“The mission of HHS is to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, and this includes the unborn.”

While I know that some former readers have abandoned this site because of my criticism of former and future President Donald John Trump, I have not been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to a prince of this world in hope there is no hope of salvation. It is not to expect “perfection” to demand that one who aspires to public office to commit himself to do everything that is possible in this imperfect, fallen vale of tears to restoring full protection for each innocent human being from the moment of conception until death without any reservation or qualification whatsoever. I have nevertheless been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Holy Catholic Church, she who is the His living, sanctifying, teaching and, if necessary, disciplining instrument here on earth.

It is do take nothing away from the scope of President-elect Trump’s electoral victory to state forthrightly that his abandonment of the innocent preborn, which may indeed have helped him in some of the “swing states,” has destroyed the political force of the pro-life movement at the national and even the state and local levels. The man who defeated the anti-Catholic pro-abort, pro-perversity menaces named Kamala Harris Emhoff and Timothy James Walz, Donald John Trump has made it clear that what he calls “cultural wars” are finished.

As repetition is the mother learning, let me reiterate the following points that I have enumerated at least three times before in the past few months:

  1. a firmly stated belief that there must all legislation to restrict the surgical assassination of the innocent preborn must include “exceptions” even though the civil law can never justly permit the direct, intentional killing of any innocent human being.
  2. A firmly stated belief that opposition to “exceptions” is “harsh” and “extreme.”
  3. A firmly stated opposition to all “heartbeat bills,” which happen to be immoral for reasons discussed nearly three years ago in The Supreme Masters of Sophistry: Unable to Admit the Fifth Commandment Exists.
  4. A firmly stated opposition to enforcing that part of the United States Code that prohibits the mailing of the human pesticide, abortion pills.
  5. A firmly stated belief that the killing of the innocent preborn is a matter of the “Mutable Will of the People" and thus has nothing to do with rendering complete obedience to the immutable will of God.
  6. A firmly stated support for in vitro fertilization (see Your "Pro-Life" President is At It Again) that he has repeated time and time again, not that it matters to Kamala Harris Emhoff or Timothy James Walz.
  7. A firmly stated belief that the issue of the surgical execution of innocent preborn children is a “small” issue (see Baby Butchery is Not A "Small Issue" to Christ the King).
  8. A firmly stated belief that “everyone” wanted the issue of surgical baby-killing to be “returned to the people,” a delusional falsehood as there would never have been any controversy at all over the Dobbs decision if “everyone” wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.

Donald John Trump has, by taking these positions, repositioned the “official” “conservative” position about baby butchery that is being adopted by many of his Congressional supporters, including the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives, James Jordan (R-Ohio). This "repositioning" was praised as follows by a commentator named David Sacks:

On the one issue where Democrats had an advantage, abortion, Trump deftly got ahead of the issue by rejecting a national ban and removing problematic language from the GOP platform. Harris wore out the issue by blatantly lying about Trump’s position and by exhibiting her own party’s extremism (nobody needed to see an abortion truck at the DNC). (As found at: David Sacks on X: "WHY TRUMP WON While the legacy media has a meltdown searching for hitherto undiagnosed psychoses in the electorate to explain its embrace of a Hitlerian strongman, the truth is much simpler than their fictions. This election is a reminder that after all the manufactured drama" / X)

  • i. As noted in the past, Donald John Trump has thus accomplished what the likes of Lee Atwater (before his conversion to Catholicism), Richard Bond, Robert Joseph Dole, Jr., and many other Republicans sought and failed to accomplish: namely, the removal of the life issue from Republican campaigns as candidates show their fealty to the former president and not to Christ the King.

By taking these positions, therefore, President Donald John Trump has said, in effect, that he is done with the “cultural issues” and will focus on making America “great” while living quite comfortably with the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn, which his third wife, Melania Knauss Trump, supports without restriction, reservation, or qualification (see First Ladies of Baby Butchery.)

Well, Donald John Trump is putting into action what he has been preaching since the 2022 elections by jettisoning all Federal efforts to protect the innocent preborn, admitting that he will probably provide for conscientious objections for physicians and other care professionals to exempt them from violating their consciences concerning contraception, abortion sterilization, and in vitro fertilization. However, that is not good enough to advance the common temporal good.

As Alex Azar, who headed the Big Pharma industry known as Eli Laboratories, which is based in Indianapolis, Indiana, prior to being appointed by President Donald John Trump to be Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services on January 29, 2018, said in an interview after he had been nominated by Trump to serve in that capacity:

According to Talking Points Memo, Azar also told Murray in a written response to her questions regarding a strategic plan released by HHS which stated that life begins at conception, that “The mission of HHS is to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, and this includes the unborn.” (Alex Azar is the New Health Secretary. What Will He Mean for Women’s Health?.)

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., whom President-elect Donald John Trump has nominated to be the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services (whose predecessor department, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, was created at the behest of President Dwight David Eisenhower in 1953 to bring various agencies created during the socialistic “New Deal” during the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt under one roof; the organized was renamed when the Congress of the United States of America created the United States Department of Education at the request the Great Appeaser, President James Earl Carter, Jr.), does not believe that the mission of the massive bureaucratic maze to which he has been nominated to head “to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, and this includes the unborn.”

