The St. Gertrude Prayer

What is the St. Gertrude Prayer?

The St. Gertrude prayer is a one-sentence offering to God the Father for the dead. You offer him the Precious Blood of his Son, joined to every Mass being celebrated around the world that day, and then widen the circle: the souls in purgatory, sinners everywhere, sinners in the Church, your own household, your own family. It carries the name of St. Gertrude the Great, a thirteenth-century German nun who prayed often for the holy souls.

When to pray it

Any day, as often as you like. It takes about twenty seconds. Many Catholics say it after Holy Communion, at a graveside, or each night for someone who has recently died. It is especially loved in November, the month the Church sets aside for the dead, on All Souls Day (November 2) and on St. Gertrude's feast, November 16.

Does it release 1,000 souls from purgatory?

This is the question most people bring to the prayer, and the honest answer is that no one can promise a number. The claim that Jesus told St. Gertrude 1,000 souls are freed each time it is said does not appear in her writings, and newer versions online have stretched it to 10,000 or 50,000. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, answering a reader in 2019, pointed out that the claim is found nowhere in the writings of hers that survive, and advised dropping the number while keeping the prayer. As he notes, the Church has spent the last couple of centuries weeding out promises like this; in the same spirit, Pope Paul VI stopped measuring indulgences in "days" and "years" in 1967. What the Church does teach is better than a headcount: the faithful departed are helped by our prayers, above all by the Mass (CCC 1032).

Where the prayer comes from

St. Gertrude was born on January 6, 1256, and was given to the convent of Helfta, in what is now eastern Germany, at the age of five; she died there around 1302. Pope Benedict XVI devoted a general audience to her in 2010 and noted that she is the only German woman the Church calls "the Great." Her book, the Herald of Divine Love, records her visions of the Heart of Christ and her prayer for the souls in purgatory. This exact prayer is not in it. Its wording ("in union with the Masses said throughout the world today") sounds like much later devotional language, and some sources say the lines for sinners were added to a shorter original. It is fair to call it a prayer in her spirit, attached to her name by tradition.

"I'm not a priest. Can I offer the Precious Blood?"

Yes. Only a priest celebrates Mass, but every baptized Catholic shares in Christ's priesthood in another way and offers what St. Peter calls "spiritual sacrifices" (1 Peter 2:5; CCC 901). When you say this prayer you are not saying Mass. You are joining your prayer to the one sacrifice of Christ that is being offered on altars around the world at that moment. If the words feel familiar, that's because the Divine Mercy Chaplet has the same shape: "Eternal Father, I offer You…" (Diary, 475-476).

Praying for the dead this November

November brings something the St. Gertrude prayer never had: a plenary indulgence for the dead. From November 1 to 8, the Church grants one each day to Catholics who visit a cemetery and pray, even silently, for the departed. On All Souls Day, November 2, it is also granted for visiting a church and praying an Our Father and the Creed (Manual of Indulgences, grant 29). It can be applied only to the souls in purgatory, and it comes with the usual conditions: confession, Holy Communion, prayer for the Pope's intentions, and no attachment to sin. Saying the St. Gertrude prayer at the grave is a good way to make the visit.

Which St. Gertrude?

Two saints share the name, and search results mix them up. This prayer belongs to St. Gertrude the Great of Helfta, whose feast is November 16. St. Gertrude of Nivelles was a seventh-century abbess in what is now Belgium who died in 659. Her feast is March 17, she is invoked against mice and rats, and that is how she became the popular, unofficial patron saint of cats.

Questions people ask

Related prayers