“Never stop singing!” commanded Hildegard of Bingen, who had many reasons not to sing. From the time of her birth in 1098 in Germany’s middle Rhine Valley, Hildegard was susceptible to illness. She was a spiritually sensitive child, and her physical weaknesses led her to nurture a rich interior life. Hildegard experienced her first vision at age three and began her spiritual quest in earnest at eight, when her parents offered her, their tenth child, to the church as a tithe. Her earliest spiritual experiences involved chanting the Psalms as part of the Benedictine daily prayer services (Opus Dei, or “work of God”).
This Benedictine nun lived 81 active, fulfilling years, in spite of regular optical migraines and the reality of living in a man’s world. Hildegard founded two convents; organized the first public preaching tours ever conducted by a woman; authored nearly 400 bold letters to popes, emperors, abbesses, abbots, monks, nuns, and laypeople; worked as a healer, naturalist, botanist, dietary specialist, and exorcist; composed daring music; crafted poetry with staying power; wrote the first surviving sung morality play; and wrote three compelling theological works.
Through singing, Hildegard expressed her gratitude for God, and her songs below invite us to take up our own crosses and be thankful with her.
Life-Altering Love
Endless Strength! Your love authored life when you spoke that one Word. You’re the One ordering order, creating creation, your own way. And your Word dressed himself in flesh, embracing the disobedience-stained form we inherited from Adam, and that’s how Jesus removed the sadness from his clothes. The Savior’s love liberates the world, for what’s ever been kinder than his incarnation? His sinlessness breathed life into compassion, cleaning that sad smudge from the boney outfit every human wears. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! He erased the anguish from our flesh.
That a King Would Bow
How miraculous— that a king would stoop to enter the world of the ordinary, of the commoner, of his subject, of woman. But God did this. Why? Because humility, ever the lowliest of the low, always rises— and triumphs— over everything else.
The Most Sanguine Moment
When the Creator actually spilled his blood on the elements, earth, air, water, and fire screamed, collapsed with grief, shook from sadness. Now, Father, with this gift anoint our weaknesses.
From Poverty to Greatness
Father, we’re so needy. We beg you, by your Word through whom you made us rich in everything we lack, please (we’re begging you) help us, or we’ll fail. Don’t let us darken your name with shame. Help us.
The First Verb
The Holy Spirit animates all, moves all, roots all, forgives all, cleanses all, erases all our past mistakes and then puts medicine on our wounds. We praise this Spirit of incandescence for awakening and reawakening all creation.
To Wisdom
You soar, sustain, and animate, climb, dive, and sing your way through this world, giving life to every beating heart. You never end. You keep circling, crossing over us on three wings— one speeds through heaven, one holds the earth together with a kiss as light as dew, and one whooshes over, under, and through our lives. We praise you, Wisdom!
The First Fire
Spirit of fire, Paraclete, our Comforter, you’re the Live in alive, the Be in every creature’s being, the Breathe in every breath on earth. Holy Life-Giver, Doctor of the desperate, Healer of everyone broken past hope, Medicine for all wounds, Fire of love, Joy of hearts, fragrant Strength, sparkling Fountain, Protector, Penetrator, in you we contemplate how God goes looking for those who are lost and reconciles those who are at odds with him. Break our chains! You bring people together. You curl clouds, whirl winds, send rain on rocks, sing in creeks, and turn the lush earth green. You teach those who listen, breathing joy and wisdom into them. We praise you for these gifts, Light-giver, Sound of joy, Wonder of being alive, Hope of every person, and our strongest Good.
The First Daylight
You’re the Word of our Father, the light of the first sunrise, God’s omnipotent thought. Before anything was made, you saw it and designed it and tucked your all-seeing nature in the middle of your sinew, like a spinning wheel with no beginning and no end, still encircling everything.
The Sheep, Listening
Shepherd of our souls, and First Voice of creation, now let there be … freedom. For we’re still wretched creatures, always weary, always weak, and only you can rescue us from the unhappiness we make.
Carmen Acevedo Butcher is associate professor of English and scholar-in-residence at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia.
Read more about Hildegard of Bingen and her indefatigable joy in Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader by Carmen Acevedo Butcher (Paraclete Press, 2007).
Here are some of the best recordings of Hildegard’s music:
- The Emma Kirkby Collection. Christopher Page, Hyperion 66227, 1993.
- A Feather on the Breath of God: Sequences and Hymns by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen. Gothic Voices, dir. Christopher Page, Emma Kirkby (soprano). Hyperion DCA 66039, 1981, 1993.
- Hildegard von Bingen: Canticles of Ecstasy. Sequentia, dir. Barbara Thornton. Deutsche Harmonia mundi 05472-77320-2, 1994.
- Hildegard von Bingen: Celestial Harmonies. Oxford Camerata, dir. Jeremy Summerly. Naxos DDD 8.557983, 2008.
- Symphoniae: Geistliche Gesänge/Spiritual Songs. Sequentia, dir. Barbara Thornton. Deutsche Harmonia Mundi GD 77020, 1983, 1997.
For more background information, see:
- Hildegard of Bingen: Scivias, translated by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop, Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1990)
- Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life (Routledge, 2nd edition, 1998)
- Website for the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies
Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History & Biography magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History & Biography.
