The Spirituality of Hildegard of Bingen

Generally speaking, Hildegard of Bingen is probably not a household name. But in some circles, she is considered a phenomenon. Why is that?

Why is it that in recent years record stores have had to make increasingly larger spaces in their bins to accommodate the release of her many new albums? Why is it that when the Washington Cathedral offers programs of her music, they are consistently sold out? Why are there so many workshops on her unique chanting style and her theories of healing and praying? Why have spirituality groups adopted her writings as a basis for their meditation and guided introspection? Why have those interested in earth-centered spirituality adopted her works? Why is her morality play the rage on college campuses? Why is it that there are 25,764 web pages referencing Hildegard on the Alta Vista search engine? All of this interest in a woman who was born 900 years ago? All of this from a woman who credited her inspirations to voices and visions from God?

Last year Washington Post writer Bill Broadway wrote: "Hildegard is a hot commodity, a cultural icon of the late 20^th century who has found a niche in New Age spirituality and is vying for a place among the world's most respected composers."

"It's not enough to say there are at least 25 Hildegard sites and hundreds of references on the Internet, but it's a start. ( As I just said, there are now 1,000's.) Seminars and retreats on the 12^th century German abbess, visionary, prophet, dramatist, healer, and musician have increased across the country in the last five years, and her morality play, 'Ordo Virtutum' ('The Play of the Virtues') has become one of the most frequently staged productions at colleges."

Why is this? This is what I set out to find in my study of Hildegard.

Hildegard was born in 1098 near the cathedral city of Mainz, Germany, the tenth child of noble parents. At the age of eight, her family offered her to God as a tithe to the church. She was placed in the care of a noblewoman, Jutta, who had adopted the solitary life and was living in a cell attached to the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. She lived with Jutta and a few other young women in that cloistered setting and at the age of eighteen she took vows to become a nun. When Hildegard was thirty-eight, Jutta died and the nuns elected Hildegard as their mother superior.

From earliest childhood, Hildegard had had a propensity for visions, seeing things which were invisible to others. She had always been rather circumspect with regard to sharing information about these visions, confiding only to Jutta. However, when she was forty-two, she received an especially compelling vision which commanded her to tell and write what she saw and heard. Here is how she described this spiritual encounter: "Behold, in the forty-second year of my age, while with a trembling effort and great fear I fixed my gaze upon a celestial vision; I saw a very great splendor, from which a voice from heaven came to me saying: O fragile human, ashes of ashes and dust of dust, say and write what you see and hear. But because you are timid in speaking, and simple in expounding, and unlearned in writing these things, speak these things as you see and hear them on high in the heavenly places in the wonders of God."

She described her vision as "that of a fiery light of the greatest brilliancy coming from the opened heavens." She said that it "poured into all my brain, and kindled in my heart and breast, a flame that warms but does not burn."

Initially, she resisted the instruction to tell and write. She related that she refused not "in obstinacy but in humility, until I fell on a bed of sickness, cast down by the scourge of God, until at length, I was compelled to write by my many infirmities."

So it was at the age of forty-two that Hildegard began her great spiritual expressions that would continue into her eighties. The pattern seemed always to be the same: she would receive a divine vision, or thought, or idea, or instruction. And if she did not act upon it, express it, write it, or draw it, she became very ill. She was extremely modest about her gifts, and accepted no praise for herself personally, insisting that she had been empowered by God in all her endeavors. Here is how she described the source of her creativity: "As the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam within it."

Her first writing was a theological work, Scivias, Know the Ways. When this was completed she sent portions of it to Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugenius, both of whom encouraged and supported her in her efforts. So she also received approval from the larger church community

The community of sisters grew. Under Hildegard's supervision, some of the nuns painted small pictures, miniatures, depicting the visions which she described. Inspired by further visions she continued with her writing and expanded her creative efforts into the area of music, composing both text and music for hymns which were sung by the nuns in worship.

By this time her fame had spread, and the quiet cloister which was attached to the Benedictine monastery became a tourist attraction. Visitors made donations to the monastery and boosted the local economy. But in 1147, Hildegard was directed, again by divine intervention, to break away from the monastery and to establish a new and separate abbey for her sisters at Rupertsburg, near Bingen, which is several miles from Mainz. The abbot of the monastery protested, obviously valuing Hildegard as a source of both prestige and revenue. But appealing to God as her authority, she left the monastery, eventually taking with her the dowries of her nuns, and redirecting the paths and pocketbooks of the visiting pilgrims.