Now, before I continue, let me state that there is a special irony in all this as Alex Azar used his term as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to promote President Donald John Trump’s warped Operation Warp Speed, which Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., courageously opposed as the head of his Children’s Health Defense Fund. Azar was correct to protect the unborn but in grave error to promote the “vaccines,” which still continue to maim and kill thousands upon thousands of people around the world (see DNA Contamination in Vaccines: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?, As Cancer Rates for Young Adults Continue to Climb, Are Doctors ‘Dancing Around the Elephant in the Room’? , Doctors in Canada Euthanize Man With Disabling COVID Vaccine Injury and Mental  Illness,

Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., was correct to oppose the coronascam program of cookie-cutter medical “protocols” for treating those infected with the Wuhan Virus and to oppose the poisoned jabs developed under Azar’s watch, but he continues to be tragically wrong about his continued support for the chemical and surgical assassination of the innocent preborn:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), could see his abortion stance backfire in Senate confirmation hearings, according to conservative pundit Scott Jennings.

Kennedy endorsed President-elect Donald Trump after suspending his independent presidential campaign in August, while promising that he would help Trump "make America healthy again." Trump on Thursday named Kennedy as his pick for HHS secretary.

The nomination immediately sparked controversy, mostly over Kennedy potentially overseeing the national health infrastructure despite his long history of anti-vaccine activism and other questionable positions on health and medicine.

Jennings, ex-adviser to former President George W. Bush, said during a CNN appearance on Thursday night that Kennedy would likely be grilled on his vaccine stance but could also expect to come under fire from Senate "pro-lifers" who do not approve of his support for abortion rights.

"I'm certain the vaccine stuff will be the biggest flashpoint in the hearings," Jennings said. "He'll have a chance to answer for those statements and the senators are gonna have to decide whether that's satisfactory to them or not."

"One other political issue: I think the pro-lifers are a little weird on this right now," he continued. "If I were the Trump people, I would be coming up with something proactive to head that off, because I do think those attacks are coming."

Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump's office via email on Thursday night.

While it is far from clear that Kennedy is at risk of being blocked from confirmation in the Senate, which will have a 53 to 47 Republican majority in January, some conservatives have indicated that his position on abortion could pose a problem.

Philip Klein, editor of National Review Online—the digital version of conservative magazine National Review, argued that the appointment of "pro-abortion RFK Jr." would be "a monumental disaster" in an article published on Thursday.

Klein urged Republican senators to "do their job" by rejecting both Matt Gaetz—whom Trump nominated as the next U.S. attorney general despite investigations over alleged sexual misconduct and illegal drug use—and Kennedy because he said that he supported "full-term abortion" earlier this year.

In a May interview, Kennedy told podcaster Sage Steele that he was in favor of abortion rights "even if it's full-term," arguing that the decision should be that of "the women rather than the state."

Kennedy backpedaled one week later, saying in a statement shared on social media that he believes "abortion should be unrestricted" only until "the baby is viable outside the womb."

In addition to irking conservatives for favoring abortion rights, Kennedy has also provoked criticism from the political left over sometimes expressing support for restrictions on abortion.

Late last month, after Trump pledged to allow Kennedy to "work on" women's health issues, the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris shared a video showing Kennedy expressing support for a national three-month abortion ban in a post to X, formerly Twitter.

Kennedy's abortion ban remark, delivered during a brief NBC News interview in August 2023, was quickly walked back, with the then-Democratic presidential candidate's campaign saying that he "misunderstood" the question. (RFK Jr.'s Stance on Abortion Could Backfire, Ex-Bush Official Warns.)

Why does this matter?

Well, the United States Department of Health and Human Services just happens to have all kinds of mandates, rules, and regulations concerning making “women’s reproductive health services” widely available. These anti-life “services” include Title X funding for contraceptive pills and devices, the human pesticide—the abortion pill, sterilization, vital organ vivisection and transplantation, the promotion of the surgical slaughter of the innocent preborn. and “fertility services” such as in vitro fertilization. (See https://healthlaw.org › wp-content › uploads › 2024 › 05 › 2024-HIPAA-Final-Rule-to-Support for what is called a “non-exhaustive” list of what constitutes “women’s reproductive health services” according to a rule promulgated on June 25, 2024, by the United States Department of Health and Human Services.)

In this regard, therefore, remembered that it was just three months ago that former and future President Donald John Trump said that his administration would be “great” for “women’s reproductive health”:

(LifeSiteNews) — Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that his hopeful next presidential administration “will be great for women and their reproductive rights” in what appears to be one of his strongest affirmations of abortion support to date.

The term “reproductive rights” is used overwhelmingly to refer to the so-called “right” to kill preborn children through abortion and could hypothetically also refer to a “right” to in vitro fertilization (IVF), which in practice kills even more human beings than abortion because it disposes the excess of embryonic babies it creates.

