The Love of the Sacred Heart

CHAPTER II — LIFE OF ST. MECHTILDE

THE first and final chapter of the Book of Grace had been carefully hidden from St. Mechtilde’s sight. Her humility would certainly have taken alarm at the praises there bestowed on her. These pages, though too few, are enough to make us appreciate her great virtues. We will here give the principal details.

The first chapter begins as follows:

This virgin was from her earliest infancy prevented by divine grace. At her birth, as it was feared that she was about to expire, they carried her in haste to be baptized by a priest of great holiness who was just preparing to celebrate the Holy Mass. After baptizing her he pronounced these words which we love to think prophetic: Why do you fear? This child will not die, but will become a holy religious. By her God will work great wonders and she will finish her life at a good old age, full of merits. When she was seven years of age her mother took her to visit the convent which was near her parents’ residence. Once there she refused to leave, notwithstanding her mother’s desire for her to return home. Full of delight, she begged the Sisters, one by one, to receive her into their company; and neither threats nor coaxing could move her to leave them.

What do we know of the family that the Saint deserted at so early an age, and what of the monastery in which she had come to bury her young life?

Mechtilde belonged to the family of Hackborn. She was born in 1241. The monastery into which she entered in 1248 was at that time at Rodarsdorf in the vicinity of her parents’ chateau. In 1258 this monastery was transferred to Helfta, on land which was given by her brothers the Lords Albert and Ludwig of Hackborn. This monastery was near the small town of Eisleben in Saxony, where, two centuries later, Lather was born.

St. Mechtilde advanced rapidly from virtue to virtue. She had a wonderfully sweet disposition, profoundly humble, most patient, a sincere lover of poverty, and very fervent and devoted. But it was especially in her love for God and her neighbour that she made the greatest progress; she showed herself pleased and amiable to all, full of tender compassion towards the afflicted or those in trouble. She was like a loving mother to those, showering on them consolation and help, and so no one went near her without being comforted and strengthened. She was much loved by all. Everyone wanted to be with her, and this often caused her some inconvenience.

So perfect a religious must have been a treasure in the Convent of Helfta. Not only had God enriched her with spiritual gifts, but also with those of nature—learning, a wide knowledge of literature, a beautiful voice, everything that could make her useful to the monastery. It seemed as if God would not allow her to want for anything.

Her beautiful voice caused her to be appointed Cantor to the Convent. Many times she gained by her singing what she priced more than the applause of men, the approval of her divine Spouse, to whom she had entirely consecrated her voice. She also had charge of the School, where St. Gertrude soon became one of her pupils. "She taught Christian doctrine with such efficiency that we have never had, and fear we never shall have, anyone in our Monastery to equal her. The Sisters gathered around her as around a preacher to hear the word of God. She dictated and taught them prayers, and they were so numerous that if gathered together they would make a larger book than all the psalms.

"Besides all this she was a perfect religious ready to renounce her own will and full of self-contempt, prompt in obedience, zealous for prayer and contemplation; she also had the gift of tears. She so practised poverty as to refuse herself even what was necessary. It was only through obedience that she possessed a mantle, and her other garments were made of the commonest materials and mended and patched all over. Being immersed in the love of our divine Lord she so forgot herself that she lost the use of her exterior senses, as we read of St. Bernard. She ate rotten eggs without perceiving it and before those near her could prevent it. Sometimes, when visitors were at the Monastery and she had refused to eat meat, they gave it to her and she ate it, until from their laughter she saw something unusual had occurred and came to herself

This great lover of suffering mortified her body for the conversion of sinners. During Lent, hearing the people shouting and singing, she felt consumed with zeal for God’s honour and also touched with great compassion. To offer God soma small reparation she placed pieces of broken glass and other sharp objects in her bed and rolled on them until her flesh was torn and she was covered with wounds and blood; the pain afterwards prevented her from either sitting or lying down. During Passiontide she was so full of compassion she could not speak of the sufferings of Christ without shedding tears. When she spoke either of the sufferings or of the love of Christ she was filled with such fervour that her face and hands became quite red. And we think that she very often shed her blood spiritually for the love of Christ (v. 30).

In enumerating her virtues Mechtilde’s companions often compared her with the different orders of Saints and Angels. They said: This angelic virgin deserves to be compared above all with the Seraphim; united so frequently, in an intimate manner, with that love which is God Himself; and clapped with so much affection to His Heart, so full of fire, she became one spirit with Him. She was never tired of speaking of God, and with so much fervour and divine Love that she enkindled the same in the hearts of all who heard her. Indeed, one might say of her, as of the Prophet Elias, that her words burnt like a torch.

