Hildegard of Bingen, “one of the few prominent woman in medieval church,” was declared saint by Pope Benedict XVI on May 10, 2012, in equipolente, or equivalent canonization. The pope signed a decree to make it official.
Equivalent canonization was introduced in 1632 by Pope Urban VIII (1623-1644). It can only be used if the blessed candidate “has already a devout following as well as a solid frame for miraculous intercession.”
The pope confirmed the existence of a cult—rituals, devotion to honor and show reverence—“does not introduce anything new” so there is no ceremony in Saint Peter’s at Vatican because “nothing new is added to the devotional life of the church.”
On October 7, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared Hildegard as Doctor of the Church. She joined the ranks of Saints Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna and Therese of Lisieux.
Her liturgical feast day is September 17.
Benedictine abbess
Saint Hildegard, also known as Sibyl of the Rhine, was born in Bockelheim, West Franconia, Germany, on September 16, 1098, the 10th child of noble parents.
Her father, a soldier, served Meginhard, Count of Spanheim. Her parents, although engrossed in worldly pursuits, promised one of their children to serve God.
Hildegard, a sickly child at 8 and with little education at home, was entrusted to Jutta, a sister of Count Meginhard.
Jutta, a religious recluse as a Benedictine cloister in Disibodenberg, taught Hildegard how to read and sing Latin psalms. Hildegard wore the Benedictine habit at 15 or 18. When Jutta, who was later consecrated as blessed, died in 1136, Hildegard, then 38 years old, became the prioress.
Hildegard started to have more visions “in full view with eyes of spirit and inward ears according to God’s will,” noted Robert Ellsberg in All Saints. Many aspirants flocked to the community.
In 1147, while she continued to experience visions and prophecies, Hildegard was impelled by a divine command to transfer to Rupertsberg near Bingen. It was a decision “toward poverty in dwelling.”
When the abbott refused her request, she went to the archbishop of Mainz for approval. With 20 nuns, they moved to an abandoned Carolingian monastery on a hilltop in Bingen in 1147 and named their recluse after Saint Rupert.
When the community swelled to more than 50, she founded another community in Elbingen in 1165.
Hildegard kept the visions to herself until she was 42, when God told her: “I am the living and inaccessible light, and I enlighten whoever I will. According to my own good pleasure, I show forth through any man marvels greater than those of my servants in the past. Write down that which you see and hear,” narrated Bede in Seven Flowers of Saint Hildegard von Bingen.
Still reluctant, to share her visions, she became ill. Her confessor, Godfrey encouraged her to share them. The bishop of Mainz believed too that the visions come from God and appointed Volmar to act as secretary and help record the visions.
When Scivias was finished, it was forwarded to Pope Eugenius who convened a team of theologians, which included Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to review it.
The verdict: the book was inspired by God and approved for publication. The pope also directed Hildegard to continue writing her visions.
In Soul Weaving, the humble abbess, acknowledged God as the source of all the beauty in her life.
“The marvels of God are not brought forth from one’s self. Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played. The tone does not come out of the chord itself, but rather, through the touch of the Musician.”
Gifted by God
Hagiographers call her a remarkable abbess, a writer, pharmacist, composer, poet, preacher, theologian, holistic healer, reformer, polymath, visionary and mystic.
Scivias (Know The Ways), her greatest work, includes 26 of her visions. Prophetic and apocalyptic the book depicts God in His holy mountain with mankind at its base man’s relationship with God, redemption and the end times.
She also wrote Liber Vitae Meritorum (Rewards of Life—Christian Life of Virtues) and Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works) and Lives of Saints.
A composer who played the 10 stringed psaltery, her Ordo Virtutum, an early example of liturgical drama, was agreeably the oldest surviving morality play according to Barbara Newman in Hildegard’s Life and Times.
Seventy-seven of her lyric poems, each with a musical setting, were collected in Symphonia, Armonie, Celestium Revelationum.
An avid gardener, she studied the plants in the abbey’s herb garden, experimenting on the curative powers of herbs to heal the sisters’ ailments. She wrote a Treatise on Medicine and Natural History.
Her medical book, Hildelgardis Curae et Causae, included the “general divisions of created things, the human body, ailments and causes, symptoms and treatment of diseases.”
She was considered Founder of Scientific and Natural History in Germany.
Her visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks of God’s love” and wrote Commentaries on the Gospels, Lives of Saints and The Athanasian Creed.
She wrote about 300 letters to kings, emperors, archbishops and those who sought her advice.
Two popes gave her permission to preach in public places against the Cathar Movement and challenges facing the Church, a practice then that was usually assigned to men.
She died on September 17, 1179. Greatly venerated in life and death, her biographer, Theodric, called her saint because of miracles brought about by her intercessions and in her tomb.
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Damo-Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and of Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.