Some conservatives have denounced, explicitly or implicitly, the former president’s remarks as an apparent act of homage to the abortion lobby.

“There is no ‘reproductive right’ to kill a child,” pro-life activist Lila Rose remarked on X.

Alex Stone, the nephew of American political operative Roger Stone, has urged Trump, “Do not go down this route of supporting abortion.. They are a death cult, they hate God, they hate America, and they are pro-killing babies.”

“If you go down this route, you will alienate so many voters,” Stone said.

Philosophy professor Edward Feser regarded the remarks as indicative of a “uniparty.”

Trump’s concessions to the deadly pro-abortion movement have become increasingly clear over the past two years. He recently stated definitively that if returns to the White House, he will not use existing federal law to block the mail distribution of abortion pills. He has also signaled a desire to close the door on banning abortion nationally in favor of relegating future abortion battles to the states while expressing indifference to what policies states ultimately adopt except to occasionally chide pro-life actions he deems too “harsh.” 

Last month, at its 2024 nominating convention, the GOP adopted a dramatically shortened platform drafted and promoted by Trump surrogates, which among other changes cut the party’s longstanding support for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion and a federal law extending equal protection to preborn babies in favor of leaving abortion policy to individual states; it also endorsed birth control (many common methods of which function as abortifacients) and embryo-destructive in vitro fertilization.

In June, Trump reiterated his opposition to a federal abortion ban and once more stressed that any state-level bans should, in his view, contain exceptions for rape, incest, and medical emergencies. (Trump: ‘My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights’.)

There is no such thing as "reproductive freedom," which is simply a euphemism to justify an outright rebellion against Holy Purity and the fulfillment of the ends for which Our Lord instituted Holy Matrimony for the bringing forth as many (or as few) children as He sees fit to bestow upon parents so that their children can give Him honor and glory in this life and be prepared to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace as members of His Holy Catholic Church and thus enjoy the citizenship of Heaven in the glory of His Beatific Vision for all eternity. 

It got worse:

Republican vice presidential hopeful Sen. JD Vance indicated that former President Donald Trump would vote any federal legislation to ban abortion nationwide — yet another illustration of how the 45th president is seeking to distance himself from hardliners in his party on the wedge issue.

Since April, Trump, 78, has been adamant that he’d defer to the states on the controversial procedure, but Democrats have continued to accuse him of plotting a national ban after he took credit for the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

When asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker whether a President Trump would veto a federal abortion ban, Vance responded:

“I can absolutely commit that, Kristen. Donald Trump has been as clear about that as possible,” Vance (R-Ohio), 40, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview airing Sunday.

Donald Trump wants to end this culture war over this particular topic,” he went on. “We want the federal government to focus on these big economic and immigration questions. Let the states figure out their own abortion policy.”

A deluge of polls have indicated that abortion is one of Trump’s most pronounced vulnerabilities heading into the Nov. 5 presidential election and the former president has been keen on pacifying that weakness.

During the Democratic National Convention last week, Vice President Kamala Harris alleged that Trump “and his allies” would “ban medication abortion and enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress.”

Not long after Harris’ jab, Trump raised eyebrows on Truth Social, declaring that “My Administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights.”

Trump finds himself in a bind on abortion, wary of being too off-putting toward independent voters, while simultaneously not trying to alienate his base, which is full of anti-abortion voters.

Democrats have highlighted Trump’s past remarks on abortion such as boasting that “I was able to kill Roe v. Wade.” The former president has often tried to fixate on late-term abortions, something that polls generally indicate is less popular with the public.

“I think he’s been very clear he would not support it,” Vance responded when asked about Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) push for a federal ban. Graham has pushed for a 15-week ban.

“I think he would. He said that explicitly that he would,” Vance added when pressed whether Trump would veto such legislation.

Trump had privately floated different middle-ground approaches to abortion before coming out in April and calling for the states to take charge. While opposing federal intervention, he also came out against a near-total ban in Arizona on the procedure, which was later rolled back.

Back in 2018, Trump urged Congress to pass a 20-week ban on the procedure.

Vance has a lengthy history of advocating against abortion, but since joining the Trump ticket, he has refrained from letting there be daylight between him and the 45th president.

“There’s something comparable between abortion and slavery, and that while the people who obviously suffer the most are those subjected to it, I think it has this morally distorting effect on the entire society,” Vance previously said back in a 2022 interview. 

Other Republicans, such as former Vice President Mike Pence and a slew of anti-abortion groups have found themselves frustrated with Trump’s evolved stance on abortion.  (Donald Trump would veto federal ban on abortion: JD Vance.)

What more is there left to say?

“Donald Trump wants to the end the culture war on this particular issue.”

This particular issue?

The defense of innocent human life from conception until death is the overriding moral issue of our time, and Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., has been on the wrong side of this overriding moral issue along with everyone else within his extended family who has served in public life and/or has been or is now a member of the commentariat class (e.g. Maria Shriver, whose mother and father, Robert Sargent Shrive and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, were actually publicly “pro-life,” well, they said they were while supporting one pro-abortion Democrat after another). He is unfit to serve as the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, something that former Vice President Michael Richard Pence correctly noted yesterday, Friday, November 14, 2024, the Feast of Saint Josaphat:

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday made his opposition to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services unequivocal. 

