Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/September 17 2007

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German magistra who founded two women's communities (Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165) in the 3rd quarter of the 12th century. Although today she has commonly acquired the title of abbess, it is important to note that she never held that title during her lifetime and remained under the jurisdiction of the abbot of her parent monastery at Disibodenberg.

Hildegard of Bingen was an artist, author, counselor, dramatist, linguist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, poet, political consultant, prophet, visionary, and a composer of music. She is the first composer for whom a biography exists and one of her works, the Ordo Virtutem is one of the first known liturgical dramas. Some have mistakenly linked this work as the precursor that led to opera, but there is no plausible link between Hildegard and the Florentine Camerata, the creators of opera.

She wrote theological, naturalistic, botanical, medicinal, and dietary texts, also letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature illuminations. A biographer, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, described Hildegard of Bingen as a polymath.

Attributes: abbess with book and pen at an escritoire, giving a letter to a messenger, three bright towers on the side
Patronage: natural scientists and linguists
Prayer:O budded, greening branch! You stand as firmly rooted in your nobility As the dawn advances. Now rejoice and be glad. Consider us frail ones worthy To free us from our destructive ways. Put forth your hand and Raise us up.