Hedwig

Hedwig

Triune God of Love, overwhelming and all-encompassing, visit us in our solitude and in our companionship, and draw us ever more deeply into union with you, who are ever present and ever mysterious, that we like your servant Hadewijch might know you ever more fully, even as we have been fully known. Amen.

Hedwiijch of Brabant (Dutch form of "Hedwig") was a mystic and contemplative writer of the 13th century of our era. Her mysticism was Brautmystik (Bride mysticism) : that is, she experience God as Love. 

And that meant a longing for God, even in sorrow.  The selections of scripture which have been chosen as associated with her memory are those of the women at the tomb, or the one who sorrows in a time of affliction. 

So it is a love that loves even in the absence of consolation. What could be more lonely than the one who feels God has not yet come to her rescue, or that God himself has abandoned her Love? At the end of things, at the foot of Calvary, hope is gone: ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced." And yet they continue to love. Love abides. 


https://episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/hadewijch-brabant-poet-and-mystic-13th-century
http://ldysinger.stjohnsem.edu/@texts2/1255_hadewijch/00a_start.htm