"The Trump-Pence administration was unapologetically pro-life for our four years in office. There are hundreds of decisions made at HHS every day that either lead our nation toward a respect for life or away from it, and HHS under our administration always stood for life," Pence said in a lengthy statement on the website for his Advancing American Freedom nonprofit Friday. 

"I believe the nomination of RFK Jr. to serve as Secretary of HHS is an abrupt departure from the pro-life record of our administration and should be deeply concerning to millions of Pro-Life Americans who have supported the Republican Party and our nominees for decades."

Pence claimed Kennedy has "defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy" for the majority of his career and supports overturning the Dobbs decision and codifying Roe v. Wade. 

"If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history," Pence wrote. 

President-elect Trump on Thursday announced he was nominating Kennedy to head the agency as he had said he would during the campaign. 

"I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health," Trump said in his announcement. 

Kennedy was frequently seen with Trump in the last couple of months of the campaign after he dropped his independent bid for the White House and endorsed the Republican nominee. 

Pence, who served as Trump’s vice president during Trump's first term, didn’t run with him again in 2024 and declined to endorse Trump. 

Kennedy has flip-flopped on abortion. In May, he said a woman should be able to have an abortion when she’s full term, which he later walked back, saying there should be restrictions at some point in the pregnancy. And last year he said he supported a 15-week ban on abortion before his campaign said he misspoke. (Pence says he opposes RFK Jr.’s nomination for HHS secretary because of his stance on abortion.)

While Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr.’s has great expertise on the harm being done by Big Agriculture, the food processing industry, and by the behemoth rightly called Big Pharma, is incongruous of him to claim that he has been for “children’s health” while supporting the execution of children in their mothers’ wombs.

As then former California Governor Ronald Wilson Reagan noted in his debate with independent candidate Representative John B. Anderson (R-Rockford, Illinois) in Baltimore, Maryland, on Saturday, September 21, 1980:

With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there is one individual who is not being considered at all, and that is the one who is being aborted. And I have noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born. (Ronald Reagan and John Anderson Presidential Debate.)

If President-elect Donald John Trump knew anything about First and Last Things, which he does not, he could have made Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., a “czar” with authority limited to vaccines, drugs, and the food industry, not as the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services It is all well and good that Kennedy opposes the mutilation of children by means of the monstrous “gender affirming” programs that are psychologically manipulating children into believing that they are something other than as they were at birth, life begins at conception. All innocent human life is inviolable conception until death and must be preserved from all direct attacks (chemical and surgical abortion, child-killing after birth, euthanasia, palliative care/hospice, “brain death” and vital organ vivisection and transplantation—see Don't be fooled: Organ harvesting after 'circulatory death' kills living donors) upon it. No exceptions. No qualifications. No reservations.

Although it is possible that there might be some partly pro-life/partly pro-abortion Republican senators who could condition their vote to confirm Kennedy upon the promise to appoint a few pro-life assistant secretaries to oversee the drafting and implantation of religious exemptions to the incoming administration’s commitment to “women’s reproductive services,” I have every reason to believe that President-elect Trump intends to fulfill his commitment to promote contraception, in vitro fertilization, and to remain silent about surgical baby-killing with a view to the 2026 midterm elections and then to make it possible for Vice President-elect James David Vance to win election to the presidency in 2028.

The inviolability of innocent human life is non-negotiable.

God has commanded.

Man must obey, and he must conform civil law to the Divine and Natural Laws in all that pertain to the good of souls, temporally and eternally.

While admitting full well, as I have so many times in the past, that we have reached this point where the supposedly “lesser evil” is free to do much, although certainly not all, of what the “greater evil” would have done more quickly, overtly, and oppressively because of the inaction of the conciliar “bishops” of the United States of America in the political and legislative spheres as well as the failure to discipline any pro-abortion Catholic in public life (and, in all too many cases, the open complicity of conciliar entities—Catholic Charities, Catholic Campaign for Human Development, et al.—with those pro-abortion, pro-sodomite Catholics as well as with Planned Barrenhood and related anti-life groups), civil leaders must still lead.

The plain truth of the matter is that Donald John Trump is leading the nation in the wrong direction when it comes to a defense of innocent human life, and his appointment of Robert Francis Kennedy, Jr., to be the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services is yet another step in the wrong direction as it is all well and good to protect and promote the health of Americans after birth, but it is essential to protect the life of children before birth.

This is all but the consequence of a world where the forces anti-Incarnational forces of Modernity have been joined by the forces of Modernism within the counterfeit church of conciliarism to spit on the Social Reign of Christ the King in favor of the “sovereignty” of man over that which he has no authority whatsoever: the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

May God have mercy on us all.