At Rupertsburg Hildegard assumed the administration of the convent while carrying on her creative activities of writing and composing. Her works were expansive, with over seventy poems, several musical compositions, and nine books, including reports on biological observations, natural science, botany, and herbal cures. The Rupertsberg convent attracted women of considerable musical and artistic talent, and in 1165, Hildegard founded a second convent at nearby Eibingen.

Visiting pilgrims continued to ask her advice on a variety of issues. Of course, in the twelfth century there were no physical sciences as we know them today, no way to interpret events and signs. There were no psychologists or therapists. People could only go to a spiritual person to help them make sense of their world. Hildegard stepped into that role with grace and conviction.

She also held correspondence with several people of prominence -- bishops, emperors, and popes, responding to theological questions, admonishing, and advising as she deemed necessary. During this period, the church was beset by many institutional problems: there was rampant greed among the clergy; immoral priests failed miserably in their duties; and teachings which were considered heretical by the church threatened to lure away the disenchanted masses.

In the church's behalf, she undertook several preaching missions to both clergy and laity, an exceptional achievement for a woman of that era. Despite frailty and poor health, she overcame her initial self-doubts about her abilities and her divine inspiration and confronted the hierarchy of her day to fulfill what she believed God was calling her to do: to recall lukewarm Christians and their faithless leaders back to God.

As I studied about Hildegard, this superstar of the Rhine, this woman who seemed to embody the skills of Billy Graham, Martha Stewart, and Dr. Laura, this woman who has caught the imagination of several in the last decade of the 20^th century, I see many aspects of her life that are meaningful to me. To start, I find inspiration in the fact that she actually began to come into her own when she was well into her forties, in the second half of her life. It's encouraging for me to realize that the projects for which she is now best remembered, her creative efforts in writing, art, and music began to blossom in her later years. She was an accomplished woman, and in many ways, a liberated woman, and I marvel at that. But on the other hand, she was also a person of her time, and she did not support women in positions of power, nor encourage women to the priesthood.

Another aspect of Hildegard's spiritual expression that speaks to me is her music. Many believe that it has been her music which has been the catalyst for her current popularity. Our choir has given us a taste of her music this morning, transporting us back in time, to hear what is might have sounded like as the nuns sang their communal prayers and praise. Hildegard's music is the earliest music that we have for which we can identify a composer. Other earlier existing music has not been identified with a particular person because people usually wrote anonymously. But Hildegard's music and identity were preserved by the monastic tradition.

Having grown up within the confines of the monastery, Hildegard was undoubtedly immersed in the sounds of the monks in their communal worship. Prayers were said and sung eight times a day, every day, every month, every year and the Benedictine chant formed the background for her life and thought.

Hildegard saw music as the leaping up of God in the human person, a way to unite the human and the divine. Her background in chant influenced her musical composition but because she was untrained, she had no rules to follow. She wrote what came into her head and the result was a new and distinctive style. Some of her melodies were quiet and meditative; others had a haunting quality characterized by wide vocal ranges and dramatically high pitched notes. Writing musical compositions with a range of two and a half octaves, which she did, was a practice unheard of before her time and not tried again until 500 years after her death. She wrote over seventy hymns, antiphons, and responsories to be used by her nuns in their communal worship.

There are many today who consider Hildegard in the ranks of Bach and Beethoven because of her unique style. In recent decades albums of her music have slowly made their way into distribution and today there are several different recordings of her works available.

In all honesty, I don't listen to Hildegard's music on a regular basis. But I do find it especially well-suited for meditation. It's wonderfully helpful in centering and it seems to transport me to a different place. Obviously I'm not alone in that regard. Recently I was talking with a friend who is a nurse in a hospital surgery unit who told me about one of her patients. This patient was being prepared for her procedure and she was quite insistent that she must listen to her Hildegard tape on her headphones so that she could relax and be centered for her surgery.

