SAINT HELMTRUDIS, RECLUSE - 22 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 22nd of October

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SAINT HELMTRUDIS, RECLUSE 

Saint Helmtrudis, also known as Helentruda, Helmtruth, Helmtrud, Helmtraut, and Hildrudis, was born and educated in Heerse (Herisia) on the Weser in Westphalia (Diocese of Paderborn, [Germany]), where a nunnery had been founded some time after A.D. 875

Helmtrudis took the veil there and lived as a recluse in quiet prayer, devoted to the contemplation of heavenly things. Quite a while before her blessed death, she also spent some time on the mountain on which the town of Iburg - which belongs to the diocese of Osnabrück - lies, and where a large and famous Benedictine monastery used to be.

After a life spent in wonderful holiness, she died as piously as she had lived. Her relics were kept at Heerse until the time of the Thirty Years' War. Her grave shone with numerous miracles until then.

When Duke Christian of Brunswick waged war on the area and devastated the Christian sanctuaries, her memory fell into oblivion.

According to a source cited by the Bollandists, while she was still alive, St Cordula, a companion of the martyr St Ursula of Cologne, revealed her identity to St Helmtrudis. Blessed Imadus, who was bishop of Paderborn after 1052, left a martyrology in which a commemoration of "Hildruda, the Servant of God and Recluse in Heerse, to whom St Cordula revealed herself.' is made. From this circumstance the Bollandists conclude that St Helmtrudis must have lived in the 10th or 11th century. St Helmtrudis is also commemorated on May 31.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858 - 🎨 http://www.heiligen.net/heiligen/05/31/05-31-0950-helmtrudis_0.php?JPG=1 )