Gertrude did not acquire her great purity of heart and lowliness of spirit without effort. In the early days of her religious life she was almost carried away by her ardor for study, finding in it such delight that she sometimes shortened the time of prayer. But God, who was watching over her perfection, would not permit this state of things to continue. He allowed her mind to be overwhelmed with darkness, so that she knew not where to turn for comfort ; and even in her spiritual exercises, to which she was always faithful, she found no solace. When this spiritual desolation had lasted for about a month, our Lord deigned to come Himself to console her.

At the hour of Compline on the Tuesday before the feast of the Purification, in the dusk of the evening, Gertrude was on her way to the choir. Meeting a sister, she bent her head in the customary salute. On raising her eyes again she saw before her our Lord under the form of a youth of delicate beauty, who said to her, ” Your salvation is at hand ; why are you consumed with grief? Have you no counsellor that you are so changed by sadness?” –St Gertrude the Great, chapter 1 “The Herald of Divine Love”

How brightly the gift of trust (I call it a gift rather than a virtue) shone in her can be demonstrated by excellent evidence. Her soul was always in such a state of serene confidence that neither tribulations, nor loss, nor hindrances of any kind (cf. Rom. 8:35–39), nor even her own faults, could cloud or shake this firm confidence in the infinite loving mercy of God. If it happened that God deprived her of the consolation to which she was accustomed, she was undismayed, because to enjoy grace or to be deprived of the enjoyment of grace was all the same to her; except that sometimes, in times of trial, this hope even increased her strength, for she was convinced that everything, exterior or interior, would work together for good (Rom. 8:28). As one waits hopefully for the messenger who brings long-desired news, so she awaited gladly a richer flood of divine consolation, for which she knew she had been made more apt by the preceding adversity. The sight of her own faults could not depress or discourage her for long, because at once she was borne up again and sustained by divine grace, ready to receive whatever gifts God was to restore to her. If she saw herself as dark as a dead cinder, she strove to raise herself to the Lord, by at once cooperating with God’s grace. So she began to breathe again and was ready to receive the likeness of God in herself once more. Like a man who steps from the shadows into the sunlight and finds himself suddenly inundated with light, she felt herself to be illuminated by the splendor of the divine presence and to be adorned with every ornament, clothed in the embroidered golden robe, as befits the queen who is to appear before the eternal, immortal King (Ps 44:9, 14-15; 1 Tim 1:17), made ready and chosen for divine union and companionship –St Gertrude chapter 1 “The Herald of Divine Love”

What the malice and wickedness of my own perversity have done to corrupt this devotion can be made good by the fullness of the power of the love which dwells (Col 1:19) in Him who sits on Your right hand (Col 3:1), who has become bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh (Gen 2:23). Now it is through Him that You have granted us, in the Holy Spirit, the capacity for noble sentiments of compassion, humility, and reverence. And through Him I offer you my laments for the very many infidelities and sins which I have committed in thought, word, and deed, offending against the divine nobility of your goodness, but especially for being so unfaithful, careless, and irreverent in the use of your gifts. If you had given me, in my unworthiness, no more than a thread of flax as a memento, I should have respected it and treated it more reverently. –St Gertrude “The Herald of Divine Love”