On the Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great

Saint Gertrude the Great is one of the greatest lights of the Order of Saint Benedict who was blessed with numerous mystical experiences that made her an Apostle of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus four centuries before Our Lord asked Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque to promote devotion to His Most Sacred Heart publicly and with a solemn liturgical feast to combat the coldness of Jansensism that had dried up the wellsprings of mercy and Christian compassion in the hearts of so many Catholics, especially in France and Ireland.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., summarized Saint Gertrude of Helfta’s life as follows in The Liturgical Year:

The school which is founded upon the rule of the great Patriarch of the Monks of the West began with St. Gregory the Great. Such was the independent action of the Holy Spirit who guided it that in it women have prophesied as well as men. It is enough to mention St. Hildegarde and St. Gertrude, with whom we may fitly associate St. Mechtilde and St. Frances of Rome. Anyone who has tried modern methods will find, on making acquaintance with these ancient writers, that he is breathing another atmosphere, and is urged onward by a gentle authority which is never felt but which allows no rest. He will not find that subtlety, that keen and learned analysis, he has met with elsewhere, and which rather weary than aid the soul.

The pious and learned Father Faber has brought out, with his characteristic sagacity, the advantages of that form of spirituality which gives the soul breadth and liberty, and so produces in many persons effects which some modern methods fail of producing: “No one,” says he, “can be at all acquainted with the old-fashioned Benedictine school of spiritual writers without perceiving and admiring the beautiful liberty of spirit which pervades and possesses their whole mind. It is just what we should expect from an order of such matured traditions. St. Gertrude is a fair specimen of them. She is thoroughly Benedictine … a spirit of breadth, a spirit of liberty, that is, the Catholic spirit; and it was eminently the badge of the old Benedictine ascetics. Modern writers for the most part have tightened things, and have lost by it instead of gaining. By frightening people, they have lessened devotion in extent; and by overstraining it, they have lowered it in degree.” (Faber, 1855, All for Jesus)

In any case, there are many ways, and every way is good which brings men back to God by a thorough conversion of heart. But we are sure that those who may be led to commit themselves to the guidance of a saint of the old school will not lose their time; and that if they meet with less philosophy and less psychology on their way, they will be subdued by the simplicity and authority of her language, and be moved and melted as they contrast their own souls with that of their saintly guide. And this blessed revolution will take place in almost every soul that follows St. Gertrude in the week of Exercises she proposes to them, if only they really desire to draw yet more closely the ties which unite them to God, if their intention be fixed aright, and their souls truly recollected in God. We may almost venture to assure such persons that they will come forth from these Exercises transformed in their whole being. They will return to them again and again with ever increasing pleasure; for they will have no discouraging memory of fatigue, nor of the slightest constraint laid upon their liberty of spirit. They will feel confounded, indeed, to be admitted so near the inmost heart of so great a saint; but they will also feel that they have been created for the same end as that saint, and that they must bestir themselves, and quit all easy, dangerous ways, which lead to perdition.

And if we be asked whence comes that wonderful influence which our Saint exercises over all who listen to her, our answer would be: from her surpassing holiness. She does not prove the possibility of spiritual movement and advance; she moves and advances. A blessed soul, sent down from heaven to dwell awhile with men, and speaking the language of the heavenly country in this land of exile, would doubtless utterly transform those who heard its speech. Now St. Gertrude was admitted to such familiar converse with the Son of God, that her words have just the accent of such a soul; and this is why they have been and are like winged arrows, which pierce and wound all within their range. The understanding is enlarged and enlightened by her pure and elevated doctrine, and yet St. Gertrude never lectures or preaches; the heart is touched and melted, and yet St. Gertrude speaks only to God; the soul judges itself, condemns itself, renews itself by compunction, and yet St. Gertrude has made no effort to move or convict it.

And if we ask what is the source of the special blessing attached to the language of St. Gertrude, the answer is that it blesses because it is so impregnated with the divine Word, not only with the revelations which St. Gertrude received from her heavenly Spouse, but with the sacred Scriptures and the liturgy of the Church. This holy daughter of the cloister drank in light and life day by day from the sources of all true contemplation, from the very fountain of living waters which gushes forth from the psalms and the inspired words of the divine Office. Her every sentence shows how exclusively her soul was nourished with this heavenly food. She so lived into the liturgy of the Church that we continually find in her revelations that the Savior discloses to her the mysteries of heaven, and the Mother of God and the saints hold converse with her on some Antiphon, or Response, or Introit, which the Saint is singing with delight, and of which she is striving to feel all the force and the sweetness.

Hence that unceasing flow of unaffected poetry which seems to have become quite natural to her, and that hallowed enthusiasm which raises the literary beauty of her writings almost to the height of mystical inspiration. This child of the thirteenth century, buried in a monastery of Suabia, preceded Dante in the paths of spiritual poetry. Sometimes her soul breaks forth into tender and touching elegy; sometimes the fire which consumes her bursts forth in transports of fervor; sometimes her feelings clothe themselves quite instinctively in a dramatic form; sometimes she stops short in her sublimest flights, and she who almost rivals the seraphim, descends to earth, but only to prepare herself for a still higher flight. It is as though there had been an unending struggle between the humility which held her prostrate in the dust and the aspirations of her soul, panting after Jesus, who was drawing her, and who had lavished on her such exceeding love.

