Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard was a twelfth-century abbess, visionary, theologian, poet, composer, herbalist, and prophet—a woman whose voice rang out across medieval Europe at a time when women were rarely heard. From childhood she experienced luminous visions, “the Living Light,” as she called it, which filled her with awe and often left her physically weakened. At first she was reluctant to share what she saw, but eventually she recognized them as gifts meant not only for her but for the whole Church.
In one vision she described: “And behold, the Living Light, which I see neither with the eyes of the body nor with the eyes of the soul, but only in the mystery of the spirit, kindles my heart like a flame.”
She poured these revelations into her monumental works: Scivias (“Know the Ways”), The Book of Life’s Merits, and The Book of Divine Works. They are filled with cosmic imagery: wheels of fire, luminous orbs, rivers of light, the breath of God animating creation. She saw the universe itself as a vast symphony of divine love. To her, nothing was inert—every stone, every root, every star vibrated with God’s presence.
Perhaps her most famous phrase is viriditas—literally, “greenness” or “the greening power of God.” For Hildegard, God’s life pulses through all creation like sap through a tree. “There is a power that has been since all eternity, and that force and potentiality is green!” she wrote. “All creation is awakened, called, and drawn to itself by this power.”
Hildegard was no passive mystic lost in visions. She was a fiery reformer who wrote letters to popes, bishops, emperors, and kings. She challenged corruption in the Church, warned against the misuse of power, and spoke with an authority that startled her male contemporaries. “Even in a tiny feather,” she reminded them, “the Creator has impressed a pattern of the whole world.”
Her music remains some of the most soaring of the Middle Ages: long, flowing lines that rise like flames, shimmering with longing for God. Listening to her chants today, one feels the same ecstatic intensity she described in her visions: “I am the fiery life of divine essence. I flame above the beauty of the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in sun, moon, and stars.”
For me, Hildegard is a reminder that God is not only present in our private inner life but also in creation itself. Growing up, I had learned to see the world mostly as a backdrop for moral struggle—don’t sin, be good, obey the rules. Hildegard opened my eyes to a different way: creation itself is revelation. The very pulse of life around us is the heartbeat of God.
I imagine her walking through the monastery garden, pausing to touch a leaf or examine a root, not as a mere observer but as one beholding the sacrament of divine life. “All of creation God gives to humankind to use,” she wrote. “If this privilege is misused, God’s justice permits creation to punish humanity.” Even in warning, her words are alive with the sense of earth as sacred, not disposable.
And I wonder: what if I approached my own life like that—my work, my relationships, even my failures—as fertile ground where God’s greening power is always at work? As Hildegard reminds us “The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.”