Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn

Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn was a nun of the monastery of Helfta in Saxony, its choir mistress and the teacher of Saint Gertrude the Great, and one of the great mystics of the thirteenth century. Her spiritual experiences were written down by her fellow sisters in the “Book of Special Grace.” The Church commemorates her on November 19.

She was born in 1241 or 1242 at the castle of Helfta, the third daughter of Baron von Hackeborn, of one of the most powerful families of Thuringia. Her elder sister Gertrude was already a nun at Rodersdorf. At the age of seven Mechtilde visited her there with their mother and longed to stay in the monastery. She was accepted as a pupil, and in 1258 she became a nun. In the meantime the community had moved to Helfta, to the estate of the Hackeborns.

For forty years the monastery was led by her sister, Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn. She made it a center of mysticism and learning, grounded in Holy Scripture, the liturgy, the writings of the Fathers of the Church, and Cistercian spirituality. Mechtilde, gifted with a keen mind and a beautiful voice, became while still very young the head of the monastery school, choir mistress, and novice mistress. She was called “God’s nightingale.”

In 1261 a five-year-old girl named Gertrude came to the monastery. She was entrusted to the care of the twenty-year-old Mechtilde, who brought her up and guided her in the spiritual life. The pupil, later known as Saint Gertrude the Great, became her confidant. In 1271 or 1272 Mechthild of Magdeburg also came to live at Helfta, another mystic, who should not be confused with the saint of Hackeborn.

To the sisters and to visitors from outside she was a counselor and a consoler. The nuns would gather around her to hear the word of God, “as if she were a preacher.” She composed many prayers. Her spiritual life grew out of the liturgy: the canonical hours, Holy Mass and Holy Communion, and out of the Gospel. In her visions the Heart of Jesus holds an important place. All her life she suffered much and took on severe penance for the conversion of sinners.

At the age of fifty she went through a grave spiritual crisis and suffered physically. She then confided to two sisters the graces by which God had led her since childhood. She did not know that they were writing everything down, and when she found out, she was troubled. According to the “Book,” the Lord himself reassured her: the notes were to serve the glory of God and the good of her neighbor. This is how the “Book of Special Grace” (Liber specialis gratiae) came into being, compiled by Saint Gertrude and one other nun of Helfta.

The last eight years of her life were spent in serious illness. She died at Helfta on November 19, in 1298 or 1299. No formal canonization was ever carried out. For centuries, however, she has been venerated as a saint in monasteries living by the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the Roman Martyrology lists her on November 19. Benedict XVI devoted a catechesis to her on September 29, 2010, and called the liturgy, from which she drew, a great school of spirituality.