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The Saint<br />

God created man and He dwells in his soul, so that<br />

the soul is from heaven and the body is formed of<br />

the earth’s elements. The gift of creation is the<br />

sphere of my life, and it is the realm in which to<br />

experience the invisible God. As a labourer in God’s<br />

cause, I have a mission in the course of time. With<br />

God’s help, may I do good works.<br />

Saint Hildegard, teacher of the Church, pray for us,<br />

that we may be aware of our dignity and our<br />

mission - glorifying God in everything – and that<br />

we may, with His Son and the Church (His fair<br />

body), find our way home to the heart of the Father.<br />

Hiltrud Gutjahr OSB<br />

Abbey of St Hildegard<br />

Even in her lifetime, Hildegard of Bingen was revered by her<br />

contemporaries as a saint and a “prophet of the German<br />

people”. After her death on 17 September 1179, her grave<br />

became a place of pilgrimage, especially for the sick, in their<br />

hope of finding relief from pain and a cure for their illnesses.<br />

The abbess and convent of the monastery of Rupertsberg<br />

petitioned for the canonization of their founding abbess as<br />

early as 1227. Pope Gregory IX initiated the process and<br />

sent an assessment commission to Bingen, whose protocol<br />

was dispatched to Rome in 1233. As the accounts of<br />

witnesses did not meet the formal requirements, the pope<br />

charged a new commission in 1237. It is presumed that this<br />

commission never took up its work, and the canonization<br />

process came to nothing. Other initiatives were also<br />

unsuccessful, the last being those of the German Bishops’<br />

Conference in 1979 and 1987. Nonetheless, Hildegard was<br />

regarded as a saint by people far beyond the borders of<br />

Germany.<br />

After the new edition of Hildegard’s main works was<br />

completed in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI gave two catecheses<br />

on Hildegard. He acknowledged her as a “great prophet who<br />

has particular importance for our own day”.<br />

Soon afterwards, on 25 December 2010, the abbess and<br />

convent of the Abbey of St Hildegard filed another petition<br />

for the canonization of their patron, and for her designation<br />

as a Doctor of the Church. Pope Benedict XVI re-initiated<br />

the process, and recognized as miracle the fact that<br />

Hildegard had been venerated as a saint by the people for<br />

more than 850 years as a miracle. On 10 May 2012, he<br />

entered her name in the martyrology of the Universal<br />

Church. On 7 October of the same year, she was formally<br />

proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in Rome.

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