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