HILDEGARD of Bingen: Cosmic Christ, Religion of Experience, God the Mother It is appropriate to remember Hildegard with light imagery since that is how she describes her spiritual awakening (see Vision Two below) . "When I was forty-two years and seven months old, a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind. Like a flame that does not burn but enkindles, it inflamed my entire heart and my entire breast, just like the sun that warms an object with its rays" What did this illumination do for Hildegard? "All of a sudden, I was able to taste of the understanding of the narration of books. I saw the Psalter clearly and the evangelists and other catholic books of the Old and New Testaments." Hildegard was overcome by this experience of intuition, connection-making, and insight and went to bed sick. It was when she "placed my hand to writing" that she received new strength, got out of bed, and spent the following ten years writing her first book called Scivias. Hildegard's teaching forced people to "wake up," take responsibility, make choices. Prophets "illuminate the darkness,' she tells us. They are the people who can say "God has illuminated me in both my eyes. By them I behold the splendor of light in the darkness. Through them I can choose the path I am to travel, whether I wish to be sighted or blind by recognising what guide to call upon by day or by night.'' Here we learn the title of her book Scivias, which means "Know the Ways." Hildegard means "know the wise ways as distinct from the foolish ways." People who follow the ways of wisdom "will themselves become a fountain gushing from the waters of life ... For these waters - that is, the believers - are a spring that can never be exhausted or run dry. No one will ever have too much of them . . . the waters through which we have been reborn to life have been sprinkled by the Holy Spirit." | |
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