In our opinion the writings of St. Gertrude lose nothing of their indescribable beauty, even when placed beside those of St. Teresa. Nay, we think that the saint of Germany is not unfrequently superior to her sister of Spain. The latter, full of impetuous ardor, has not, it is true, the tinge of pensive melancholy which colors the writings of the former; but St. Gertrude knew Latin so well, and was so profoundly versed in the letter and the spirit of the holy Scriptures, that we do not hesitate to pronounce her style superior in richness and in force to that of St. Theresa.

Still we pray the reader not to be frightened at the thought of being placed under the guidance of a seraph, when his conscience tells him that he has still so much to do in the purgative way, before he can venture to enter upon paths which may never open to him on earth. Let him simply listen to St. Gertrude, let him fix his eye upon her, and have faith in the end she proposes to him. When the holy Church puts in our mouths the language of the Psalms, she knows full well that that language is often far beyond the feelings of our soul; but if we wish to bring ourselves up to the level of these divine hymns, our best method is certainly to repeat them frequently in faith and humility, and await the transformation they will assuredly effect. St. Gertrude detaches us gently from ourselves, and brings us to Jesus by going before us herself, and by drawing us after her, though at a great distance. She goes straight to the heart of her divine Spouse, and she might well do so; but will it not be an inestimable blessing if she bring us to his feet like Magdalen, penitent and transformed by love?

Even when she writes for her sisters alone, let us not suppose that these exquisite pages are useless to those of us who are living in the midst of the world. The religious life, when expounded by such an interpreter, is a spectacle as instructive as it is striking. Need we say that the practice of the precepts of the Gospel becomes more easy to those who have well pondered and admired the practice of its counsels? What is the Imitation of Christ but a book written by a monk for the use of monks; and yet who is not familiar with its teaching? How many seculars delight in the writings of St. Teresa; and yet the holy Carmelitess makes the religious life the one theme of her teaching.

We will not now speak of her wonderful style of expression. We are so unused to the decided and elevated language of the ages of faith that some readers, accustomed to modern books alone, may be startled, and even pained, by St. Gertrude. But what is the remedy for this inconvenience? If we have unlearned the language of that antique piety which fashioned saints, surely our best way is to learn it again as soon as we can; and St. Gertrude will give us wonderful help in doing so.

The list of the devoted admirers of her writings would be long and imposing. But there is an authority far higher still—that of the Church herself. That mother of the faithful, ever guided by the Holy Ghost, has in her holy liturgy set her seal upon St. Gertrude. The Saint herself, and the spirit which animated her, are there forever recommended and glorified in the eyes of all Christians, in virtue of the solemn judgment contained in the Office of her festival. (Gueranger, Exercises of St Gertrude (1865), Preface.)

The life of Gertrude the Great, as she has merited to be distinguished among the Saints of the same name, was humble and obscure. (1256-1302). At five years of age she entered the Abbey of Helfta near Eisleben, and there she remained hidden in the secret of God’s face. (Psalm 30:21) For several centuries, by an error which has also found its way into the Legend of the feast, she was confounded with the Abbess Gertrude of Hackeborn, who governed the monastery during our Saint’s lifetime, and was herself favored with divine gifts. It was not until Gertrude’s sublime Revelations, contained in the five books of the Legatus divinæ pietatis, or Legate of divine love, had at length been published, that in 1677 her name was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology. In the following century (1738) Clement XII ordered her feast to be celebrated, as a Double, by the whole Church. The West Indies chose her as patroness; and a town in New Mexico bears her name. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Time After Pentecost, Book IV, Volume 15, pp. 274-279.)

The Divine Office for the Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great contains a summary her life and incomparable work:

Gertrude was born of a noble family at Eisleben, in Saxony, (about the year of our Lord 1264.) At five years of age she offered her virginity and herself to Jesus Christ, in the Benedictine nunnery at Rodalsdorf. From that time forth she was utterly estranged from earthly things, ever striving for things higher, and began to lead a kind of heavenly life. To learning in human letters she added knowledge of the things of God. In the thought thereof she earnestly desired, and soon reached, the perfection of a Christian soul. Of Christ, and of the things in His life, she spoke oftentimes with movings of spirit. The glory of God was the one end of all her thoughts, and to that her every longing and her every act were given. Though God had crowned her with so many and so noble gifts both of nature and of grace, her belief regarding herself was so humble that she was used to number as among the greatest of the wonders of His goodness that He had always in His mercy borne with one who was so utterly unworthy.

