Lessons from Hildegaard
By The Rev. Meghan Farr, ‘13
A few years ago I preached a homily on St. Hildegaard of Bingen for a mid-week service at the church where I was serving as assistant rector. I began with the following:
In our reading from Colossians this morning, St. Paul calls on the church at Colossae to "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God." His advice is good counsel for us still today: Get together, study Scripture and worship! Worship is at the heart of our relationship with God. "Worship . . . in its deepest sense . . . [is] the response of man to the Eternal," (Evelyn Underhill, Worship preface).
But what if you were told that you couldn't worship — sing out to God with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs? How would it feel to be denied the Eucharist? Such was the fate of the saint we remember on September 17, Hildegaard of Bingen.
Little could I imagine just a few years later, the church of the twenty-first century would find itself in a similar place to Hildegaard’s religious community of the twelfth century. In 1178 the Prelates (ecclesiastical authorities) of Mainz in Germany imposed an interdict on the Rupertsberg monastery at Bingen and the abbess and nuns who lived there. The reason? The abbess, Hildegaard, had chosen to bury in the churchyard a nobleman who, at one time, had been excommunicated. The Prelates demanded the body be exhumed, removed from the churchyard and buried in unhallowed ground. Hildegaard refused, claiming the man had been absolved and died in a state of grace. For six months she and her nuns were deprived of the Mass, all sacraments and even their voices for they were not allowed to sing their liturgies. Of all the punishments, this was the most painful for the abbess Hildegaard because she herself composed the unique chants they sang daily. Singing was Hildegaard's way to God. This crisis occurred in the final year of her life, and it is easy to imagine what distress the interdict must have brought to Hildegaard. She wrote to the Prelates saying a vision told her it was wrong for the nuns to give up singing and praising God and she must ask to be allowed to resume doing so.
She further added: “Music stirs our hearts and engages our souls in ways we can’t describe. When this happens, we are taken beyond our earthly banishment back to the divine melody Adam knew when he sang with the angels, when he was whole in God, before his exile...singing is our best hope to hear divine harmony again.” She added that songs of praise frighten the Devil and so he seeks to silence them. She warned the Prelates to be sure Satan was not the one behind their decision.
Imagine a woman in the twelfth century, risking excommunication to stand up for her beliefs and telling male church authorities "you know, I think you might be influenced by the devil!” Hildegaard could not bear to come before God without a song. She believed that intellect lived in human voices and that song had a way of making souls vigilant. Who was this passionate abbess who wasn’t afraid “to teach and admonish others in all wisdom,” even in the face of excommunication, but could not bear the thought of coming before God without a song?
Hildegaard (1098-1179) was the tenth child of a noble family in Bermersheim, Germany. At the age of eight she was sent to live as a handmaid and companion to an anchorite by the name of Jutta who lived in the hermitage attached to the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg. Chronically ill from the age of three, Hildegaard experienced visions that shook her to the depth of her being. The monastery was a safe place for Hildegaard. Over time, other women came to the monastery to learn from Jutta, and the anchorage became a nunnery following the Rule of St. Benedict. When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegaard was chosen to be her successor. Hildegaard eventually made the decision (the result of a vision) to move her nuns to a new monastery near Bingen and called it Rupertsberg after Saint Rupert. Five years into her role as abbess, at the age of 43, Hildegaard received a vision telling her “that she should not delay to write down whatever she saw or heard,” with regard to her many visions and, again, “to make haste and reveal the heavenly secrets shown to her.” As a woman, Hildegaard would be subject to ridicule or judgement for her writings. Despite the vision, she resisted, but her resistance caused her to fall ill. Hildegaard finally relented and began to write her visions down into what would become her great masterpiece, Scivias. It would take her ten years to complete the work; during that time, a copy reached Pope Eugenius III. He was impressed and endorsed the work. The Papal seal of approval was vital because it increased Hildegaard’s confidence and security in the face of continuing self-doubt but also authenticated her publicly and protected her from the censure she was bound to attract.
Hildegaard would continue to write extensively over her lifetime on a variety of subjects, including the natural world, science, medicine, and herbs. She wrote a morality play, poetry, hundreds of letters, including ones to the Pope and Holy Roman Emperor, and even traveled on a preaching circuit in Germany and Switzerland.
Yet it is her music which has received the most attention - not only in her own day, when it was known as far away as Paris, but down to today when it has received acclaim and is performed worldwide. After several petitions, Hildegaard was finally canonized and made a Doctor of the Church (only the fourth female) by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 who said of her: “This great woman, this prophetess, also speaks with great timelessness to us today, with her courageous ability to discern the signs of the times, her love for creation, her medicine, her poetry, her music, which today has been reconstructed, her love for Christ and for his Church…”
The interdict on Hildegaard’s monastery was lifted six months before her death in March of 1179. What joyful relief and comfort it must have been to her to receive the Eucharist and to hear again the singing of her music by her nuns. We too have begun to return to worship, to the Eucharist and slowly to music. And oh what a joy and comfort it is. As I return again to Hildegaard’s story, I am reminded our world today is not so far removed from Hildegaard’s. We face many of the same issues, struggles, and trials - be they religious, social, political, or personal. As we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, Hildegaard’s life stands as a testament to how faith in our Heavenly Father sustains us through all the difficulties we face.
As Pope Benedict said, she speaks to us with great timelessness and a courageous ability to discern the signs of the times. She knew worship brings us closer to God. May we all, like Hildegaard, follow the words of the psalmist and sing to the Lord as long as we live and praise our God while we have our being.
The Rev. Meghan Farr is a graduate of Nashotah House (‘13) and currently serves as Priest-in-Charge of the Northern Highlands Benefice in the Diocese of Eau Claire, which includes four churches. She is married to Daniel, and together they parent a brood of three wonderful boys, two dogs, and two cats. Mtr. Meghan likes to say she runs on prayer and caffeine, which many of us can relate to.