Catholic life

Saint Hildegard of Bingen: Finding Joy and Courage in a Shipwrecked World

/ chicoinematt

September 17 is one of the most meaningful feast days of the year for me.

First, it is my daughter’s birthday. It is also the feast of Saint Lambert, the patron saint of marriage and the patron of the parish where my family regularly attends Mass. The Church also remembers Saint Robert Bellarmine, one of my favorite saints of the Counter-Reformation.

As if that were not enough, September 17 is the feast of Saint Hildegard of Bingen.

Hildegard is difficult to summarize in a single sentence. She was a Benedictine nun, abbess, mystic, theologian, composer, writer, herbalist, and student of the natural world. Calling her a polymath might be the most concise description. A polymath is someone with expertise in many different fields, and few saints fit that description better than Hildegard.

Yet her many accomplishments did not come from a scattered mind chasing every interesting subject. Her work flowed from one source: her love for God. Faith united her interests in Scripture, music, medicine, nature, and the human person.

A Mystic Rooted in Christ

Born in Germany in 1098, Hildegard was dedicated to God from childhood. She entered the Benedictine community at Disibodenberg under the guidance of Jutta of Spanheim. After Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard became the leader of the religious community. She later established monasteries at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, and Eibingen.

Hildegard experienced visions from a young age. She did not describe them as dreams or moments when she lost awareness of her surroundings. Instead, she remained conscious and understood them as a form of spiritual perception.

When Hildegard was about forty-two, she believed God commanded her to record and communicate what she had seen. She initially hesitated. The responsibility frightened her, but with the assistance of secretaries and the encouragement of Church authorities, she began writing.

Her principal visionary works included Scivias, The Book of the Merits of Life, and The Book of Divine Works. These writings explored the Incarnation, creation, virtue and vice, and humanity’s need to return to God.

Although Hildegard’s visions attract attention, they should not distract us from the foundation of her spirituality. Her thought was deeply rooted in Christ, Scripture, the liturgy, the Church Fathers, and the Rule of Saint Benedict. Pope Benedict XVI observed that her writings possessed a profound unity centered on Christ.

Hildegard did not pursue unusual spiritual experiences for their own sake. Her visions directed people toward repentance, holiness, and a deeper relationship with Jesus.

A Saint Who Refused to Bury Her Gifts

Hildegard’s life reminds us that contemplation does not mean ignoring the needs of the world.

She lived in a monastic community, but her influence extended far beyond its walls. She corresponded with popes, bishops, emperors, priests, religious sisters, and laypeople. Yet, she warned Church and political leaders when they wandered from the truth. And she also traveled to preach, something highly unusual for a woman in the twelfth century.

Hildegard possessed courage because she understood that her gifts did not belong to her alone. God had entrusted them to her for the good of the Church.

A line often attributed to her captures that courageous spirit:

“Even in a world that’s being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.”

Those words feel particularly relevant today. Our society often appears shipwrecked by division, confusion, fear, and isolation. It is tempting to panic, complain, or withdraw from the world entirely.

Hildegard offers another response. Remain faithful. Remain courageous. Continue creating beauty and speaking the truth even when the culture seems to be falling apart.

Her courage did not come from confidence in her own abilities. It grew from obedience to God. Hildegard understood that the answer to a troubled world begins with the conversion of individual hearts.

The Music of Heaven in a Family Home

Saint Hildegard composed a large collection of sacred music, including the Symphonia armoniae caelestium revelationum. She also wrote Ordo virtutum, a sacred morality play about the struggle between the virtues and the devil.

For Hildegard, music was more than entertainment. It reflected the harmony of heaven and helped lift the human soul toward God. Creation itself formed a kind of symphony in which every part found its proper place in relation to its Creator.

This aspect of her life holds special significance for me. Hildegard is often invoked as a patron of musicians and writers, and I am a writer who was heavily involved in music during high school and college. My children are now following in those footsteps through band and choir.

As I worked on this article, I could hear a metronome ticking downstairs along with the notes of our electric piano. My children were putting on what they called a piano concert.

It was not quite the Symphonia of Saint Hildegard, but it was still beautiful.

Moments like that reveal how music brings order and joy into a home. Separate sounds become a melody. Different voices join in harmony. Even practice, with its missed notes and repeated measures, can gradually produce something beautiful.

The Christian life works in a similar way. God takes our different talents, personalities, and experiences and orders them toward something greater than we could produce alone.

Did Saint Hildegard Invent Pumpkin Spice?

There is a running joke in the Catholic meme world that Saint Hildegard invented pumpkin spice.

Technically, she did not. Hildegard never combined her spices with pumpkin, and the prepared blend now known as pumpkin spice did not appear until centuries after her death. McCormick introduced its commercial “Pumpkin Pie Spice” blend in 1934.

