St. Hildegard of Bingen: The 'Strange' Saint Who Became a Doctor of the Church

If you had met St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) in her own century, you might have walked away unsure of what to make of her. She was a Benedictine nun in the Rhineland who spoke of seeing a living, interior light. She wrote books on theology, the cosmos, anatomy, herbal medicine, and the human body. She preached publicly — in churches and cathedral squares — at a time when women preachers were almost unheard of. She wrote music and even staged a sung morality play. She corresponded with popes, emperors, abbots, and bishops, sometimes rebuking them sharply. She talked about creation as charged with a green, living power flowing from God.

By the standards of the 12th century, much of that looked strange. Some of her contemporaries weren’t sure whether to admire her, ignore her, or worry about her. In our own time we might be tempted to use a different word: she would probably have been called something like a “Catholic hippie” — an eccentric mystic with too many opinions and too many interests.

And yet, more than eight centuries after her death, on October 7, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared her a Doctor of the Church — one of only four women ever to hold that title, alongside St. Teresa of Ávila, St. Catherine of Siena, and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. Her witness is now offered to the universal Church as a sure guide to the faith.

That arc — from “who is this strange nun?” to Doctor Ecclesiae — carries a quiet but important lesson for Catholics today.

Who She Was

Hildegard was born in 1098 in the Rhineland, the tenth child of a noble family, and was entrusted as a young girl to a Benedictine community at Disibodenberg. She eventually became magistra (superior) of her community, and later founded her own monastery at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, followed by a second monastery at Eibingen.

From early childhood she reported a particular form of inner vision, which she described not as ecstatic trances but as a steady, conscious interior light — the umbra viventis lucis, the “reflection of the Living Light.” For decades she kept these experiences mostly to herself, fearing she would not be believed.

Her Writings: Theology, Cosmos, Medicine, Music

Around 1141, at age 42, Hildegard reported that she was commanded in vision to write down what she saw. The result, ten years in the making, was Scivias (“Know the Ways of the Lord”), a major work of 26 visions covering creation, redemption, the Church, the Sacraments, and the last things. She would go on to produce two more major visionary works, Liber Vitae Meritorum and Liber Divinorum Operum; treatises on natural science and medicine (Physica and Causae et Curae); an enormous body of correspondence; the morality play Ordo Virtutum; and dozens of liturgical chants that are still performed today.

Threaded through her writings is her famous theme of viriditas — the “greening,” life-giving power she saw flowing from God through every creature. To her contemporaries this could sound unfamiliar; to readers today it sounds astonishingly fresh.

Strange in Her Own Time

It is worth pausing on just how unconventional Hildegard looked to many of her own contemporaries. She was a woman who:

• preached in public on several tours through the Rhineland, addressing clergy and laity alike;
• wrote on theology and the Sacraments at a time when this was almost entirely the domain of men;
• wrote a herbal and a medical treatise as if natural science and the spiritual life belonged together;
• composed music with an unusually high vocal range, blending Latin chant with her own visionary poetry;
• wrote to popes, emperors, and bishops, sometimes correcting them, often signing herself “a poor little woman.”

Late in her life she was even placed under a local interdict for refusing to exhume a young man whom local clergy considered excommunicate. She believed he had been reconciled to the Church before his death, and she resisted. The interdict was eventually lifted, but the episode shows how complicated her relationship with institutional authority could be at times, even within her unfailing fidelity to the Church.

How the Church Discerned Her

What is most instructive for our purposes is how the Church actually responded. Her visions were examined by a theological commission appointed by Archbishop Henry of Mainz. Then Pope Eugene III, encouraged by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, read portions of Scivias aloud at the Synod of Trier (1147–1148) and gave her papal approbation to continue writing. From that point on, her authority as a visionary was recognized at the highest level of the Church.

She was venerated locally as a saint from the time of her death in 1179, and her feast was celebrated in parts of Germany for centuries. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI took two decisive steps: on May 10, 2012, he extended her cult to the universal Church (an act sometimes called “equivalent canonization”); on October 7, 2012, he proclaimed her a Doctor of the Church. In his apostolic letter, he highlighted the harmony in her writings between faith and reason, theology and science, contemplation and action.

None of this happened quickly. The Church discerned. She was tested. She was questioned. She was sometimes resisted. And in the end, she was recognized.

The Lesson: Discernment Without Snap Judgment

Hildegard’s long road from “strange nun” to Doctor of the Church carries an important reminder for Catholics today, especially those drawn to spiritual writers and reported mystics that fall outside the most familiar paths.

It is easy to dismiss someone too quickly because their gifts look unusual, their interests look unconventional, or their language sounds unfamiliar. It is just as easy to embrace them too quickly because they speak movingly and seem to confirm what we already believe. Neither extreme is the Catholic way.

The Church’s ordinary path is the path Hildegard herself walked: holiness of life first; obedience to the Church; openness to legitimate examination of one’s writings; consistency with Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, and the Magisterium; and the patient unfolding of the fruits of the Spirit over time. The Church neither rushes to declare a mystic authentic nor rushes to condemn what it does not yet understand. It tests. It waits. It listens.

A few principles worth keeping in mind:

• Strange is not the same as false. A genuine gift of the Spirit can stretch our categories. Hildegard’s contemporaries had to enlarge their imagination to receive her.
• Familiar is not the same as true. Plenty of comfortable spiritual content has, over the centuries, turned out to be shallow or even false. Familiarity is no guarantee.
• The Church discerns, the faithful discern. Each member of the faithful is called to prayerful discernment within the larger discernment of the Church, not against it.
• Time is part of discernment. Some authentic gifts are only fully recognized centuries later. Some popular “revelations” quietly disappear. Both possibilities are real.

A Note on Discernment

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 67) teaches: “Throughout the ages, there have been so-called private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church… It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive Revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history.” The same paragraph also warns against ‘revelations’ that claim to surpass or correct the deposit of faith.

Hildegard’s story invites us to a balanced Catholic posture: personal discernment is essential, but so is humility about over-judging gifts we do not yet understand. We are called to think with the Church, to consult Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, and the teaching of the Magisterium, and to seek the counsel of a trusted priest or spiritual director — and at the same time to keep our hearts open to the surprising ways God still raises up holy men and women in every age.

St. Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church, pray for us.