The Daily Prayer
for TUESDAY, September 17, 2019
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
Hildegard was sent to the convent at the age of eight, where she learned to read Scripture, pray, and chant. Even as a child, she experienced supernatural religious visions in which she saw things invisible to others, foretold the future, and was filled with a luminosity she later called “the reflection of the Living Light.” At age thirty-eight, she became abbess of the Benedictine community in which she was raised and, five years later, received her call to prophesy when she saw a fiery light that infused her heart and mind with knowledge. She finally was able to understand her visions as a means of divine revelation and began to write extensively about them. Her term for the grace of God inherent in all living things was viriditas, or greenness, endearing her in our generation to followers of creation spirituality. Hildegard’s holistic approach to God and humanity is relevant today, particularly to those longing for wholeness and healing for all of creation.
Hildegard wrote, “We shall awaken from our dullness and rise vigorously toward justice. If we fall in love with creation deeper and deeper, we will respond to its endangerment with passion.”
Lord, when you invited Adam to name the animals, you invited us all to participate in your creative work. Teach us to rejoice in your creation and assist in its care, that we, your humble creatures, may in all things give you praise. Amen.
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