Another aspect of her spirituality that appeals to me is her idea of viriditas, a word which she, herself, coined that means "greening power." This is a theological concept which she conceived of as being associated with the fertility of nature, and the source of that fertility was the bounty of God. Living in the lush Rhineland valley, she spoke about creation as "the earth's lush greening" and of "the exquisite greening of trees and grasses." Many of her visions reveal images of the feminine divine and she often refers to the earth as mother. Hildegard hears God speaking in nature:

I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.

I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.

I am the rain coming from the dew

that causes the grasses to laugh

with the joy of life.

However, this concept of viriditas included the human element as well, and Hildegard felt that all of creation, including humanity is "showered with greening refreshment, the vitality to bear fruit." She connected greening power with creativity, and views humankind as being divinely commissioned to be co-creators with God:

God be praised for his handiwork: Humankind.

And so, humankind, full of creative possibilities,

Is God's work.

Humankind alone, is called to assist God.

Humankind is called to co-create.

She also issued a warning to humanity:

If we surrender the green vitality of virtues

And give ourselves over to the drought of our indolence

So that we lack the sap of life and the greening power

of good deeds

Then the powers of our very soul will begin to fade

and dry up.

So for Hildegard all creative powers come from God and there was a relationship between earthly fertility and human creativity. Clearly the combination of feminine imagery and the divine commission for expression were powerful aspects of encouragement in her artistic endeavors. Despite frail health, Hildegard lived to be eighty-two but the last several months of her life were spent in turmoil. This was the result of an ongoing disagreement with the church officials at Mainz over the burial of a person who at one time had been excommunicated from the church. Hildegard had knowledge that the man had been reconciled with the church before his death so she permitted him to be buried in the cloister cemetery. But, the Archbishop was unaware of the man's reconciliation and ordered his body exhumed. Hildegard refused and the prelates ruled that public worship and reception of communion be suspended for the convent. No music or singing was permitted nor were the churchbells allowed to sound. For a community which revolved around music as their praise to God, this was a severe penalty. Eventually Hildegard was successful in resolving the matter and the archbishop apologized. But she was quite ill by that time and she died shortly thereafter.

During the decades following her death, attempts to secure her formal canonization as a saint were unsuccessful. However, she was always venerated by locals and received considerable popular acclaim. Over the years an unseen hand began to write her name as Saint Hildegard and on the 800^th anniversary of her death, Pope John Paul II referred to her as "an outstanding saint."

So, why all this current clamor about Hildegard? I think it is because her life and works speak to people, especially women, in their search for spiritual grounding. Regarding the voices and visions from heaven, I think she says you too, have visions. You too, have a voice that's crying to be heard. Listen to your inner self. And honor the imperative that you hear, for it is our inner voices and visions that inspire our most exalted aspirations.

Why all the clamor? I think it's because Hildegard engages people through a variety of modes: music, the visual arts, and the written word, and she addresses them on a variety of levels. Now, on balance, I must say that not all of her topics interest me. Some of her so-called "scientific" writings today sound like folklore. And sometimes she does seem to concentrate on blood and martyred virgins. But, nevertheless, her scope is broad enough to have wide appeal.

Why all the clamor? Hildegard underscores the value of human, as well as divine support in the spiritual journey. Her deep friendships with her nuns and a few particular monks were very necessary and enriching to her life. She modeled the role that mutual support plays in life's journey.

Why all the clamor? This is the most important. I think it's because people recognize that her spiritual grounding was so very central to her life and her happiness. It informed the whole of her living. Her life was entirely faith-based. When she was overcome with self-doubt, she relied on her faith to empower herself, to sharpen her focus, and to discover a truer picture of herself. She had a spiritual conviction and had no choice but to share it. And in so doing, she shaped a ministry to herself, to others, to her community, and to creation. I, personally, do not believe in an intervening God. But I do believe in the power of spiritual forces to guide us on our path and to strengthen us in time of need. This message of her spiritual grounding in faith is what speaks to me.

Hildegard of Bingen. A woman whose life was built on the foundation of faith. A woman of great humility who perceived that whatever she was, was because of God's graciousness. Wouldn't she be surprised to know that nine hundred years after her birth, she is "a hot commodity" and a "cultural icon of the 20^th century."

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