Herald of the Divine Feminine, reformer of the church and green prophet! September 17th is the feast day of the Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen, a woman of great vision, a woman centuries ahead of her time. During her 81 years Hildegard’s talents as an artist, musician, poet, healer and theologian allowed her to produce a wealth of resources for the church which ought not to be ignored. And yet the Roman Catholic Church only got around to officially canonizing this giant of the church this past year.

In 2009, German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta wrote and directed the movie “Vision”. The DVD version is available from Amazon and I highly recommend it!!!

Matthew Fox’s  book “Hildegard of Bingen a Saint for Our Times, Unleashing Her Power in the 21st Century” provides an excellent resource for those who are working to change religious institutions today. You can listen to an interview of Matthew Fox about Hildegard here. Fox describes Hildegard as a Trojan horse whose teachings he hopes will shake up the vatican.

At Holy Cross we have developed an Evening Prayer Service inspired by the work of Hildegard. The worship bulletin and an audio recording of the service are linked below. Enjoy the video of contralto Karen Clark who preforms Hildegard’s antiphon “O Virtus Sapientie”

Evening Prayer Service Bulletin which is to be printed double-sided

Evening Prayer Audio – the silences are intentional. Enjoy!