ST GERTRUDE VAN OOSTEN, VIRGIN - 6 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 6th of January

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SAINT GERTRUDE VAN OOSTEN, VIRGIN

A page of one of Fortunatus Hueber's
Saints' books,
"Stammenbuch..." (1693)

Saint Gertrude van Oosten, Virgin, died in the year 1358 at the Beguine Convent [Bagijnhof] at Delft (Delphi) in Holland with a reputation of holiness. 

She descended from poor parents in the village of Voorburg between Hague and Delft. She had to go out into the world at an early age in order to eke out a living as a maid, but she had always felt an urge for an inward, secluded life. This was also evident by the fact that she did not spend her free hours on entertainment like others, but on service dedicated to the sick. Set back by her fiancé, she asked to be admitted to the Beguine Convent in Delft, and was taken in.

The biography goes on to say that she earned her living by begging; one may assume, however, that this only happened when the virgins' earnings from needlework, which the beguines had to do, were not sufficient. She was filled with love of God and in contempt for earthly pleasures. In her meditations she observed the course of church festivals and is said to have been graced with the stigmata in 1340. 

When she felt bothered by numerous visits, questions and attention because of her stigmata, she also became afraid of sinning by vainglory and of being thus deprived of further mercies. Bringing the matter before God in prayer, the flow of blood from the wounds, which had hitherto occurred daily, stopped, and only the scars remained. 

She was called "van Oosten" because of her favourite song, which she wrote herself and which she often sang, and which begins with the words: "Het daghet in den Oosten" (it is dawning in the east). Other things, namely her prophecies, which are given in detail by the Bollandists* in the passage quoted at the end of their article, we choose to skip here. The Bollandists* write retrospectively (April 1. 898) of her relics that they had been in Lisbon for a while but were later (ibid., pp. 73, 74) taken to Antwerp by the faithful (I. 348 ff).

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, Volume 2, Augsburg, 1861, pp. 424-25)

*A hagiography source used by the authors 

Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints - Sources and Abbreviations

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of the Saint Gertrude may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

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