A Beam of Light In the Middle Ages: St. Hildegard

We think of the Middle Ages as a very dark time, a time when there was little education and much toil.  However, there a great beams of light from this time.  Today the Church celebrates a figure from the Middle Ages, St. Hildegard of Bingen.  She was born around the year 1098 and she died on this day in 1174.  She is considered to be one of the most famous characters of the period.  At the age of 18, Hildegard became a Benedictine nun at the Abbey of Mount St. Disibode.  Twenty years later, she became the head of the Abbey.  She was incredibly intelligent and her interests were wide.  Hildegard was a writer of plays, musical composer, theologian, mystic and visionary.

Hildegard left us some 70 poems, 3 major works on theology (Scivias ("Know  the paths!"), Liber Vitae Meritorum (on ethics), and De Operatione Dei (“The Works of God”), and, although she had no formal training in music, she composed 77 chants and the first musical drama in history, which she entitled The Ritual of the Virtues.  She wrote the first morality play, Order of the Virtues, in 1151, which is about the struggle for a human soul, or Anima, between the Virtues and the Devil. 

 
Hildegard was a bright light in the Middle Ages, and a woman very much ahead of her time.

 

Let us pray:  O God, by whose grace your servant Hildegard, kindled with the fire of your love, became a burning and shining light in your Church: Grant that we also may be aflame with the spirit of love and discipline, and walk before you as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.   Amen.

CALENDAR REMIDNERS

The Adult Christian Education Series: Lord, Teach Us To Pray: Six Studies on the Lord’s Prayer from the Kerygma Series.  We started the study this Sunday, and it was wonderful!  Please join Jillian Bain on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and Tammie Taylor on Mondays.

The Fourth Annual St. Augustine Art Show begins this week.  The judging will take place during the week, and the show is open to the public starting this Saturday, 22 September, at 6:00 p.m. with a reception. 

St. Vincent’s Day Celebration at St. Vincent’s House on 29 September 2012 at 10:00 a.m.

Blessing of the Animals for St. Francis Day, Saturday, 13 October 2012 at 11:00 a.m. at the Cross on the lawn in front of Sutton Hall.

Please remember everyone on our Prayer List, and especially the family of Anne Ladner who died yesterday.

 

“God has arranged all things in the world in consideration of everything else.” St. Hildegard

Your servant in Christ,

Fr. Chester J. Makowski+

St. Augustine of Hippo Episcopal Church
Galveston, Texas 77550