• St. Gertrude, Virgin (1334). (Historical)
• St. Albert the Great (1280). Bishop, Doctor of the Church. Patron of scientists. (Current, Traditional)
• St. Leopold “the Good” (1136). Father of 18 children, refused the imperial crown. (Historical)

GERTRUDE was born in the year 1263, of a noble Saxon family, and placed at the age of five for education in the Benedictine abbey of Rodelsdorf. Her strong mind was carefully cultivated, and she wrote Latin with unusual elegance and force; above all, she was perfect in humility and mortification, in obedience, and in all monastic observance. Her life was crowded with wonders. She has in obedience recorded some of her visions, in which she traces in words of indescribable beauty the intimate converse of her soul with Jesus and Mary. She was gentle to all, most gentle to sinners; filled with devotion to the Saints of God, to the souls in purgatory, and above all to the Passion of our Lord and to His sacred Heart. She ruled her abbey with perfect wisdom and love for forty years. Her life was one of great and almost continual suffering, and her longing to be with Jesus was not granted till A.D. 1334, when she had reached her seventy-second year.

REFLECTION: No preparation for death can be better than to offer and resign ourselves anew to the Divine Will—humbly, lovingly, with unbounded confidence in the infinite mercy and goodness of God.

WORD OF THE DAY

ANGEL. A pure, created spirit, called angel because some angels are sent by God as messengers to humans. An angel is a pure spirit because he has no body and does not depend for his existence or activity on matter. The Bible tells us that the angels constitute a vast multitude, beyond human reckoning. They differ in perfection of nature and grace. Each is an individual person. According to Christian tradition, they form three major categories in descending order. The word “angel” is commonly applied only to those who remained faithful to God, although the devils are also angels by nature. Moreover, “angel” is the special name for the choir of angelic spirits, from whom guardian angels are sent to minister to human needs. The existence of angels has been twice defined by the Church: at the Fourth Lateran Council (Denzinger 800) and the First Vatican Council (Denzinger 3002). (Etym. Latin angelus, an angel; Greek angelos, messenger.)

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)