Is it really "All about the work?"

I have lived and worked in the Monastery of St. Gertrude for nearly thirty years.

Last year on the feast of St. Gertrude, I wondered why on earth a group of very practical German sisters chose a medieval saint who said things like: “Lord, you have granted me your secret friendship by opening the sacred ark of your divinity, your deified heart, to me in so many ways as to be the source of all my happiness, sometimes imparting it freely, sometimes as a special mark of our mutual friendship.” Oh my! I don’t think she’s from around here.

I’m still pondering what a very over-the-top, medieval mystic has to say to us today, in 2025, in Cottonwood, Idaho. What can she possibly say to us who are concerned about all the critical issues in our hurting world, when the future is scary, when we’re struggling with diminishment, when we’re tired and don’t have time for this extravagant, swooning, sentiment. There’s work to do; we need to get to it.

Then I remember the line from the Prologue of the Rule: But as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.

Wow! “Inexpressible delight of love….”

Actually, I prefer hard work, meetings, doing stuff, changing the world. Because hard work, meetings, and doing stuff doesn’t require me to change. I don’t have to look deep inside and admit that I’m often selfish, fearful, angry, and entitled. I want to just keep being focused out there, on those people, those activities. I am running on a path, sure, but now I’m not sure it’s the path of God’s commandments, and so far, I’m not sure it’s leading to a heart overflowing with love.

St. Gertrude’s way sounds off-putting to most of us today. But if we get past the language, she’s saying:

It’s all about love.

She was Benedictine, she knew the call to have a heart overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love. And she knew, what I tend to forget, which is that if one can’t love God, neither I, you, nor any of us can love our neighbors. And if we aren’t rooted and grounded in that primal love of God, we keep contributing to all that is wrong in the world.

St. Benedict says that when we reach the top of the ladder of humility we come to “the perfect love that casts out fear.” The perfect love that casts out fear. How much of what is wrong in the world, in our own lives, is the result of fear? How much better would the world be if we came to a place of love that casts out that fear?

So maybe we have a very appropriate saint. Not the most accessible, but a patron who says:

Go deep.

Go to the core. Do the hard inner work, and realize it is all about love.

Do the hard work of knowing and loving God.

Know you are loved. Know that in Him you can love others and so change the world.

St. Gertrude of Helfta, pray for us.