Benedictine Abbess and Doctor of the Church (1098-1179)
Her life
+ Hildegard was educated by the anchoress Blessed Jutta. As other women joined Jutta, a community of nuns developed and the sisters chose to adopt the Rule of St. Benedict as their rule of life. Hildegard officially joined this community when she was 15 years old.
+ At the age of 32, Hildegard began to experience visions and private revelations and, in 1136, she succeeded Jutta as abbess.
+ Encouraged by Blessed Pope Eugene III and Saint Bernard of Clarivaux, Hildegard began to dictate and artistically render her visions, creating what would come to be known as the Scivias.
+ Sometime between 1147 and 1152, she established a new community at Bingen. From this base, she counseled and corrected a number of political and church leaders.
+ Saint Hildegard died in 1179 and is celebrated for her poems, hymns, plays, as well as works on medicine and natural history.
+ In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Hildegard a Doctor of the Church.
For prayer and reflection
“The spiritual life must be tended with great dedication. At first the effort is burdensome because it demands the renunciation of caprices of the pleasures of the flesh and of other such things. But if she lets herself be enthralled by holiness a holy soul will find even contempt for the world sweet and lovable.”—Saint Hildegard of Bingen
Spiritual bonus
On September 17 we also remember Blessed Leonella Sgorbati. A member of the Consolata Mission Sisters, she trained as a nurse and was sent to her community’s missions in Kenya and, later, in Somalia. Sister Leonella was murdered with her guard and Muslim driver near the hospital in Mogadishu where she was serving on September 17, 2006. She was beatified by Pope Francis in 2018.
Prayer
O God, by whose grace your servant Hildegard, kindled with the Fire of your love, became a burning and shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
(from Holy Women, Holy Men)
Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.
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