Matelda and the cloister of Hellfde

by of Magdeburg Mechthild

“I pluck the flowers for thee;

They are thine, beloved, for they are Mine,

And thou art one with Me.”

It was a place in which the flowers of the earth had never grown, and it needed the washing which makes whiter than snow to fit the soul for that garden of God upon the earth. Therefore the song which came to Dante across the river was the ancient song of the soul that is washed from sin: “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.” Virgil never crossed the river.

However clouded may have been the faith of mediæval Christendom, the need of Christ was felt. The distinction between a Christian and a heathen was acknowledged as one which told upon the eternal destiny of men. By means of Christ the Saviour could the Christian man pass on, washed and sanctified, into the land beyond the river. A “land beyond,” was that Paradise to men of the world of sense and of earthly knowledge, but without the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. And singing the song of the forgiven, whilst she made garlands of the flowers, Matelda appeared to Dante, separated from him at first by the river of forgetfulness. She drew near to him as one who dances. She spoke to him of the nature of the mysterious wind that moved the branches of the trees which grew in the land “given as the earnest of eternal peace”—the earnest whilst here on earth of heavenly things, of the flowers that grew from no earthly seed, and of the river that flows from no earthly source, and of the other river which divides the earthly Paradise from the heavenly, as the river Lethe divided it from all that was before.

And we see that Matelda is to Dante the medium of supernatural revelations, just as afterwards, Beatrice.

Matelda, then, in the earthly Paradise appears as the representative of the insight into the heavenly joy whilst still on earth, Beatrice as the beholding of it when the earthly life is past. And this knowledge of the heavenly things was to be brought back by him who had seen them whilst still in the body, as the palm-leaves upon the staff of the pilgrim who had been within the boundary of the holy land.

And it was Matelda who drew Dante through the river into that land whilst still upon the earth—the land where he should hear the singing, and know the sweetness, and learn more in the Paradise here of the Paradise hereafter.

It was the earnest of the inheritance which was given to him through Matelda.

And truly this is the message and mission of the Béguine, not as Matelda’s, to Dante only, but to us also, who can receive the message without the bewildering counter teaching of the corrupted Church. It is true the message, more clearly given, is in the Bible we have known so long; and it was through the blessed teaching of that Bible that Matilda the Béguine learnt it. But it is well for us not only to read the glorious promises of God, but to meet with those to whom they have been fulfilled, the sharers of the like precious faith with us, who now believe in Jesus. Now, from the holy women of Hellfde have the clouds passed away which at times hid from them the brightness of the glory, but the words of love spoken to their hearts by the mouth of their Beloved remain to them as an everlasting possession.