SAINT HILDEGARD, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH AND HER CATHOLIC FAITH FORMED BY THE PRE-VATICAN II CHURCH OF THE 12TH CENTURY AND THE MYSTICAL ASPECTS OF THE MASS OF THAT PERIOD

This Form of the Mass:

 gave us St. Hildegard of Beingen:

 Pope Benedict XVI raised Saint Hildegard to the honor of Doctor of the Church. She was/is indeed a bright light shining in the darkness of her time and our own. While an academic and great theologian, she was also a mystic.

Her mysticism, which is always a part of adoration, must have been nourished by the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass of her time. She did not complain that no one could understand the Latin, Greek and Hebrew of the Mass and that the silent Roman Canon prevented Catholics from hearing the priest pray it. 

No, for her the sacred silence within the context of active prayer, albeit silent Latin, was a contemplative and mystical experience leading to authentic adoration. She did not have to dissect the Mass as the Mass is in progress, trying to understand and hear every part of it, no she had to enter into the Grandeur of God and His Real Presence and the Presence of the Church Militant, Suffering and Triumphant which is the experience of every Mass. 

While the Mass was being celebrated, she did not want a didactic experience of it, but rather an experience that would lead her to contemplation and mysticism and thus to authentic adoration. The Pre-Vatican II Mass of her time enabled her to do this and to become a great saint and doctor of the Church!

From Franciscan Media:

Saint Hildegard of Bingen’s Story

Abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, theologian—where to begin in describing this remarkable woman?

Born into a noble family, she was instructed for ten years by the holy woman Blessed Jutta. When Hildegard was 18, she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. Ordered by her confessor to write down the visions that she had received since the age of three, Hildegard took ten years to write her Scivias (Know the Ways). Pope Eugene III read it, and in 1147, encouraged her to continue writing. Her Book of the Merits of Life and Book of Divine Works followed. She wrote over 300 letters to people who sought her advice; she also composed short works on medicine and physiology, and sought advice from contemporaries such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks” of God’s love, coming from God as daylight comes from the sun. Sin destroyed the original harmony of creation; Christ’s redeeming death and resurrection opened up new possibilities. Virtuous living reduces the estrangement from God and others that sin causes.

Like all mystics, Hildegard saw the harmony of God’s creation and the place of women and men in that. This unity was not apparent to many of her contemporaries.

Hildegard was no stranger to controversy. The monks near her original foundation protested vigorously when she moved her monastery to Bingen, overlooking the Rhine River. She confronted Emperor Frederick Barbarossa for supporting at least three antipopes. Hildegard challenged the Cathars, who rejected the Catholic Church claiming to follow a more pure Christianity.

Between 1152 and 1162, Hildegard often preached in the Rhineland. Her monastery was placed under interdict because she had permitted the burial of a young man who had been excommunicated. She insisted that he had been reconciled with the Church and had received its sacraments before dying. Hildegard protested bitterly when the local bishop forbade the celebration of or reception of the Eucharist at the Bingen monastery, a sanction that was lifted only a few months before her death.

In 2012, Hildegard was canonized and named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI. Her liturgical feast is celebrated on September 17 at the promulgation of Pope Francis.