Mechthilde de Magdebourg
vers 1207-vers 1282 13th century
Love as a current that carries the soul, and the trust to let oneself be plunged into it.
Who was Mechthilde de Magdebourg?
A Beguine and later a Cistercian nun, she spent years in a community of women given to prayer and to serving the poor, without perpetual vows. From about 1250 she set down her inner experiences in Middle Low German in The Flowing Light of the Godhead, one of the first great mystical texts in the vernacular. Aging and nearly blind, she withdrew to the abbey of Helfta.
In their own words
A fish cannot drown in water, a bird cannot fall in air.
Lord, you are my lover, my longing, my flowing stream, my sun, and I am your reflection.
The soul is made of love, and by its very nature must ever return to love.