Still, the joke contains a small grain of truth. Hildegard knew a great deal about herbs, plants, food, and spices.

In her work Physica, she described a recipe using nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, whole-wheat flour, and water. She believed these little cakes could calm bitterness, strengthen the body, open the heart, and make the soul joyful.

Today, people often call them Hildegard’s “Cookies of Joy.”

A small framed copy of one version of this recipe hangs in my kitchen. It lists nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves as the “joy spices.” These happen to be three of the main flavors people now associate with pumpkin spice.

Hildegard’s observations should not be treated as modern medical advice. She wrote within the scientific and medical understanding of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, her work reveals something important about how she viewed the human person. She did not separate physical health, spiritual health, and the created world into unrelated categories.

Her faith taught her to see creation as a gift. Plants, food, music, the body, and the soul all belonged within God’s wise design.

The Spiritual Greenness of God’s Grace

One of the most fascinating themes in Hildegard’s spirituality is viriditas. The Latin word is often translated as “greenness,” “freshness,” or “life-giving vitality.”

For Hildegard, viriditas described the power of God that brings life and fruitfulness to creation. The same divine grace that causes plants to grow also renews the human soul.

Sin produces the opposite effect. It dries us out. It makes us spiritually brittle, weak, and unable to bear good fruit. Grace restores the moisture of divine life to the soul.

This image calls to mind Christ’s words in John 15:5: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” A branch separated from the vine withers because it cannot generate life on its own. When we remain united to Jesus, his life flows through us and enables us to bear fruit.

Hildegard’s concern for nature was therefore not separate from her theology. She studied creation because creation revealed something about its Creator. Respecting the natural world also meant recognizing that it was neither divine nor disposable. It was a gift entrusted to humanity.

Her vision offers a helpful correction for our fragmented age. We often divide faith, work, health, beauty, science, and creativity into separate compartments. Hildegard saw them as different parts of one reality held together by God.

Becoming Fruitful in a Withering World

Saint Hildegard died on September 17, 1179. More than eight centuries later, Pope Benedict XVI formally extended her liturgical veneration to the universal Church. On October 7, 2012, he proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church, making her the fourth woman to receive that title at the time.

Her life demonstrates why the Church continues to learn from her.

Hildegard was brilliant, but intelligence alone did not make her a saint. She placed her intellect at the service of God. She wrote, composed, studied, taught, healed, advised, and corrected others because she wanted Christ to renew his Church.

Most of us will never compose a medieval sacred drama, correspond with an emperor, or write an encyclopedia of medicinal plants. But God has entrusted each of us with particular gifts.

Perhaps you write. Perhaps you sing or play an instrument. Maybe you teach, garden, cook, raise children, study science, care for the sick, or encourage people who feel spiritually dry.

Holiness does not require us to become skilled at everything Hildegard accomplished. It requires us to offer God whatever gifts we have received.

Her life reminds us that a person rooted in prayer can produce astonishing fruit. Even in a shipwrecked world, God continues to make saints. Even when the soul feels withered, his grace can make it green again.

Saint Hildegard of Bingen, pray for us. Help us remain brave and strong. Teach us to recognize God’s wisdom in creation, use our gifts for the good of others, and allow Christ to renew our hearts.

“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now think — what delight God gives to humankind with all these things.” — Saint Hildegard of Bingen

Related Links 

Women Doctors of the Church: Hildegard of Bingen

Apostolic Letter Proclaiming Hildegard of Bingen Doctor of the Church

What Is Viriditas? Hildegard’s Greening Power Explained

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From Heart to Heart: Forgiven to Love as Christ Loves

/ chicoinematt

Guest Post by: David Tonaszuck

Reflection on the Gospel of Matthew 18:21-35

Dear Brothers and sisters in Christ,

A man once decided to volunteer at a hospital. His work was simple: he visited patients who had no family or friends coming to see them. On his first day, he entered one room after another, sitting beside people he had only just met. He listened to their stories, held trembling hands, prayed with those who welcomed prayer, and offered encouragement to those who felt forgotten.

He spent the entire day with strangers. Yet by evening, they were no longer strangers. Their gratitude—the relieved smile, the quiet “thank you,” the light returning to a lonely face—was more than enough to bring him back the next day, and the next.

Whenever he left a room, he tried to leave something of Jesus behind: the light and love of Christ flowing from his heart into the heart of the person he had visited. He would offer a smile and a word of hope. Then he would say, “I love you as Jesus loves you.”

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What Are You Still Holding Onto?

/ chicoinematt

“Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21).

