St. Hildegard of Bingen was a cloistered Catholic nun, a medieval German Benedictine abbess, composer, thinker, mystic, visionary, and a prolific author on medication, vitamin, well being, and nature who was named a Physician of the Church in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.
After I first got here throughout St. Hildegard in 2019, I used to be been bewildered to find how unheralded she was in lots of Catholic circles.
I first found her by means of my analysis into holistic house well being cures, and observed that she was quoted typically in mind-body spirituality, metaphysical, secular or combined faith web sites, however not a lot that was historically Catholic.
After spending a lot of my grownup years away from the Church, I’m decided to make up for misplaced time in my examine of the saints, and since St. Hildegard’s writings have been so compelling to me, I’m glad to seek out that now there are lots of extra strong Catholic sources for her work. These days, I’ve been spending some “high quality time” along with her.
It’s apparent that she was not a feminist as some secular teams wish to painting her, however she was—and nonetheless is—a superb position mannequin for ladies. She was allowed to have a voice within the church with out being a part of the clergy. She culled and contributed a number of medical data that contributed to our Western Drugs as effectively—and in so doing, advancing the position of girls within the Church.
Ladies earlier than her time had not been allowed to apply medicinal cures outdoors of the house, as that was left primarily to the clergy. Hildegard, nevertheless, was allowed to distribute her recipes and facilitate in therapeutic. She may establish ailments and prescribe cures. Church leaders and laymen alike went to her for recommendation.
St. Hildegard obtained many visions, which she saved to herself initially. At some point at age 43, God impressed upon her: “O frail mortal, ashes from ashes, mud of mud, write down the whole lot you see and listen to.” From that time on, she started sharing her writings with native spiritual leaders. Then, in 1147, these writings reached Pope Eugene III, who acknowledged Hildegard’s visions to be from God.
St. Hildegard lived to the age of 81, which, at a time when most died of their 30s, could have been a testomony to her data of well being and wellness.
In 2010, Pope Benedict mentioned in his Basic Viewers, “Hildegard’s mystical visions resemble these of the Outdated Testomony prophets.” And that, “…we already see that theology can also obtain a particular contribution from girls as a result of they’re able to discuss God and the mysteries of religion utilizing their very own explicit intelligence and sensitivity.”
Pope Benedict identified how a lot we now have to study from this German abbess from the Center Ages, remarking that “a lot of her solutions nonetheless apply to us.” (Basic Viewers, Wednesday, 8 September 2010)
St. Hildegard stays a quotable religious author. “If folks dwell in love, keep away from delight and keep a state of peace, they won’t wreck the world. Love, humility, and peace are the divine powers of therapeutic by which God restores our pristine state of being,” she remarked.
St. Hildegard’s Feast Day is well known on September 17.
Picture courtesy of Unsplash.