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Saint Hildegard: Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers
Saint Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers is a treasure trove of St. Hildegard’s bracing, rich, and transforming insights. Written for today’s seekers and spiritual directors, it takes us deeper into our own experiences in the company of the mystic visionary St. Hildegard, whose twelfth-century wisdom, still strikingly relevant to our contemporary struggles, enriches our journeys.Spiritual director and retreat guide Susan Garthwaite knows this journey well—she’s traveled it for years. St. Hildegard has influenced Garthwaite’s spiritual life, as well as her work as a spiritual director, and here she gives concrete examples of spiritual experiences and practices in which St. Hildegard’s insights can draw out our own wisdom. She also gently touches our worst experiences and offers St. Hildegard’s light for our liberation and fullness of life.Like all of us today, St. Hildegard dealt with a world in turmoil. She believed spiritual development was the key to peace in troubled times. With her guidance, read, reflect, pray, discern, journal, heal, befriend your soul, and discover your mystic self. A richer life awaits.
- GenresSpirituality
406 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 13, 2021
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16 people want to read
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January 17, 2022
In pop culture parlance, Hildegard of Bingen is “having a moment.” This 12th century mystic has garnered popularity in the past few decades including references in popular culture with a character named “Hild” in the BBC series, The Last Kingdom, and a German film Vision: From the Life of Hildegard of Bingen. Her musical compositions are introduced around the world through the Hildegard Project as well as recordings readily available on YouTube and for download.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a Benedictine Abbess of Disibodenberg Abbey in Germany, for much of her adult life. She is described as a polymath, accomplished in musical composition, medieval literature, medicine, biology, herbology, theology, philosophy, an administrator, visionary, mystic, and contemplative. She is known for the concept of Viriditas, the greening of the cosmic life infusing the natural world.
Add to the books about Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Hildegard: Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers by Susan Garthwaite. In the introduction Garthwaite states the purpose of this book is distinct from other books of Hildegard or translations of Hildegard. She writes:
In this book [Hildegard’s] spiritual wisdom is brought to bear on spiritual development and the ministry of spiritual direction. Her proposal that we befriend our souls and becomes the friends of God forms the heart of the book. (p. 2)
Garthwaite describes her book as a “true collaboration” between herself and Hildegard. The book is comprised of Garthwaite’s spiritual memoir folded into the wisdom of Hildegard.
The book is divided into three sections: “Becoming a Seeker”, “Becoming the Faithful Friend of Your Soul” and “Becoming the Faithful Friend of God. Within each chapter of these sections are further subsections separated by questions for reflection. Garthwaite is a spiritual director, and these questions are offered as one might hear them in a spiritual direction setting—gentle and open-ended.
In the first section, “Becoming a Seeker” Garthwaite tells of a childhood accident which caused serious damage to her leg that required amputation as an adult. As Garthwaite lay on the ground waiting for her sibling to run a long-distance to retrieve help, she writes, “I was all alone, helpless in my peril.” She remembered the four prayers she had memorized: “Sign of the Cross, Glory Be, Hail Mary, and Our Father.” She prayed these prayers with “heartfelt fervency.” When her energy seeped and she could no longer pray, she had a profound experience of God’s presence: “In surprising concrete physicality, I felt gently lifted up and held close in an intimate, loving embrace, as if I were a little treasure to be preserved.” (p.20) Her fear and panic dissipated as she knew herself to not be alone: “I know thought I would die in God’s arms. I allowed myself to no longer struggle to stay alive; I simply rested in the solace, safety, and wonder of God’s embrace.” (p.21) Eventually Garthwaite was rescued and her encounter with God shaped and formed her life. She emerged a changed person, seeking a deeper relationship with God.
In section two, “Becoming the Faithful Friend of Your Soul,” Garthwaite encourages us to become our faithful friends through spiritual practices such as journaling, Scripture reading, prayer, meeting with a spiritual director, and practicing wise discernment. To practice these disciplines is to befriend our souls which then “changes us and prepares us to be friends of God.”
