(7) Magistra

"Oh fire of the Holy Spirit,
life of the life of every creature,
holy are you in giving life to forms...
Oh boldest path,
penetrating into all places,
In the heights, on earth,
and in every abyss,
you bring and bind all together,
From you clouds flow, air flies,
Rocks have their humours,
Rivers spring forth from the waters
And earth wears her green vigour
Oh Ignis Spiritus Paracliti."
[A poem by Hildegard of Bingen.]

Comment: Hildegard was a Benedictine Abbess, a *Magistra*
as deemed by her medieval community of nuns. Born in the
midst of the Middle Ages, it is incredible to review this great
woman's life. She was a person of expansive talents--a literary
person, a poet, a musician, and an inspirer of beautiful
illuminations. She also was a counselor to the great in her day.

Goodness, she even wrote naturalist and scientific tracts. And
her poem above best describes her thought about Creation and
the Holy Spirit that runs through it.

When I first came across this beautiful poem by Hildegard, I was
inspired that I had found a fellow naturalist--if you will--and
amazed that this medieval scientist was not only a Benedictine
but also a woman!

Since then I have occasionally come upon Benedictine forays into
science, into naturalist studies, even way back when they re-taught
the European peasantry agricultural and fishery techniques after
the destructive chaos that ensued following the demise of the Roman
Empire.

Not surprising, I guess, but it was also the Benedictines who re-gained
the great pagan scientific, naturalist, and medical studies of the
lost Greco-Roman Civilization. They secured many of these ancient
treatises from the Muslims who had somehow saved them after the
libraries of the Roman Empire had disappeared.

Indeed, I soon began to realize that the Benedictines were the
conveyors of Civilization. They saved the cultural pillars of the
Greco-Roman Civilization and injected the ingredients to build-up
what ultimately became Western Civilization.

In her own right surely Hildegard of Bingen, a Magistra, represents
this Benedictine erudition that led to the restoration of Civilization.
No doubt there were a number of Benedictine monks and nuns
who were expansively educated for their day. And some of their
medieval erudition seeped out and enhanced the world.

Perhaps I have discovered a small project? It would be interesting
to investigate how some modern Benedictines have such an
expansive outlook--and how they are sharing it for the benefit of
the rest of us.