Saints, Feast, Family
- Traditions passed down with Cooking, Crafting, & Caring -
September 17
Saint of the day:
Saint Hildegard of Bingen
Patron Saint of musicians and writers
Saint Hildegard of Bingen’s Story
Saint Hildegard of Bingen’s Story
Abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, theologian—where to begin in describing this remarkable woman?
Born into a noble family, she was instructed for ten years by the holy woman Blessed Jutta. When Hildegard was 18, she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. Ordered by her confessor to write down the visions that she had received since the age of three, Hildegard took ten years to write her Scivias (Know the Ways). Pope Eugene III read it, and in 1147, encouraged her to continue writing. Her Book of the Merits of Life and Book of Divine Works followed. She wrote over 300 letters to people who sought her advice; she also composed short works on medicine and physiology, and sought advice from contemporaries such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.
Hildegard’s visions caused her to see humans as “living sparks” of God’s love, coming from God as daylight comes from the sun. Sin destroyed the original harmony of creation; Christ’s redeeming death and resurrection opened up new possibilities. Virtuous living reduces the estrangement from God and others that sin causes.
Like all mystics, Hildegard saw the harmony of God’s creation and the place of women and men in that. This unity was not apparent to many of her contemporaries.
Hildegard was no stranger to controversy. The monks near her original foundation protested vigorously when she moved her monastery to Bingen, overlooking the Rhine River. She confronted Emperor Frederick Barbarossa for supporting at least three antipopes. Hildegard challenged the Cathars, who rejected the Catholic Church claiming to follow a more pure Christianity.
Between 1152 and 1162, Hildegard often preached in the Rhineland. Her monastery was placed under interdict because she had permitted the burial of a young man who had been excommunicated. She insisted that he had been reconciled with the Church and had received its sacraments before dying. Hildegard protested bitterly when the local bishop forbade the celebration of or reception of the Eucharist at the Bingen monastery, a sanction that was lifted only a few months before her death.
In 2012, Hildegard was canonized and named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI. Her Liturgical Feast Day is September 17.
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-hildegard-of-bingen
https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3777
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen
Prayer:
Visit:
Eibingen Abbey
Klosterweg 1, 65385 Rüdesheim am Rhein, Germany
Recipe:
St. Hildegard was a nun who wrote recipes and developed a nutritional philosophy belongs on any list of Catholic saints associated with the culinary arts. St. Hildegard’s interest in the healing properties of food makes her a very modern saint. To promote health and cheerfulness and to slow the aging process, St. Hildegard recommended a diet high in foods she considered most nutritious (spelt, fennel, chestnuts, chickpeas, meat from animals fed grass and hay, certain fruits and vegetables) and low in harmful ones (strawberries, eel, refined sugar, and sausage, to name a few). Among her dietary principles were that breakfast should be eaten late and served warm, and that a walk should be taken after dinner.
A brilliant woman, she also invented an alphabet, composed sacred music, founded monasteries, wrote books on medicine and botany, spoke out against corruption, travelled through Germany as a preacher and healer, and corresponded with popes and emperors. Never formally canonized, St. Hildegard was recently named by Pope Benedict a Doctor of the Church, one of only four women to be so named.
St. Hildegard’s recipe for “Cookies of Joy” is still used today. She encouraged bakers to eat the cookies often: “They will reduce the bad humors, enrich the blood, and fortify the nerves,” she wrote.
St. Hildegard's Cookies of Joy
This cookie recipe is over 900 years old and was written by Saint Hildegard.
She said that these spice cookies should be taken in at regular intervals
to increase joy and positivity! Loveeee thisss!
Ingredients
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3/4 cup butter or margarine (1 1/2 sticks)
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1 cup brown sugar
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1 egg
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1 tsp baking powder
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1/4 tsp salt
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1 1/2 cups flour
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1 tsp ground cinnamon
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1 tsp ground nutmeg
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1/2 tsp ground cloves
Directions
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Let butter soften and then cream it with the brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.
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Beat in the egg.
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Sift the dry ingredients.
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Add half the dry ingredients and mix. Add the other half and mix thoroughly.
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Dough may be chilled to make it workable.
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Heat oven to 350°.
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Form walnut sized balls of dough, place on a paper lined cookie sheet and press flat. Bake 12-15 minutes (till edges of are golden brown.)
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Cool for 5 minutes, remove from cookie sheet and finish cooling on racks.
