Thursday, March 10, 2011

Women's History Month - Week Two - Hildegard von Bingen


My reflections upon strong women in the Catholic tradition would be tragically hollow without addressing one of the strongest women of the middle ages: Hildegard von Bingen.

Hildegard rose to prominence at the age of 38, when she was elected prioress of the nuns at the abbey of Disibodenberg. Though not formally educated, she was a well read scholar, a gifted administrator, and a talented writer/composer of hymns and antiphons. In addition, she had numerous visions, from which she dictated three volumes of theology, Scivias (Know the Ways of the Lord), Liber vitae meritorum (Book of Life's Merits), and Liber divinorum operum (Book of Divine Works). Pope Eugenius III endorsed these books at the behest of Bernard of Clairveaux, and granted Hildegard permission to preach up and down the Rhine, an incredible anomaly for a woman of her time and times beyond.

Hildegard's immense inner strength was predicated on her notion of womanhood. She saw woman as complimentary to, rather than lesser than man, a view that would nevertheless be kept from taking hold in European minds by the resurgence of Aristotle shortly after Hildegard's death, but that now dominates much of Christian thought. Consonant with the scriptural notion that God exalts the weak, Hildegard turned conventional theological conceptions of women on their head in her thought by highlighting the lesser place of woman in the scientific, cultural, and theological thought of the day, which thereby would allow women to experience incredible spiritual growth and be raised up by God. She felt this very personally, as in her own bodily experience, she was often ill, and it was often in these times of illness that she would experience her visions.

Tempered with this conviction, Hildegard saw herself as chosen by God to prophesy and preach, and with her fervor and love for the Church, preached against immorality and heresy. With her phenomenal (though informal) education, she made herself a teacher to her sisters, educating women about the world, and about their rights as women.

Meditations on St. Hildegard for Women's History Month:

1) Hildegard emphasized that to be a woman was to have an unique experience of the spiritual, a kind of "blooming" of the soul available only to women. How have women like Hildegard and others illuminated our knowledge of the spiritual?

2) Hildegard had a deep (though not overly-sentimental) Marian piety, writing over a dozen hymns and antiphons to Mary. She praised Mary's roles as both virgin and mother, and her magnificent holiness. In looking to Christian women of the past, especially Mary, what kinds of strength are most often seen? Are there strengths there that may go unnoticed in popular devotions?

3) Hildegard was a lover of nature, cataloging plants and herbs, and using metaphors often dealing with the local flora in her writings. In an effort to cultivate a conscious love for the environment, after women naturalists such as Hildegard, go hiking or take a walk in nature, contemplating the marvels of our mother earth.

No comments:

Post a Comment