February 12, 2023 - "Saint Hildegard of Bingen"

Among the thirty-seven Doctors of the Church, four are women.  Today we encounter St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) who is the first chronologically of the four women proclaimed Doctors of the Church.  She was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.  Pope Benedict devoted two Wednesday catecheses to St. Hildegard on September, 2010 during which he discussed her life and her writings. 
 
Hildegard came from a large noble family.  Her parents dedicated her from birth to the service of the Lord.  When she was eight years old she was entrusted to a consecrated widow named Uda of Gölkheim so that she would have an appropriate human and Christian formation.  Later she was entrusted to Jutta of Spanheim who had became a nun at the Benedictine Monastery of St. Disibodenberg.  In time Hildegard entered that community and when Mother Jutta died in 1136, the sisters in the monastery chose Hildegard to succeed her as the Prioress.  A few years after she became Prioress, the nuns at St. Disibodenburg moved to Bingen to establish a new monastery there.  Hildegard remained there until her death at the age of 81.
 
Even while she was the superior of the Monastery of St. Disibodenburg, Hildegard began to dictate mystical visions she had been received for some time to the monk Volmar who was her spiritual director and to Sister Richardis di Strade, a nun at that community who served as her secretary.  As it always happens in the life of true mystics, Hildegard wanted to put herself under the authority of wise people to discern the origins of her visions because she was afraid that they were the products of illusions and did not come from God.  Hildegard turned to a person who was very highly esteemed Churchman in those times: Bernard of Clairvaux.  He calmed and encouraged Hildegard.  In 1147, Hildegard received further official approval of Pope Eugene III.  The Holy Father was presiding at a Synod in Trier.  He read a text that had been prepared by Hildegard and presented to him by Archbishop Henry of Mainz.  Pope Eugene authorized Hildegard to write down her visions.  He also gave her permission to speak.  From that point Hildegard’s spiritual prestige continued to grow to the extent that some of her contemporaries started to call her “the Teutonic prophetess.”
 
Pope Benedict remarked in his first catechesis that her desire to place herself and her visions under obedience to the competent ecclesiastical authority is a sign of the authenticity of her visions.  Let’s listen to his own words on the subject:
 
This, dear friends, is the seal of an authentic experience of the Holy Spirit, the source of every charism:  the person endowed with supernatural gifts never boasts of them, never flaunts them and, above all, shows complete obedience to the ecclesial authority.  Every gift bestowed by the Holy Spirit, is in fact for the edification of the Church, and the Church, through her Pastors, recognizes its authenticity.

This great woman, this “prophetess,” also speaks with great timeliness to us today, with her courageous ability to discern the signs of the times, her love for creation, her medicine, her poetry, her music, which today has been reconstructed, her love for Christ and for his Church, which was suffering in that period, too, wounded also in that time by the sins of both priests and lay people, and far better loved as the Body of Christ. Thus St. Hildegard speaks to us.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John