In the thirtieth year of her age she was elected Abbess of Rodalsdorf, where she had professed herself in the religious life, and afterwards of Heldelfs. This office she bore for forty years in love, wisdom, and zeal for strict observance, so that the house seemed like an ideal example of a sisterhood of perfect nuns. To each one she was a mother and a teacher, and yet would be as the least of all, being in sooth in all lowliness among them as she that served. That she might be more utterly God's only, she tormented her body with sleeplessness, hunger, and other afflictions, but withal ever true to herself, stood forth a pattern of innocency, gentleness, and long-suffering. The salvation of her neighbours was her constant earnest endeavour, and her godly toil bore abundant fruit. The love of God oftentimes threw her into trances, and she was given the grace of the deepest contemplation, even to union of spirit with God.

Christ Himself, to show what such a bride was to Him, revealed that He had in the heart of Gertrude a pleasant dwelling-place. The Virgin Mother of God she ever sought with deep reverence as a mother and warden whom she had received from Jesus Himself, and from her she had many benefits. Toward the most Divine Sacrament of the Eucharist, and the sufferings of the Lord, her soul was moved with love and gratitude, so that she sometimes wept abundantly. She helped with daily gifts and prayers the souls of the just condemned to the purifying fire. She wrote much for the fostering of godliness. She was glorified also by revelations from God, and by the gift of prophecy. Her last illness was rather the wasting of a home-sickness to be with God than a decay of the flesh, and she left this life (to live the undying life in Him, upon the 17th day of November,) in the year of our Lord 1292. God made her bright with miracles both during her life and after her death. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Gertrude the Great.)

Father Andrew Prevot explained Saint Gertrude the Great’s intimacy with her Divine Spouse by recounting an exchange Our Lord had with her during one of her mystical experiences:

Now, as the end of time approaches, He says to us what He once announced by the beloved Apostle of His Sacred Heart [Saint Gertrude the Great]: "Let him who thirsts for happiness, grace, and peace, come to My Divine Heart, their source, and draw from it 'gratis' whatsoever he will. My merciful Heart, which desires before the end of time to glorify itself by a supreme manifestation, and to love men to the utmost bounds of affection, has arranged all for this end.

"Let these languid souls come only to Me, confide in My goodness, and abandon themselves to My love. Let them be at rest in the meekness of My Heart, unite themselves to My humility and obedience, and they will no longer feel the weight of My yoke through the abundant consolation with which I will favor them. Come, then, without fear or delay, and abandon yourselves lovingly and for ever unto Me." (Father Andre Prevot, Love, Peace and Joy: Devotion to the Sacred Heart According to St. Gertrude, published originally in 1911.)

Let us repose in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we approach this Font of Mercy and of Love through the Heart out of which It was formed, the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Let us accept the chastisement of the moment, a chastisement each of us deserves most richly because of our sins, and use it as a means of making reparation for our sins and those of the whole world by defending the Catholic Faith without any compromises with the naturalists of the false opposites of the "left" or of the "right."

Let us proclaim Catholicism as the one and only foundation of personal and social order as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, seeking only to plant a few seeds as we give honor and glory to the Most Holy Trinity through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saint Gertrude the Great will teach us humility as we approach the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

She will teach us to have gratitude for the graces that we have received as seek to imitate the meekness with which the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus bears with our offenses, our ingratitude, our lukewarmness, our inconstancy.

She will teach us to imitate the mercy of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as we extend to others the same forgiveness that is given to us so freely in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance by an alter Christus acting in persona Christi.

Although we see dimly here in this life because of our fallen estate and the damage that we have done to our souls by means of our sins, our goal in life to see God clearly in Heaven. Saint Gertrude the Great will help us to see Him more clearly in this life if we place our trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus that beats in unison with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Saint Gertrude will teach us most especially to spend time with Our Beloved in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We receive infused graces from spending time with Our Eucharistic King. These infused graces will enlighten the mind and strengthen the will as our hearts are purified more and more to desire only the possession of the Most Blessed Trinity for all eternity in Heaven. Eucharistic piety is, of course, a very foretaste of the glories of Heaven itself.

Saint Gertrude adored Our Lord in His Real Presence in these words: 

Hail, Most Glorious Body, a most precious Blood of my Lord Jesus Christ, here truly present beneath these sacramental species; I adore Thee with all that devotion and awe wherewith the nine choirs of angels worship and adore thee. I prostrate myself before Thee in the spirit of humility, believing and professing that Thou, my Lord and my God, are herein most truly contained.

Hail, most glorious Body of Jesus Christ my Saviour, true Victim immolated upon the cross. I adore Thee in union with that adoration with which Thy Humanity adored Thy Godhead, and I give Thee thanks with all the love of all thy creatures, that Thou dost deign to remain hidden in this tabernacle for our salvation.

Hail, compassionate Jesus, Word of the Father, Brightness of His glory, Ocean of pity, Salvation of the world, most august and sacred Victim. Hail, Jesus Christ, Splendour of the Father, Prince of Peace, Gate of Heaven, True Bread, Son of the Virgin, Shrine of the Godhead.

I most firmly believe that Thou, my God, are here present, and that Thou are looking out upon me from behind the veil of the sacrament, and dost behold all the most secret recesses of my heart. I believe that under this species of bread are contained not only Thy Flesh and Thy Blood, but also Thy Divinity and Thy Humanity. And although this mystery surpasses my understanding, I nevertheless believe it so firmly that I am ready to give my life and my blood in defense of its truth.

