{"id":2836,"date":"2012-10-13T05:57:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-13T05:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2836"},"modified":"2025-09-28T19:28:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T19:28:28","slug":"more-on-st-hildegard-of-bingen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2836","title":{"rendered":"More on St. Hildegard of Bingen"},"content":{"rendered":"

I posted about he new Doctor of the Church here<\/a> a couple of days ago. Fr. George Rutler wrote about her, and anothe Hildegard, in his weekly parish email from the Church of Our Saviour in NY at 38th St. and Park Ave.<\/p>\n

I found it interesting and am posting it in it's entirety. <\/p>\n

FROM THE PASTOR
\n<\/strong>October 14<\/strong>, 2012<\/span><\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/span>by Fr. George W.
\nRutler<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On
\nOctober 7, Pope Benedict XVI declared the 34th and 35th
\nofficial \u201cDoctors of the Church\u201d
\n\u2014Hildegard of Bingen and John of Avila. The
\nlatter was a crucial figure in the sixteenth century reform
\nof the Church. Hildegard, born in 1098 to a noble
\nfamily in what is now Germany, is more remote, but
\nextraordinarily compelling for her unique genius.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

   She became abbess of a
\nBenedictine monastery in Disibodenberg which, as it
\ngrew, was moved to Bingen. There she graced the
\nChurch as a philosopher, theologian, botanist, medical
\nscientist, and musician. She charted the orthodox
\nway through some of the more fantastic heresies and
\nenthusiasms afflicting the twelfth century, most
\nnotoriously the Cathars. St. Bernard commended her
\nwriting to Pope Eugenius III, who had been trained by him,
\nand after that she became well known beyond
\nGermany. Her musical compositions have become popular
\nin our own day, a vivid glimpse of liturgical chant at
\nthe cusp of a golden age. She is the first
\ncomposer whose biography is known, and she may have written
\nthe first opera \u2014 Ordo Virtutum<\/em>. In it, the
\nVirtues sing angelic melodies while Satan only speaks, for
\nhe cannot sing.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

   On the day she became a
\nDoctor of the Church, I recalled another musical Hildegarde
\nof our own day. Hildegarde Sell, born in 1906 to a
\nGerman-American family in Wisconsin, started the fashion for
\nsome entertainers to use only one name, and she became the
\nmost famous cabaret singer of her time as \u201cThe
\nIncomparable Hildegarde.\u201d She first appeared in
\nfilms in 1933 and was the first person to sing on the new
\nmedium of television in 1936. King Gustav VI of Sweden
\nand the Duke of Windsor were devoted to her, and she
\nwas enshrined in song by George and Ira Gershwin. She
\nappeared on the covers of Time <\/em>and Life<\/em>
\nmagazines, advertised as the most expensively dressed
\ncelebrity of her day. Like her patron saint, she wrote
\nabout herbal remedies, though she was more interested
\nin their cosmetic properties than was the Doctor of the
\nChurch.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n   While The Incomparable
\nHildegarde's signature song \u201cDarling, Je Vous Aime
\nBeaucoup\u201d will not be confused with St. Hildegard's
\nOrdo Virtutum<\/em>, she was a Third Order Carmelite
\nand a daily communicant. She made a point of having the
\nbest silks and satins of her wardrobe tailored into
\nvestments for the missions. St. Hildegard died at 82, a
\ngreat age in the Middle Ages, and our Hildegarde was 99, a
\ngreat age in any age. I visited her as she was dying in
\na nursing home, where her one room was considerably smaller
\nthan her ten-room suite at the Plaza. And instead of
\nher favorite Renoir, there was a small lithograph of
\nthe Sacred Heart. She wore none of her famous line of
\ncosmetics as she said the Rosary, and she never looked
\nlovelier. She would have understood what her patroness
\nand Doctor of the Church said: \u201cI am a feather on the
\nbreath of God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Brigid (big fan of St. Hildegard) likes that last line of Hildegard, and sometimes quotes it!
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I posted about he new Doctor of the Church here a couple of days ago. Fr. George Rutler wrote about her, and anothe Hildegard, in his weekly parish email from the Church of Our Saviour in NY at 38th St. and Park Ave. I found it interesting and am posting it in it's entirety. FROM […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8552,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2836\/revisions\/8552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}