Light, Who art clearer than any light, and yet deeper than any recess, having resolved to dissipate the obscurity of my darkness, didst sweetly and gently commence my conversion by appeasing the trouble which Thou hadst excited in my soul for more than a month, which Thou didst deign to use, as I believe, to destroy the fortress of vain-glory and curiosity which my pride had raised up within me, although I bore the name and habit of a religious to no purpose; but Thou didst will to use this means, that Thou mightest thereby show me Thy salvation. ~Saint Gertrude