St. Gertrude of Nivelles, Abbess March 17 Patron of Cats, the Recently Diseased, Gardeners, Travelers, Those with Mental Illness, and Those with a Morbid Fear of Mice and Rats. Special Note: There are two Saints named Gertrude, one called "the Great" and the other from Nivelles. People often confuse them, especially since they were both nuns and appeared quite alike. Even the experts make mistakes. Some of the images in our various books of Saints use the symbol of Nivelles for that of Helfta [Gertrude the Great]. Until we learned about Gertrude of Nivelles we did the same, not knowing that there were two similar Saints because two of our books provide only one of the Saints each, and only one of these has a picture. Also, many are the times when artists "borrow" from one another; even the great master painters learned from one another and adapted earlier works of those they studied under, which was one of the purposes of these artist "schools" or "workshops", somewhat like inventors who build on previous creations, hence the proverbial "better mouse trap", no pun intended. We see this especially with Perugino and Raphael. Saint Gertrude of Nivelles has a special symbol, that of the mouse on her staff. Some artists, intending to portray Gertrude the Great added a mouse, perhaps because they thought this was her symbol. Other books show the same image, one with a mouse and the other without; thus we do not know which of the originals depicts which Saint for certain: We removed the mouse from the image of Gertrude the Great, where there was one, because that image is the same one without a mouse in another, older book. A similar image in sepia, with mouse, has been retained for Nivelles, because that image is from another older, traditional book of Saints. The above image was completely in sepia, we tinted some of the features, including the mouse on the Saint's staff, so as to draw attention to them. Both Saints have a staff as one of their symbols and both were mystics. The most famous image of Gertrude of Nivelles, is a statue: Pilgrims to the shrine where the statue reposes used to bring gold or silver replicas of little mice as a token of their devotion to the Saint and place them at the base. Unfortunately the copy of the image that we possess is very tiny and in poor condition----it simply will not scan well even at 1400 dpi. But we provide it here because of the devotion associated with it. This shrine is in Cologne. Our source does not tell us if it is Cologne, France, or Germany. There are over 140,000 web sites to search through, an impossible task, time wise. So I will leave it to those better traveled and better versed in shrines than I am. You will see that the mouse, which is barely visible is parallel to her right hand holding the staff. SAINT GERTRUDE OF NIVELLES Our Saint was born at Landen, Belgium in 626 and died at Nivelles, 659; she was just thirty-three, the same age as Our Lord. Both her parents, Pepin of Landen and Itta were held to be holy by those who knew them; her sister Begga is numbered among the Saints. On her husband's death in 640, Itta founded a Benedictine monastery at Nivelles, which is near Brussels, and appointed Gertrude its abbess when she reached twenty, tending to her responsibilities well, with her mother's assistance, and following her in giving encouragement and help to monks, particularly Irish ones, to do missionary work in the locale. Saint Gertrude's piety was evident even when she was as young as ten, when she turned down the offer of a noble marriage, declaring that she would not marry him or any other suitor: Christ alone would be her bridegroom. She was known for her hospitality to pilgrims and her aid to missionary monks from Ireland as we indicated above: She gave land to one monk so that he could build a monastery at Fosse. By her early thirties Gertrude had become so weakened by the austerity of abstaining from food and sleep that she had to resign her office, and spent the rest of her days studying Scripture and doing penance. It is said that on the day before her death she sent a messenger to Fosse, asking the superior if he knew when she would die. His reply indicated that death would come the next day during holy Mass----the prophecy was fulfilled. Her feast day of March 17 is observed by gardeners, who regard fine weather on that day as a sign to begin spring planting. Devotion to St. Gertrude became widely spread in the Lowlands and neighboring countries. Most representations in art depict her as an abbess with mice, rats, or cats. Commonly seen running up her pastoral staff or cloak are hopeful-looking mice representing Souls in Purgatory, to which she had an intense devotion, just as with St. Gertrude the Great. Even as recently as 1822, offerings of mice made of gold and silver were left at her shrine.   Another patronage is to travelers on the high seas. It is held that one sailor, suffering misfortune while under sail, prayed to the Saint and was delivered safely. Her sister, St. Begga died in 693; her feast is December 17; she married a son of St. Arnulf of Metz and became the mother of Pepin of Herstal.

This is the original sepia print.

Click on the link below for another image of the Saint:

http://www.greenwichworkshop.com/saintsandangels/images/i.jpg

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