I have heard the story of the Rich Young Man countless times. As a cradle Catholic, it is one of those Gospel passages that became familiar to me at an early age. For years, though, I mostly interpreted Jesus’ words in terms of material possessions.

The young man was wealthy. Jesus told him to sell what he owned. The lesson seemed straightforward: Don’t become too attached to your stuff.

There is truth to that interpretation. But the older I get, the more I realize Jesus’ invitation goes deeper. Christ asks the young man to surrender whatever prevents him from following God completely.

And that is a much more challenging request.

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Letting God’s Love Flow: Becoming Vessels of Christ’s Light

/ chicoinematt

Guest Post by: David Tonaszuck

A reflection on the Gospel of Matthew 18:15-20

Dear Friends in Christ,

Let me begin with a story from not so long ago, yet one that shines as a living parable of the light and love of God. Saint Teresa of Calcutta—known to the world as Mother Teresa—walked the crowded, dusty streets of her city, gathering the dying, the abandoned, and the forgotten into her arms.

When others averted their eyes or crossed to the other side, she knelt down, touched the wounds of the suffering, and looked into their faces with a tenderness that could only have come from God. She saw, in each broken body and lost soul, the face of Jesus Himself. The love she poured out was not her own, but God’s love moving through her—her hands became His hands, her words became the whispers of Christ’s mercy, her heart beat with the steady, patient love of the Holy Spirit. The world saw her as extraordinary, but what she did was simple: she let God enter her heart, and in doing so, she let God’s love flow out to everyone she met.

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Exploring the Cellars of the Soul

/ chicoinematt

Editor’s note: Article originally published on April 11, 2017.

I mentioned this analogy a few weeks ago when referring to the spiritual life, but I like the tangibility of it so I will mention it again. Saint Teresa of Avila likened the soul and its journey in the spiritual life to the navigation through a large a castle whereby our soul consists of several mansions. When I talked about this image with my parish’s discipleship group, I half-joked that I not only have mansions I need to order but also lots of “cellars of my soul” I need to examine and clean out.

Teresa of Avila

Save the Best Wine

On a serious note, I firmly believe there are many cellars within my soul I need to discover and maintain. A common definition of cellar means “of the lowest rank or grade”. Another usage of the word cellar is in relation to place where wine is stored. I have never actually lived in or owned a home with a cellar. However, I have tasted wine and I have experienced years where my favorite sports team resided in the cellar of the league standings.

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The Simple Catholic Sunday Funnies: Episode 39

/ chicoinematt

Welcome to another The Simple Catholic Sunday Funnies! Growing up, one of my favorite parts of Sunday was flipping to the comics section of the newspaper: a little pocket of humor, color, and light-heartedness to start the week.

Now, in that same spirit, I’m excited to share this weekly collection of wholesome, funny Catholic comic strips. Thanks to the incredible talents of artists like Father Alvaro Comics, The Catholic Cartoonist, Sam Estrada, Tomics, and Fr. Michael DeBlanc. These comics bring a joyful twist to our shared faith, reminding us that laughter is one of God’s great gifts.

Enjoy Catholic comics!

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The Anchor of Faith: Hope, Mary, and the Papacy

/ chicoinematt

Sponsored: This article is made possible by Sacred Anchor Artisans, supporting quality and engaging Catholic content.

From the earliest centuries, Christians turned to the image of the anchor as a powerful symbol of faith and hope. For sailors, this mooring point was a lifeline: a guarantee of stability amid storms and a safeguard against drifting into dangerous waters. For persecuted Christians in Rome, it became even more than that.

In the catacombs, anchors appeared frequently on epitaphs, sometimes paired with inscriptions like pax tecum (“peace be with you”) or in pace (“in peace”). These weren’t decorative choices. They were confessions of hope — hope that their loved ones, grounded in Christ, had reached the safe harbor of heaven.

The Epistle to the Hebrews gives us the clearest biblical grounding: “We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm, which reaches into the interior behind the veil, where Jesus has entered on our behalf” (Hebrews 6:19–20). The anchor became shorthand for that “sure and firm” hope: Christ Himself, our refuge and salvation.

In fact, this symbol often functioned as a “disguised cross” in the first centuries, when the open depiction of the cross was still rare. Some anchors in the catacombs show fish clinging to its flukes, a subtle proclamation of Christ crucified, recognizable only to believers. The symbol was a way of declaring faith quietly but unmistakably, even when open confession was dangerous.

That hidden cross within the anchor reminds us that our faith is always rooted in both hope and sacrifice. To be secured in Christ is to rest not on worldly certainty but on the wood of His Cross.

