HILDEGARD OF BINGEN – a Saint for our Times

It is ironic that Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was canonised as a saint in October last year by Pope Benedict XVI, who, as Cardinal Ratzinger, fought against so many of the views put forward by Hildegard. Moreover, she becomes one of only four women doctors of the church, joining Catherine of Siena, St Teresa of Avila and St Therese of Lisieux. As many readers will be aware, Matthew Fox has had his own run-ins with Cardinal Ratzinger and the Vatican, and his passion for radical renewal is evident in this highly informative book. He has in fact taking up many of the causes espoused by Hildegard herself in her lifetime. She was an extraordinary figure by any standards: abbess, artist, musician, poet, architect, theologian, feminist. Her music has only recently become popular, sometimes illustrated with her own mandala paintings. We have 300 letters still extant, many written as an adviser to leading personages of the time. Her tone is direct and uncompromising, reflecting the formidable spiritual warrior that she was.

The book takes the form of encounters with corresponding modern figures representing her various concerns: the poet Mary Oliver and the cosmic Christ, Howard Thurman and a God of love and light rather than religion, creation spirituality and the Rhineland mystic movement, Clarissa Pinkola Estes and the wild woman proclaiming wisdom and creativity, Dorothee Soelle and Hildegard as a herald of the Divine Feminine. In the final chapter, Matthew likens Hildegard to a Trojan horse entering the gates of the Vatican. His deep scholarship and love of Hildegard's work is evident in every chapter, giving the reader her own powerful words and conveying her indomitable spirit.

Joan Chittister contributes the introduction, contrasting Shelley's message in Ozymandias that everything passes away and nothing remains with the message of the essayist Rosten he says that the purpose of life is not to be happy, but rather to matter: 'to have it make a difference that you lived at all.' The book shows how the message of Hildegard resonates down the generations and is particularly relevant to our time in terms of the emergence of the Divine Feminine, the need to care for the Earth, criticism of patriarchal mentality reflected in emphasis on war, continuing marginalisation of the poor and excoriating analysis of corruption or lack of integrity in the church. Writing to the Dean and clergy of Cologne, she says 'in your sermons there are no lights in the firmament of God's justice, just as when the stars are not shining in the sky. You are night, a night which exhales darkness. And you are like a people that does no work and out of inertia fails to walk in the light. You are like a naked snake that creeps into its hole… So now, what do you have to say for yourselves? With your empty and silly behaviour, you might well be good for nothing more than to scare away some flies in the summer.' One can only imagine what the Dean felt on receiving such a missive. To Abbot Hellinger she was no less forthright: 'listen and learn, so that you blush with shame when you taste in your soul what I now say. Sometimes you have the style of a bear, often grumbling to itself in secret. Sometimes you have the style of an ass, for you aren't solicitous in your duties but are glum and in many ways bungling as well.'

The spirit here is one of prophecy and moral outrage. Matthew suggests that prophets are meant to interfere, to denounce, to put themselves on the line for justice even if this means unpopularity and excommunication. Hildegard would have agreed with Bonhoeffer when he wrote from his prison cell that God calls us not to a new religion but to life, and that Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power and with its pleas for the weak.' This kind of spirit is more apparent in the new Pope Francis than in his predecessor. According to Hildegard, prophets are a living, penetrating clarity. In illuminating darkness they speak out. Their virtues are like gleams of divine light. Another important aspect of Hildegard is her delight in creation, her insistence on praise and gratitude, which also corresponds to her writing on creativity and greening - the real sin is to dry up, no longer to have the sap flowing through one's being. She is an early proponent of the Divine Feminine, using very interesting imagery not only of God as Mother but also inclusive images such as 'Divinity is like wheel, a circle, a whole, that can neither be understood nor divided, nor begun, nor ended; God is round as a wheel.' Correspondingly, 'just as a circle embraces all that is within it, so does the Godhead embrace all.' This represents the power of a circle rather than the power of a hierarchical ladder. Hildegard invites us to wake up, to stand in our truth, to express our creativity, to transform ourselves and the world. Matthew's life embodies the same stance, but it is also a healing message, not simply a confrontation with the establishment. As he puts it, Hildegard also reminds us to sing, to dance, to be creative, and to celebrate life. It is a passionate clarion call for our time, but also for all time.