Spiritual Exercises

The remarkable monastery of Helfta was a 'place where learning and art, courtesy and holiness flowered in a dark season' of interregnal warfare.* The nuns drew their inspiration from the twin roots of Citeaux: the Rule of Saint Benedict and the constitutions of Citeaux; their spirituality, liturgy, customs, and habits were modelled on those of the White Monks, even though juridicallythey were not part of the Cistercian Order. Under the guidance of the thirteenth-century abbess Gertrud of Hackeborn, the nuns of Helfta steadfastly pursued learning and holiness. Among them were three outstanding women whose works have come down through the centuries: Mechtilde of Hackeborn, Mechtilde of Magdeburg, and the scholarly Gertrud the Great. Having entered monastic life at the age of five, Gertrud combined a deep knowledge of the Church Fathers and earlier medieval writers, an intimate familiarity with Scripture, and innate common sense. Her Spiritual Exercises-prayers, litanies, meditations, and hymns-articulate a spirituality that is both traditionally monastic and authentically, but unself-consciously, feminine. Hers is a mysticism of light and love, of humility and commitment, of freedom and discipline and-most of all-of joy. *M. Jeremy Finnegan OP, 'The Women of Helfta', Peace Weavers, Medieval Religious Women, 2:212.