On Tue, 7 Jan 1997 [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Today, 6 January, is the feast of ...
>
>
> * Gertrude of Delft (1358)
> - a great beguine and mystic, she received the stigmata on
> Good Friday 1340; these stigmata would bleed seven times
> daily, until she prayed for this to stop, in order to keep
> the curious away from her
>
Stigmata are all very well but Gertrude has a much more endearing claim
to fame which I would like to note, particularly with homage to Caroline
Bynum. She is, to the best of my knowledge, the only fat holy woman--a
condition that visited her despite her intense fasting and other devotions.
"Gertrude ab Oosten, virgin and beguine of Delft in Belgium,
AASS 6 January, d. 1358.
V. Her various prophecies.
20. This devout virgin, Gertrude of Oosten who was called by the middle
monosylable in her name, sustained the five wounds of Christ on the night of
Good Friday as written and the red blood flowed from them for many weeks
seven times a day even to the ascension in that same year of 1340. She
lived 18 years longer but became fat in body and imbecile so that she had to
pause for rest two or three times on the way to visiting the church. And
though she was fat and corpulent she took food and drink but sparingly.
21. One time she was overcome by a great longing for bread and cheese and the
lord God hearing to fulfill her wish excited a certain rustic villein who
took bread and cheese to the city of Delft hardly knowing what he should do
with it. And when he came walking around the beguinage where the virgin lived
to the wall of whose house adhered a common plate. Knowing in spirit that he
had come with bread and cheese, Gertrude whom he did not know or of whom he
had not heard, called her consoror Dieverdis and sent her to take the bread
and cheese which the villein had brought. Continuing his progress he came to
the gates of the beguinage carrying the bread and cheese and she said to him:
"Friend, now you have completed your trip for you have come at the will
of God where you were meant to come. And speedily he offered her the bread
and cheese and so after mutual salutations both of them took their roads and
he returned home. Therefore Gertrude received the villein's bread and cheese
from her consoror and ate it giving thanks and blessing the lord.
Jo Ann McNamara
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