Homily for Memorial of St. Hildegard

Homily for the Memorial
of St. Hildegard

Tuesday, 24th Week of Ordinary Time

Collect
Sept. 17, 2024
1 Cor 12: 12-14, 27-31
Christian Brothers, St. Joseph’s Residence, N.R.

Benedict XVI had such high regard for St. Hildegard of Bingen that he devoted 2 of his Wednesday audiences to her in 2010 during his long series on the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and in 2012 he declared her a Doctor, only the 4th woman so designated.  That she was German probably didn’t hurt her standing in his eyes.

Hildegard lived in the 12th century, a contemporary of Bernard of Clairvaux, who approved of her mystical writings, as also did Pope Eugene III.

St. Paul says that all Christians “were given to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:14).  Hildegard drank deeply from that spring, and she exercised several of the spiritual gifts that Paul mentions, e.g., prophecy, teaching, and administration (12:27-31).  She commented on Scripture, lives of the saints, the moral life, medicine, and the natural sciences, and she composed music.  With a pure and humble heart, she sought God’s eternal glory (Collect) and teaches us to do that thru her writings, her music, and her correspondence with popes, bishops, kings, and religious.

Hildegard teaches that God is the life of the universe, that humans are the peak of creation, that Christ is our life, that the Church is his bride.  She reminds church leaders and religious that renewal or reform doesn’t come from changing structures but from repentance and conversion, from thinking and living our vocations, from union with Christ.