MEMORIAL OF SAINT MECHTILDIS (MATHILDA) OF HACKEBORN, VIRGIN AND SAINT BARLAAM OF ANTIOCH, MARTYR – FEAST DAY ~ NOVEMBER 19TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Mechtilde (Mathilda) of Hackeborn, Virgin and Saint Barlaam of Antioch, Martyr. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and all the Saints on this feast day, World day of the poor, we humbly pray for the poor, the needy and the most vulnerable in our communities and around the world. We pray for abuse victims, immigrants, orphans, children, students and Healthcare workers. We pray for the sick and dying, especially those who are mentally and physically ill, strokes, heart diseases and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the souls of the faithful departed and we pray for all widows and widowers. We pray for peace, love, justice and unity in our marriages, our families and our world.
SAINT MECHTILDIS (MATHILDA) OF HACKEBORN, VIRGIN: Saint Mechtildis (1240-1298), born in 1240 in Saxony, she belonged to one of the noblest and most powerful Thuringian families; she was the younger sister of the illustrious Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn. She was so attracted to religious life at the age of seven, after a visit to her sister in the monastery of Rodardsdoft, that she begged to be allowed to enter the monastic school there. Her gifts caused her to make great progress both in virtue and learning. Ten years later, when her sister had transferred the monastery to an estate at Helfta offered by their brothers, St. Mechtildis went with her. She was already distinguished for her virtues, and while still very young became the valuable Assistant to Abbess Gertrude. One of the children who in the monastic school were committed to her care, it became St. Mechtilde’s lot to train the five-year-old who entered the monastery in 1261 and went on to become St. Gertrude the Great. The pupil wrote of her mistress: “There has never been anyone like her in our monastery, and I am afraid there will never be again.” In collaboration with another nun St. Gertrude wrote an account of Mechtilde’s spiritual teaching and mystical experiences entitled The Book of Special Grace, which was made public after Mechtilde’s death on November 19, 1298.
Saint Mechtildis was gifted with a beautiful voice, and was choir mistress of the nuns all her life. Divine praise, it has been said, was the keynote of her life, as also of her famous book, The Book of Special Grace. When she learned, at the age of fifty, that two of her nuns had written down all the favors and words of their Abbess, which she had become, she was troubled, but Our Lord in a vision assured her that all this has been committed to writing by My will and inspiration, and therefore you have no cause to be troubled over it. He added that the diffusion of the revelations He had given her would cause many to increase in His love. She immediately accepted the Lord’s bidding, and the book became extremely popular in Italy after her death. Its influence on the poet Dante’s Purgatorio is undeniable, for she had described the place of purification after death under the same figure of a seven-terraced mountain. The Donna Matelda of his Purgatorio, who guides him at one point in his vision, is Saint Mechtildis as she represents mystical theology. She died in 1298 at the monastery of Helfta. She’s Patron Saint against blindness.
PRAYER: God, You prepared a pleasing abode for Yourself in the heart of St. Mechtilde the Virgin. Through her intercession mercifully lighten the darkness of our heart so that we may rejoice in the knowledge that You are present and working within us. Amen 🙏
SAINT BARLAAM OF ANTIOCH, MARTYR: St. Barlaam of Antioch (d. 304 A.D.) was an elderly, uneducated peasant laborer from a village near Antioch. He was arrested for his Christian faith under the persecution of Roman Emperor Diocletian. He was detained for a long time in a dungeon before being brought before his judge. At his trial he was severely scourged, his bones dislocated on the rack, and tortured in other ways in an attempt to force him to renounce his faith in Christ and sacrifice to idols. Instead of crying out, there was joy in his countenance. His meekness, answers, and resolute will confounded his persecutors. The judge, determined to not be humiliated by a peasant, then devised a plan that would force Barlaam to offer sacrifice to the gods despite his constancy. He had an altar with a fire prepared, and had Barlaam’s right hand held over the fire and filled with incense and hot coals. This would force Barlaam’s burning hand to recoil, causing the incense to fall before the pagan altar, which the judge could then proclaim as a public act of sacrifice to the idols. Instead, Barlaam endured the pain in perfect stillness. He held his hand steady until it burned off completely. Irate, the judge ordered his immediate death. St. Barlaam’s feast day is November 19th.
Saint Barlaam of Antioch, Martyr ~ Pray for us 🙏