Customer Reviews

Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works: With Letters and Songs

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was looking for a book on Christian mystics when I bought this, but it isn't for anyone who isn't a die-hard St. Hildegard fan (which, luckily, I happen to be). Her descriptions of her visions are confusing and vague at best, but if you are willing to put a great deal of time and energy into the book, you will be rewarded for it. But I do feel it prudent to say that this is not for the faint of heart - or someone looking for a light read.

What Fox illustrated for me is that we are all blessed and that if we learn the mythologizing process of creating that sacred place,- music, art, meditation, adventure - by following our deepest instincts and intuitions, we can actually evolve ourselves to become our true selves which is in its own way a miracle and magic. We can have inspiration! and we can receive gifts and guidance and assistance from the Unknown and the Ineffible Creator/Creatrix. It is a part of our capacity to become whole and genuine and full of grace. Work. Study. Take risks.

Sometimes new agers like to take someone's work and usurp it for their own purposes such as "creatrix". Blessed Hildegard was a CATHOLIC; You can't take the fun mysticism and spiritual gifts and leave out the belief system. The belief system Hildegard literally espoused includes Jesus Christ as revealed in Holy Scripture and Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, declared several times Ex Cathedra. I suggest you find a translator who preserves Blessed Hildegard's Catholicism and get the true perspective.

It is an insult to one of the greatest
of the spiritual masters and moral theologians
in the history of Christianity to have her work
promoted and misrepresented by a disgrace like Matthew Fox,
whom she would have condemned as a heretic had she known him.
Find a different source for information
and analysis of the work of Hildegard of Bingen.
Please.