St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn Sacred Music Series
The Sisters of St. Benedict of Ferdinand are grateful to the Verkamp family for establishing the St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn Sacred Music Series Endowment in honor of Sister Mary Aquin and Sister Mary Ann Verkamp. Its purpose is to provide sacred music concerts and speakers for the monastic community and the public.
The Sisters of St. Benedict are accepting additional contributions to the endowment. For more information, call or email the Mission Advancement office at 812-367-1411, ext. 2643, or donors@thedome.org.
Who is St. Mechtilde?
Mechtilde of Hackeborn was born in 1241 into a noble Saxon family. At age seven, she entered the abbey at Rodarsdorf, Germany, a monastic community that followed the Rule of St. Benedict. The community was later moved to Helfta.
Gifted with a beautiful voice, Mechtilde also possessed great talent and zeal for directing the liturgical life of the monastery. All her monastic life she held the position of Domna Cantrix, the choir mistress and cantor. Her voice has been described as one so finely tuned that she became a harp. In his revelations to her, Christ called her his “nightingale.”
Mechtilde’s writings reveal a woman of deep faith and uniquely liturgical spirituality, devoted to the common life and community prayer. Music was her chief means of praising God.
A short time after Mechtilde’s death, in 1299, her former student and the chief compiler of her visions, Gertrude the Great, envisioned Mechtilde with Christ “directing the chant according to her custom” and saying, “When I chanted with you in the choir, I desired to raise your thoughts to God as the notes ascended, and to draw down his grace upon you with the descending notes. That is what I am still doing.” Along with Mechtilde of Hackeborn, it is our desire that the sacred music presented in this series in the beauty of our monastery church may also raise your thoughts to God and draw down God’s grace on all present.
