Hildegard Von Bingen was born circa 1098 to a noble family, the youngest of ten. She began having visions at a young age, she wrote, and her parents offered her as an oblate to a Benedictine monastery, and she was “enclosed” (separated from the outside world) with another girl, Jutta, at a young age. She learned to read and write while there, to play music and sing, and helped tending the garden and the sick. Jutta was also said to have visions, and when she died, Hildegard was elected magistra of their community.
She was later asked to be prioress, but instead, Hildegard wanted to begin her own community. When the Abbot said no to her request, which was a move toward poverty and did not tax the monastery, Hildegard went over his head and received permission from Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent, however, until Hildegard was stricken with an illness that rendered her paralyzed, which she attributed to God’s unhappiness at the Abbot not following orders to allow her nuns to move. He finally granted their request, and Hildegard and about 20 nuns moved to the St. Rupersburg monastery in 1150. She founded a second monastery at Eibingen in 1165.
Prior to Hildegard’s death in 1179, a problem arose at the congregation in Mainz – a man buried in Rupertsburg had been excommunicated prior to his death, so clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not agree, saying the man was reconciled to the church at the time of his death. The clergy in Mainz punished her congregation for not removing the man’s remains, disallowing them from having communion or singing the daily rites. She protested, but they only relented when she found witnesses who could attest that the man had in fact been reconciled to the church before his death.
During her lifetime, she wrote three volumes of visionary theology, many musical compositions for use in liturgy and otherwise, a musical morality play, invented a language known as Lingua Ignota, a gospel commentary, two volumes on natural medicine and cures, and two works of hagiography. She also had one of the largest bodies of letters to survive from the Middle Ages. Her correspondence included popes, abbots, emperors, and included many sermons she preached. She referred to her visionary voice as “the voice of the Living Light.”
Even though she had conversed and was visited by several popes, and was known for her visions in her lifetime, she was not canonized until 2012. Her feast day is September 17th.