"For what fault have you suffered most?" He replied: "For self-will and self-opinionatedness; for when I did any kindness for others, I would not do as they wished, but as I wished myself; and so much do I suffer for this, that if the mental agonies of all mankind were united in one person, he would not endure more than I do at present." She replied: "And what remedy will be the most efficacious for you?" He answered: "To perform acts of the contrary virtue, and to avoid committing the same fault." "But, in the meantime," inquired Gertrude, "what will afford you the greatest relief?" He replied: "The fidelity which I practiced toward others when on earth consoles me most. The prayers which are offered continually for me by many friends solace me as good news would solace a person in affliction. Each tone of the chant at Mass, or in the vigils which are said for me, seem to me as a most delicious reflection. All that is done for me by others, with a pure intention for God's glory, such as working, and even sleeping or eating, affords me great relief and shortens my sufferings, on account of the fidelity with which I labored for others." (The Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude the Great, republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1987, p. 341.)

One of the great tragedies of the conciliar era is that the lives of such mystics as Saint Gertrude the Great have been obscured entirely and/or misrepresented and distorted to make them appear to be veritable prophets of the conciliar apostasies. Such efforts are hideous in the sight of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which is why it is important for us to make reparation for our own many sins by pleading with Saint Gertrude the Great to help us remain ever steadfast in the true Faith by placing our own trust in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Which confided to her Its innermost secrets of love for us erring men.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to Saint Gertrude the Great summarizes our need to rely upon the heavenly assistance of the holy Abbess of Helfta every day of our lives:

O revealer of the Sacred Heart, what better prayer could we offer in thine honor than to say with thee to the Son of the Blessed Virgin:

O thou my soul’s calm untroubled Light! O dawn of morning, soft-gleaming with thy beauteous light, become in me the perfect day. O my Love, who dost not only enlighten but deify, come unto me in all thy might; come and gently melt my whole being. May all that is of me be destroyed utterly; may I wholly pass into thee, so that I may no more find myself in time, but may be already and most intimately united to thee for all eternity.

Thou hast first loved me; it is thou who hast chosen me, and not I who have first chosen thee. Thou art he who of his own accord runneth towards his thirsting creature; and on thy kingly brow gleams the fair splendor of the everlasting light. Show me thy countenance, and let me gaze upon thy beauty. How mild and full of charms is that face, all radiant with the rosy light of the dawn of the divine Sun! How can the spark live and glow far from the fire that gave it being? Or how can the drop of water abide far from the spring from whence it was taken? O compassionate Love, why hast thou loved a creature so defiled and so covered with shame, but that thou hast willed to render it all fair in thee? O thou delicate flower of the Virgin Mary, thy goodness and thy tender mercy have won and ravished my heart. O Love, my glorious noontide, to take my rest in thee, gladly would I die a thousand deaths.

O Charity, O Love, at the hour of my death thou wilt sustain me with thy words, more gladdening far than choicest wine. Thou wilt then be my way, my unobstructed way, that I may wander no more nor stray. Thou wilt aid me then, O love, thou queen of heaven; thou wilt clear my way before me to those fair and fertile pastures hidden in the divine wilderness, and my soul shall be inebriate with bliss; for there shall I see the face of the Lamb, my Spouse and my God. O Love, who art God, thou art my best beloved possession. Without thee neither earth nor heaven could excite in me one hope, nor draw forth one desire: vouchsafe to effect and perfect within me that union which thou thyself desirest: may it be the end, the crown, and consummation of my being. In the countenance of my God thy light beameth soft and fair as the evening star. O thou fair and solemn Evening, let me see thy ray when my eve shall close in death.

O Love, thou much-loved Evening-tide, at that dread moment let the sacred flame, which burneth evermore in thy divine essence, consume all the stains of my mortal life. O thou my calm and peaceful Evening, when the evening-tide of my life shall come, give me to sleep in thee in tranquil sleep, and to taste that blissful rest which thou hast prepared in thyself for them that love thee. With thy serene, enchanting look vouchsafe to order all things and prepare all things for my everlasting espousal. O Love, be thou unto me an eventide so bright and calm that my ravished soul may bid a loving farewell to its body, and return to God who gave it, and rest in peace beneath thy beloved shadow!” (Gueranger, Exercises of St Gertrude, Ex. V, “To enkindle in the soul the love of God.”) (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Time After Pentecost, Book IV, Volume 15, pp. 274-279.)

May we beg Our Lady in these waning days of the liturgical year to help us to realize that the mysteries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus that were revealed to Saint Gertrude the Great can provide us with much food for meditation every day as we pray her Most Holy Rosary, a fidelity to which, after all, is a sign of predestination to Heaven itself. This is why Catholics must, as consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, always offer up everything they suffer and whatever good works they are able to do by means of the graces won for us by Our Lord and that flow into our hearts and souls through her own loving hands as the Mediatrix of All Graces.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us. 

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.