Tuesday 17 September 2024
St Robert Bellarmine; St Hildegard of Bingen
1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27-31. We are his people: the sheep of his flock – Psalm 99(100). Luke 7:11-17.
We all make up the one body of Christ
‘A great prophet has appeared among us.’ Pope Benedict XVI could have said this about St Hildegard of Bingen, one of the feasts celebrated today. Even though St Hildegard lived in 12th-century Germany, she was made a Doctor of the Universal Church some 1000 years later. She was a great woman who had visions and was able to instruct theology through these visions. She was a Benedictine abbess, reformer, preacher, writer, healer, herbalist, composer of music and visionary. Hildegard tells us that her visions occurred while she was ‘awake and seeing with a pure mind and the eyes and ears of the inner self, in open places’. Just like we hear in the first reading today that we all make up the one body of Christ, Hildegard contributed with her wisdom in bringing about the Kingdom of God. May we continue to join in the one Spirit of God through our lives.
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