Poetry Chaikhana Blog

Ivan M. Granger July 28th, 2008

Laus Trinitati / Antiphon for the Trinity
by Hildegard of Bingen

English version by Barbara Newman

To the Trinity be praise!
      God is music, God is life
      that nurtures every creature in its kind.
Our God is the song of the angel throng
      and the splendor of secret ways
      hid from all humankind,
But God our life is the life of all.

— from Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia armonie celstium revelationum, by Hildegard of Bingen / Translated by Barbara Newman

/ Photo by millicent_bystander /

This beautiful song of praise by Hildegard von Bingen expresses so much of her mysticism. She sees Life flowing and flowering through all life. And she declares that life to be unquestionably divine!

For Hildegard, there is a divine outpouring or radiance. That expression of God in and through all things is also perceived as music, as harmony.

“God is music, God is life…” God is the rhythm of existence — and we are part of its thrum!

Hildegard of Bingen Germany (1098 - 1179) Timeline Christian : Catholic

Hildegard was born in Bermersheim, not far from Mainz, Germany to a noble family. She was the tenth and last child to be born to the family. At the age of eight, Hildegard was “given to God as a tithe” by placing her in the care of Jutta, a woman who had chosen a life of solitary seclusion. Hildegard would later describe Jutta as “uneducated,” yet she taught the girl the basic skills of reading, as well as the religous life.

Hildegard’s health was always fragile, but she had a rich interior life, by her own account receiving visions since early childhood. Hildegard describes one vision she had at the age of three of witnessing “a brightness so great that [her] soul trembled.” This was a light that remained a part of her perception throughout her life. Even in her seventies, Hildegard described it as a light that seemed to permeate everything without hindering her ability to see normally, as well.

She also apparently had a natural gift of clairvoyance and the ability predict the future.

Illness was intimately linked with Hildegard’s mystical life. Bouts of illness seemed to be brought on by the tensions that existed between her divine promptings and the limitations of the roles allowed to her as a woman and a nun. She had especially severe illnesses occur prior to the major decisions in her life.

Hildegard’s early life was relatively quiet. A small community of women gathered around Jutta, that eventually joined the Benedictine order. Hildegard herself took monastic vows in her teens. When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was elected to lead the monastic community.

It wasn’t until she was in her forties, however, that Hildegard began to gain notoriety for her visions. She was surprised to receive an inner prompting to “tell and write” her visions. She initially resisted and was soon bedridden as the inner conflict played out. Eventually she relented and began to dictate her visions.

The first work she produced was Scivias, a description of a cycle of visions about the relationship of humanity and nature with God. She also composed a collection of music and poetry called the Symphonia. She also wrote extensively about medicine and herbs.

Hildegard’s fame quickly spread, bringing pilgrims and the curious, eventually overwhelming the capacity of the small community. A new, larger monastery was built between 1148 and 1150 in Rupertsberg near Bingen.

Throughout the 1150’s, Hildegard made several teaching tours through the Rhineland.

Although Hildegard had received blessings from Church authorities through most of her work, toward the end of her life she ran into conflicts for, among other things, allowing an excommunicated man who had died to be buried in consecrated ground. She refused to have the body dug up and, as a result, she was not allowed to take the eucharist — a deep wound for a devout Catholic. This ban was eventually lifted, but she died only a few months later.

More poetry by Hildegard of Bingen

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