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Summary
- St Gertrude of Nivelles (626–659) was the first abbess of the double monastery her mother Itta founded at Nivelles, in present-day Belgium; her feast is 17 March.
- The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909 records her as patron of travelers and invoked against fever, rats and mice, and says she is shown with mice running up her cloak or staff.
- Her title as patron saint of cats is a modern popular devotion: U.S. Catholic found no official document or old tradition, and its earliest known source dates from 1982.
- There is no traditional prayer to St Gertrude for cats; a short modern prayer to her is given, with the same request addressed to God for Christians who do not pray to saints.
- Short prayers cover a cat’s health, a sick or injured cat, a lost cat, a new or old cat, putting a cat to sleep, grief after a cat dies, and stray cats.
- The only mention of cats in the Bible is Baruch 6:21, in the Catholic Old Testament; the King James Version’s 66 books never use the word.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Psalm 34:18; 36:6; 104:27; 145:9; Proverbs 12:10; Jonah 4:11; Matthew 10:29; Luke 12:6; 15:4), https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10; and from the Douay-Rheims Bible, Challoner revision (Baruch 6:21), https://www.drbo.org/chapter/30006.htm, checked against Project Gutenberg eBook no. 1581, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1581
- Ott, Michael. “St. Gertrude of Nivelles.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06533c.htm
- Casanova, Gertrude. “St. Gertrude the Great.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06534a.htm
- Butler, Alban. “St. Gertrude, Virgin and Abbess of Nivelle” (March 17). The Lives of the Saints, vol. 3, March. 1866. https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/lives-of-the-saints/volume-iii-march/st-gertrude-virgin-and-abbess-of-nivelle/
- Ostberg, René. “Meet St. Gertrude, cat lady of the Catholic Church.” U.S. Catholic, 16 March 2020. https://uscatholic.org/articles/202003/how-st-gertrude-of-nivelles-became-the-cat-lady-of-the-catholic-church/
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997. Paragraph 956. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2B.HTM
- Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chapter 21, section 2. https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-westminster-confession/
- John Paul II. Message for the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1990, “Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation.” https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace.html
- Dal-Gal, Niccolò. “St. Anthony of Padua.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01556a.htm
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