One of the greatest saints in the history of the Church, Saint Gertrude the Great began life in 1256. She was given to the schools of a Benedictine monastery. She excelled in intellectual activity and learning, but, in her twenties, she became most preoccupied with theology, the Fathers, and the Scriptures. Her holiness was hidden, as she constantly prayed to God to keep it, but she manifested miracles and experienced raptures. Writing many works of piety, she endeavored to raise others to the rarefied sanctity which she was privileged to have obtained early in life
With her devotion from a young age, Saint Gertrude also received numerous visions of Our Lord and Our Lady. Before St. Margaret Mary a few centuries later, St. Gertrude was one of the first to gain revelations about the Sacred Heart of Jesus and how best to honor It in private devotion. Her concern was for His immense charity to become Incarnate, to die for our sins, to institute the Blessed Sacrament, and to offer Himself as an eternal Victim for our sake—all of which Christ Himself explained to her the mystical significance of. Based on these revelations, Love, Peace, and Joy provides little-known ways to gain great graces quickly and advance rapidly in Divine Charity. Most important among these practices is the placement of our prayers in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, that they might be perfected and made more pleasing to God. The insights received by Saint Gertrude are matched by very few other mystics', showing her privileges before the Throne of God; let this book show you the secrets of her own sanctity, concealed in the Heart of the Divine Redeemer.