Saint Who?
Saints Who Could Read Souls
Saint Mechtilde of Helfta
Religious († 1298) Feast: November 19
Mechtilde was the third daughter of the powerful Baron of Hackeborn of Thuringia (modern Germany). When she was six, her mother took her to visit Rodersdorf Abbey, where her eldest sister was a nun. Mechtilde begged to stay, and she was permitted to enter the abbey school.
In time, Mechtilde took vows herself. After the abbey moved to Helfta, she became the head of the school. Mechtilde’s warmth, good sense, and extraordinary ability to read hearts made her a frequent counselor and comfort to the girls, the nuns, and the lay persons who visited the abbey. Often in prayer Mechtilde beheld Christ with his Heart revealed. Other times, she felt herself to be enclosed within his Heart. When Mechtilde discovered that her student Gertrude—the future Saint Gertrude the Great—had been writing about the graces Mechtilde had shared with her, she was troubled. But Christ reassured her. He even gave her a title for the work: The Book of Special Grace.
At fifty-eight, Mechtilde took ill. She asked the Lord to permit her to linger for the salvation of others. She died eight painful years later. Jesus told her, “Consider the immensity of my love: if you want to know it well, nowhere will you find it more clearly expressed than in the Gospel. No one has ever heard expressed stronger or more tender sentiments than these: As my Father has loved me, so I have loved you” (Jn 15:9).
Loving Father, through the intercession of Saint Mechtilde of Helfta, enclose me within the Heart of Jesus.
