On this episode of the Christian Mysticism Podcast, Dr. Carlos Eire and I talk about St. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century German nun and mystic who eventually was canonized and given the title of doctor of the church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012. She was not only a visionary mystic who was given the gift of seeing and understanding the deepest mysteries of the Christian faith through spectacularly colorful images, but St. Hildegard was also a woman with incredible achievements. Among those achievements were being an abbess, a writer, a poet, a composer, a dramatist, a philosopher, a botanist, and a medical writer and practitioner.
St. Hildegard’s music also matched her incredible visions. There are more surviving chants by St. Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, Moreover, she is one of the few known medieval composers to have written both the music and the words.