Mary: The Star of Hope and Foundation of the Soul

Over time, Christian reflection expanded the meaning of the anchor by connecting it with Mary, the Mother of God. The Church has long hailed her as Stella Maris — the “Star of the Sea.” Sailors looked to the stars to navigate treacherous waters; the faithful look to Mary to stay on course toward Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI called her the “Star of Hope,” a radiant sign in history’s often stormy sea. He wrote in Spe Salvi that Mary is a guiding presence for the Church and for every believer, helping us keep sight of the heavenly harbor when waves rise high.

This Marian dimension of the anchor becomes especially clear on Holy Saturday. When the world seemed swallowed in silence and loss, Mary remained steadfast. She kept hope alive, offering the disciples a steady foundation of trust that her Son would rise. Her unwavering faith became a living source of stability for the soul, holding fast when everything else seemed uncertain.

The image of rosaries hanging on an anchor captures this beautifully: Mary, through prayer, moors us securely to Christ. Just as an anchor steadies a ship, Mary’s intercession steadies the Church, guiding us through confusion and darkness.

For a Catholic family cooperative like Sacred Anchor Artisans, this symbolism is not abstract. Their very name reflects this Marian spirituality. The anchor in their home shrine is a reminder that beauty and creativity, offered through art, can be a stable point of grace in a storm-tossed culture.

The Papacy: A Safe Harbor of Truth and Unity

This symbol also carries a deep resonance with the papacy. While the keys of Peter are the most recognized papal emblem, the image of steadfastness and security found in the anchor offers a fitting complement.

Christ designated Peter as the “rock” on which the Church would be built (Matthew 16:18). That rock is immovable, a fixed point that withstands floods and storms. The Pope, as Peter’s successor, serves in this same role today, providing stability and unity for the Church universal.

St. Ambrose once wrote: “As the anchor thrown from a ship prevents this from being borne about, but holds it securely, so faith, strengthened by hope.” The Pope, entrusted with strengthening the brethren (Luke 22:32), guards the Church in the truth of Christ, preventing it from drifting with every cultural current.

Think of the Church as a great ship. The seas of history are often turbulent: heresies, persecutions, doubts, divisions. Yet the papacy, rooted in Christ’s promise, functions as a safe harbor for the faithful. The successor of Peter does not replace Christ the Pilot but serves as His visible sign of guidance, keeping the Church moored to Truth Himself.

When we profess our faith, especially in times of confusion, we cling to the same hope as the early Christians in the catacombs. Our foundation is Christ, and the papacy keeps the lifeline of faith secure.

Anchored in Beauty: The Mission of Sacred Anchor Artisans

If the anchor is such a profound Christian symbol, what does it mean for a Catholic family business to choose it as their name? For Sacred Anchor Artisans, the choice is deliberate. Their cooperative is meant to be a steadying presence in a noisy, storm-tossed world.

At Catholic conferences, retreats, and events across the country, Sacred Anchor brings together the work of dozens of Catholic makers — artists, jewelers, woodworkers, and more. They offer gifts that are not only beautiful but spiritually grounding. A handcrafted crucifix, a Marian print, a rosary bracelet: these are not just keepsakes. They are steady reminders of grace, helping families carry their faith home in tangible ways.

The Olsens’ home shrine, dedicated in the Schoenstatt tradition, inspired this vision. Their family’s “Anchor of the Soul” shrine is a Marian devotion, a place where beauty, prayer, and grace steady daily life. Sacred Anchor Artisans extends that mission outward. In effect, they carry their shrine into the world, creating points of stability and faith wherever Catholic families gather.

This is why their work matters. In an age of fleeting trends and disposable products, Sacred Anchor offers what lasts: art rooted in truth, beauty grounded in faith, gifts that moor souls to Christ.

Holding Fast to Hope

This ancient emblem, one of Christianity’s oldest symbols, has always spoken of stability, safety, and hope. For the early Church, it was a hidden cross in the catacombs, a sign of salvation amid persecution. For the faithful through the ages, it has represented the hope of heaven, the intercession of Mary, and the steadying hand of the papacy.

Today, it continues to inspire. To hang a rosary on this symbol, to meditate on Mary as the Star of Hope, to trust the papacy as the Church’s stabilizing guide — these are all ways of saying the same thing: Christ is our anchor, sure and firm.

Sacred Anchor Artisans captures this truth in both name and mission. By supporting Catholic makers and sharing their creations, they help families bring steadfast reminders of faith into their homes. In doing so, they remind us that beauty itself can be a grounding force: steady, hopeful, and sacred.

May we, too, anchor our hearts in Christ. May Mary, Star of the Sea, guide us through life’s storms. And may the Church, grounded in truth, always point us toward the eternal harbor of heaven.

Thank you to today’s sponsor! Discover more by visiting Sacred Anchor Artisans today.

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