When did Mechtilde receive the first confidences of the Sacred Heart? We are told by her companions that, from her earliest infancy, God commenced to reveal His secrets to her, but she says that one of the first graces she received was the gift of the Sacred Heart. So we may conclude, that for many years, if not all her life, she had had a true devotion to this worthy object of our love. Our Blessed Lord not only revealed to her His Sacred Heart, but He would place it as a pledge in the breast of His holy Spouse. She describes the event in these words: "On Wednesday in Easter Week hearing at Mass the words Venite benedicti Patris mei, she was filled with a sweet and extraordinary joy and said to our Lord: ‘Oh that I may be one of those blessed souls who shall hear those sweet words from Thy mouth.’ Our Lord replied: ‘Thou mayest be very sure thou wilt be, and to prove it, I give thee My Heart to keep always, and only to be given back to Me when I shall have fulfilled thy desire. I give thee My Heart as a place of refuge; at the hour of thy death it will be impossible for thee to lose thyself on any other road, thou wilt only have My Heart wherein to rest eternally.’"

This gift was the forerunner of many she was to receive from God. She began to have a very great devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ; whenever our Lord appeared to her she nearly always received some special favour from His Heart, as may be seen from many places in this book. She often loved to say: If all the graces that have come to me from the Sacred Heart of Jesus were written down, a book larger than a Breviary would not suffice in which to narrate them.

CHAPTER III — ST. MECHTILDE’S MISSION

AS far back as the thirteenth century the Sacred Heart enriched this chosen soul with His most extraordinary favours. Like the well-beloved Apostle, Mechtilde often leaned her head on the breast of the Man-God. She drank from the same source as that from which the Apostle had drawn the floods of truth contained in his Gospel. She had free entrance into this sanctuary of perfect praise. She found in this shrine the treasures of all graces and also that of divine love, and her heart was filled with the fire which inflamed the Seraphim. Also she received the Sacred Heart itself in some mysterious way, and bore it in her breast until her death.

In the wonderful favours granted by God to this humble daughter of St. Benedict He had special designs. No doubt He wished to manifest His marvellous condescension. He loves to lower Himself towards souls who sink into their own nothingness, but He wished also to give Mechtilde special tokens of His liberality, so that she might be received as the accredited messenger of His Sacred Heart. The writing of the Book of Special Grace was not the result of a little pious indiscretion, but a providential fact, instigated by our Lord Himself. Several times He intervened to calm the fears of the humble Benedictine, to guide the pen of her companions, or to give to the entire book His formal approbation, affirming that all contained therein had originated in His divine Heart. He also declared that that Heart would bless those who on reading this book became enamoured, of the gift of special grace.

We must, however, make one remark. Mechtilde did not receive any mission to convert souls, but only to enlighten those to whom the Sacred Heart had made itself known. As the prophets of the ancient law were only sent to the people of Israel, so the Virgin of Helfta was only sent to the privileged friends of the Sacred Heart. The devotion to this adorable Heart was for three centuries to be the reward of the perfect. Even the title of the book and the kind of grace of which it records the marvels indicate this restriction. It is the Book of Special Grace. That of universal grace was only to appear in the seventeenth century, and was also inspired by the Sacred Heart and written by the timid hand of Margaret Mary.

All are now called to know the Sacred Heart. The Book of Special Grace must henceforth be known by the second name given it by St. Mechtilde, The Light of the Church: Liber namque ille Lumen Ecclesiœ vocabitur—a prophecy which is fulfilled in our days. Thanks to the labours of the Benedictine Fathers of Solesmes, there is now a new translation of St. Mechtilde’s works, which gives pious readers the opportunity of tasting the sweetness and unction contained in them. Their doctrinal value is admirably described by the translator as follows: "The mystery of the Incarnation holds the first place, or rather is seen and felt, in all its manifestations. The Man-God is not only Saviour but Mediator between God and man. And what strong incentive caused His intervention and led Him to carry out this role even to the end? It was love. Yes, love which is charity, and charity which is God Himself (John iv. 8). Love in human form{2} seized upon the Son of God and caused Him to descend into the womb of a virgin-daughter of Adam; then, leading Him through the rough ways of poverty and suffering to the Cross on Calvary, raised Him up again, and followed Him to heaven, to the right hand of His Father, whence she always inclines the God-head towards the children of earth....The divine Heart is always seen to be a source of love and also of the operations of love. Mechtilde presents us with more pictures than Gertrude, and this applies to all her visions, which are nearly always represented to us under a more sensible form than those of St. Gertrude. What is more delightful or lovingly divine than the gift our Lord made of His Heart to Mechtilde, as a pledge which He would require of her at the moment of death, and this promise made to all: I will drink of all the hearts who drink of Mine (Preface)?

The works of St. Mechtilde raise the veil which here below hides the Sacred Heart from our longing gaze. We might also state, though that is out of our province, that their literary beauty is of a very high order. Dante was several times inspired by the Book of Special Grace, and the question is discussed today whether a person introduced into the Divina Commedia under the name of Matelda{3} is not intended to be the Virgin of Helfta. We may leave this question to the decision of the learned, and for ourselves gather together all the passages wherein the Sacred Heart speaks to us in the Book of Special