Hildegard of Bingen OSB, was a German Benedictine abbess, a person of wide knowledge and learning, active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She was born in 1098, and died on the 17 September 1179 (aged 81 years). Hildegard spoke often of viriditas, the greening of things from within, analogous to what we now call photosynthesis. She saw that there was a readiness in plants to receive the sun and to transform it into energy and life. She recognised that there is also an inherent connection between the physical world and the divine Presence. For Hildegard, nature was not just a collection of things but a mirror of God and the soul, revealing the inner workings of the universe and the Divine.
Beatified: 26 August 1326 by Pope John XXII, and Canonised: 10 May 2012), Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI.
The uniqueness of her life & inspiration
Hildegard was 42 year of age before she started writing anything down. She was also someone who didn’t accept her place in the world. She wrote her books, and created a new language, and, in a male-dominated church, she went on preaching tours at a time when women were not supposed to preach, especially in public. She refused to behave in a certain way. She wrote at a time when, if the church authorities had not thought she was divinely inspired, she could easily have been put to death as a heretic.
She wrote two books that are connected with healing. Physica was about how items in the physical world (plants, gemstones, fish, etc.) could be used in healing. Causes and Cures goes into personal health more directly, such as the importance of following a different diet in the winter than in the summer. During the Middle Ages, monasteries had their own infirmaries and were places that people might go to if they were ill. So it’s natural for Hildegard to have known about healing. Also, as a Benedictine nun, she advocated and practiced moderation and balance—two things we recognize today as being important for well-being. She’s really one of the first people to write in such detail about healing and health, and she’s almost certainly the first nun to do so.
She went out and created the things she believed in. She didn’t let restrictions that other people placed on her stop her.
See article by Jeanette Peres Colby for University of Rochester: HERE
A model of holistic spirituality
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM frequently references St. Hildegard of Bingen as a model for a holistic spirituality that sees the inherent interconnectedness of the individual, the cosmos, and God, an idea he often illustrates with her concept of viriditas, the “greening power” of God in all creation. Rohr highlights Hildegard’s “whole-making instinct” and her understanding of nature as a mirror for the soul and the Divine, portraying a Trinitarian universe where all things are linked and move toward unity.
Key Aspects of Hildegard’s Spirituality according to Richard Rohr:
- A Holistic Cosmology:
Hildegard lived within an entire worldview where the inner and outer realms, the individual and the cosmos, were not separate but reflected and were connected to one another.
(The Greenening Power): Rohr emphasizes Hildegard’s concept of viriditas as the divine life-giving energy that permeates and greens all of creation, embodying a feminine quality of God’s creative presence.
- Nature as a Divine Mirror:
For Hildegard, nature was not just a collection of things but a mirror of God and the soul, revealing the inner workings of the universe and the Divine.
- Interconnectedness and Trinitarian Metaphysics:
Rohr uses Hildegard’s writings to illustrate a deep sense of relatedness and connectedness in everything, which he links to a Trinitarian understanding of reality where all things are drawn together.
- From Nature to the Divine:
Her mysticism showed how everything in the universe is penetrated by the Spirit, and how we can find God through an intimate connection with the natural world.
In essence, Rohr presents Hildegard as a profound example of how to live with an integrated spiritual vision, seeing the divine life-force in all things and realizing our own place within a beautifully interconnected creation.
Creation Spirituality
Hildegard of Bingen communicated creation spirituality through music, art, poetry, medicine, gardening, and reflections on nature. She wrote in her famous book, Scivias: “You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within you.”
“This is key to understanding Hildegard and is very similar to Teresa of Ávila’s view of the soul. Without using the word, Hildegard recognised that the human person is a microcosm with a natural affinity for or resonance with the macrocosm, which many of us would call God. Our little world reflects the big world. The key word here is resonance. Contemplative prayer allows your mind to resonate with what is visible and right in front of you. Contemplation is the end of all loneliness because it erases the separateness between the seer and the seen”. (Extract from Daily Meditation, Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM: Centre for Action & Contemplation, 27 September, 2017).
Hildegard spoke often of viriditas, the greening of things from within, analogous to what we now call photosynthesis. She saw that there was a readiness in plants to receive the sun and to transform it into energy and life. She recognised that there is also an inherent connection between the physical world and the divine Presence. This connection translates into inner energy that is the soul and seed of everything, an inner voice calling you to “Become who you are; become all that you are.” This is our “life wish” or “whole-making instinct.”
In conclusion
Hildegard is a wonderful example of someone who lives safely inside an entire cosmology, a universe where the inner shows itself in the outer, and the outer reflects the inner, where the individual reflects the cosmos, and the cosmos reflects the individual. Hildegard says:
“O Holy Spirit, you are the mighty way in which every thing that is in the heavens, on the earth, and under the earth, is penetrated with connectedness, penetrated with relatedness.”
It is truly a Trinitarian universe.
(Extract from Daily Meditations – 27 September 2017, by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM the Centre for Action and Contemplation) : See HERE
Also see article by Kelly Marcum for the National Catholic Register – 22 March 2024: HERE