The third section, “Becoming the Faithful Friend of God” Garthwaite notes, “Being a faithful friend to our souls inevitably brings us into more conscious relationship with God.” (p.149) She guides readers through chapters focusing on integration, surrender, mysticism, healing, union, and ultimately, the friend of God.
As readers, we can trust Garthwaite as her writerly voice is honest, vulnerable, and direct. She is a retired medical scientist and the precision required in scientific research and writing is evident in her spiritual writing, tending to details, including lengthy endnotes pointing back to Hildegard’s writings. Garthwaite has translated Hildegard’s medieval German language into contemporary, accessible language.
Saint Hildegard: Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers is a rich, dense book to be savored slowly, perhaps many moments during a liturgical season, for all the goodness held within its pages.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a Benedictine Abbess of Disibodenberg Abbey in Germany, for much of her adult life. She is described as a polymath, accomplished in musical composition, medieval literature, medicine, biology, herbology, theology, philosophy, an administrator, visionary, mystic, and contemplative. She is known for the concept of Viriditas, the greening of the cosmic life infusing the natural world.
Add to the books about Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Hildegard: Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers by Susan Garthwaite. In the introduction Garthwaite states the purpose of this book is distinct from other books of Hildegard or translations of Hildegard. She writes:
In this book [Hildegard’s] spiritual wisdom is brought to bear on spiritual development and the ministry of spiritual direction. Her proposal that we befriend our souls and becomes the friends of God forms the heart of the book. (p. 2)
Garthwaite describes her book as a “true collaboration” between herself and Hildegard. The book is comprised of Garthwaite’s spiritual memoir folded into the wisdom of Hildegard.
The book is divided into three sections: “Becoming a Seeker”, “Becoming the Faithful Friend of Your Soul” and “Becoming the Faithful Friend of God. Within each chapter of these sections are further subsections separated by questions for reflection. Garthwaite is a spiritual director, and these questions are offered as one might hear them in a spiritual direction setting—gentle and open-ended.
In the first section, “Becoming a Seeker” Garthwaite tells of a childhood accident which caused serious damage to her leg that required amputation as an adult. As Garthwaite lay on the ground waiting for her sibling to run a long-distance to retrieve help, she writes, “I was all alone, helpless in my peril.” She remembered the four prayers she had memorized: “Sign of the Cross, Glory Be, Hail Mary, and Our Father.” She prayed these prayers with “heartfelt fervency.” When her energy seeped and she could no longer pray, she had a profound experience of God’s presence: “In surprising concrete physicality, I felt gently lifted up and held close in an intimate, loving embrace, as if I were a little treasure to be preserved.” (p.20) Her fear and panic dissipated as she knew herself to not be alone: “I know thought I would die in God’s arms. I allowed myself to no longer struggle to stay alive; I simply rested in the solace, safety, and wonder of God’s embrace.” (p.21) Eventually Garthwaite was rescued and her encounter with God shaped and formed her life. She emerged a changed person, seeking a deeper relationship with God.
In section two, “Becoming the Faithful Friend of Your Soul,” Garthwaite encourages us to become our faithful friends through spiritual practices such as journaling, Scripture reading, prayer, meeting with a spiritual director, and practicing wise discernment. To practice these disciplines is to befriend our souls which then “changes us and prepares us to be friends of God.”
The third section, “Becoming the Faithful Friend of God” Garthwaite notes, “Being a faithful friend to our souls inevitably brings us into more conscious relationship with God.” (p.149) She guides readers through chapters focusing on integration, surrender, mysticism, healing, union, and ultimately, the friend of God.
As readers, we can trust Garthwaite as her writerly voice is honest, vulnerable, and direct. She is a retired medical scientist and the precision required in scientific research and writing is evident in her spiritual writing, tending to details, including lengthy endnotes pointing back to Hildegard’s writings. Garthwaite has translated Hildegard’s medieval German language into contemporary, accessible language.
Saint Hildegard: Ancient Insights for Modern Seekers is a rich, dense book to be savored slowly, perhaps many moments during a liturgical season, for all the goodness held within its pages.
Displaying 1 of 1 review