Downtown Monks: WHERE´S THE KINGDOM?

On Thursday, November 16, the Church´s calendar commemorates two women saints: Gertrude the Great and Margaret of Scotland. The two form an interesting contrast.

Saint Gertrude the Great. Franciscan Media tells us the following: Gertrude (1256-1302), a

Benedictine nun in Helfta, Saxony, was one of the great mystics of the 13th century. Together with her friend and teacher Saint Mechtild, she practiced a spirituality called “nuptial mysticism,” that is, she came to see herself as the bride of Christ. Her spiritual life was a deeply personal union with Jesus and his Sacred Heart, leading her into the very life of the Trinity.

But this was no individualistic piety. Gertrude lived the rhythm of the liturgy, where she found Christ. In the liturgy and in Scripture she found the themes and images to enrich and express her piety. There was no clash between her personal prayer life and the liturgy.

Saint Margaret of Scotland. The website Simply Catholic provides the following details about Margaret: St. Margaret of Scotland (1045-1093), the granddaughter of an English king, was born in Hungary due to her father’s exile there as a child. Her early years were spent in the Hungarian court, among pious and observant Catholic royals.

Her great-uncle, St. Edward the Confessor, who had succeeded her grandfather, was near death in 1057, and Margaret’s family returned to their native England since her own father was considered a possible successor to his childless uncle. Hardship struck the family yet again when her father died immediately upon arriving back to the land from which he had been exiled years before.

Through a succession of battles and shifts of power, her family lost the English throne, and Margaret’s family fled for safety to Scotland. There, in 1070, Malcom III, King of Scots, married Margaret, desiring a bride who was as a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon throne. Together they had eight children, three of whom would succeed their father on the Scottish throne.

St. Margaret would perform charitable acts for the poor. In loving and honoring them, she was loving and honoring Christ. These included washing their feet and serving them food.

St. Margaret was always quick to make a connection between her acts of service to the lowly as an act of sacrifice and worship. She often would be found going to the church so that she could offer up her service in praise of God. The Scottish royal couple set an example for their guests when typically they chose to serve guests before they would eat themselves.

St. Margaret of Scotland is a patron saint for service to the poor.

WHERE IS THE KINGDOM?

The gospel for November 16 this year (Luke 17:20-25) includes the Greek preposition entos, which can be translated either ¨within¨ or ¨among.¨ Thus some translations of Jesus' words have ¨The Kingdom of God is within you,¨ and others have ¨The Kingdom of God is among you.¨

Which translation is preferable? Is the Kingdom inside us or is it among us, in the spaces between us, in our relationships of love and compassion? Our pair of holy women whom we honored at mass on November 16 would suggest that we need to hold on to both images of the Kingdom.

St. Margaret of Scotland, a patron saint of service to the poor, surely saw the Kingdom ¨among" us as she lovingly provided for the needs of the poor, pilgrims and others less fortunate than herself. Here is the oration that is said at the mass on her feast:

O God, who made Saint Margaret of Scotland wonderful in her outstanding charity towards the poor, grant that through intercession and example we may reflect among all humanity the image of your divine goodness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, ...

Saint Gertrude, on the other hand, found the fulfillment of the Kingdom deep within her heart, in the mystical love she shared with Christ. Compare the the oration the Church prays for her feast day:

O God, who prepared a delightful dwelling for yourself in the heart of the Virgin Saint Gertrude, graciously bring light, through her intercession, to the darkness of our hearts that we may joyfully experience you present and at work within us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, ...

BOTH AND ...

Something I found truly interesting, however, in reading the brief biographies in the two websites I consulted (named above), is that each of these holy women also embodied the other aspect of the Kingdom in her life: Margaret, the patron saint of those working with the poor, had an incredible inner life of prayer, and on the other hand, one source I consulted said of the great mystic Gertrude, ¨Her boundless charity embraced rich and poor, learned and simple, the monarch on his throne and the peasant on his field.¨

So, these two great saints team up each November 16 to give us a complete view of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom that is both among us and within us. We need to actively love our neighbor while at the same time welcoming Christ into our hearts through deeply felt, intimate prayer.