Anticipation?
Saint Hildegard of Bingen,
Doctor of the Church
Lately I’ve been using an old Monastic Breviary in my Divine Office. I’ve spoken before about the calendar confusion that I’ve had to deal with when using books based on the pre-1970 calendar.
Mostly the issue stems from feasts being suppressed or moved. Today, however, I ran into something I’ve never seen before: a feast on the old (monastic) calendar for a saint who only officially became a saint last year.
I speak of today’s memorial of Saint Hildegard of Bingen.
You might recall that Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Hildegard as a saint during an audience. Her cause had long been stalled, and many (particularly in Germany and in the monastic orders) already considered her a saint.
Fine. Today, however, I note that my 1962 Monastic Diurnal has a memorial to “St. Hildegard O. S. B., Virgin”.
Since today is in fact the day that Hildegard died in 1179, I’m pretty sure that it’s the same Hildegard.
What are we to make of this? I haven’t the vaguest, but I’m happy to celebrate the memorial of “the Sibyl of the Rhine“.
The only real change, of course, is that the calendar now speaks of an optional memorial to “Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Virgin and Doctor of the Church”.
Hi Thom, ths is the same Hildegard. And the interesting thing is that she is included on both the Church of England and Episcopalian Calendars of Saints. The Anglican Calendar of Saints was copied from the Catholic Calendar at the time of the Reformation, so Hildegard was obviously well established as a saint at that time, with or without Papal blessing. Have to say she is one of my favourite saints who’s life is an inspiration.
Cheers … Trudy
Clearly the Germans and the Benedictines regarded her as a saint.
I think the problem came in that her cause for sainthood began just as Rome was putting some rules in, and she kind of fell through the official cracks.