The Provost Volmar to Hildegard
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen
The Provost Volmar to Hildegard About 1170 Volmar contemplates Hildegard's death, and the loss to the community and the Church at such an event.
To Hildegard, reverend lady, sweet mother, saintly mistress, truthful and approved confidante of God, in the convent at St. Rupert, Volmar her son, though unworthy, and the entire congregation of her maidens, along with all others who cling to her, and who serve God and St. Rupert, albeit lukewarmly. With due subjection, due obedience, and due filial affection, they offer their prayers that they may be consoled by the breasts of her consolation [cf. Is 66.11], so that they may become partakers of the heavenly country after the exile of this world.
Although, now, sweet mother, we are privileged to see you every day with fleshly eyes, and hear you with fleshly ears, and can cling to you daily (as is proper) and understand that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through you, we still have no doubt that at some time, as it pleases God, you will be taken away from us, and that, henceforth, we will no longer see you with our fleshly eyes, for there is no man that "shall live, and not see death" [Ps 88.49]. But this is a matter that we cannot even mention without tears.
When that time comes, our grief and woe will surpass the joy we now feel.
Who then will give answers to all who seek to understand their condition? Who will provide fresh interpretations of the Scriptures? Who then will utter songs never heard before and give voice to that unheard language? Who will deliver new and unheard-of sermons on feast days? Who then will give revelations about the spirits of the departed? Who will offer revelations of things past, present, and future? Who will expound the nature of creation in all its diversity? We know that God's grace has bestowed these capacities upon you along with a sweet and humble character and a heart that pours out maternal affection on all around you.
O what divine mercy resides in His gifts! O how pointless are human anxieties! O "vanity of vanities" [Eccles 1.2]! Why do so many undertake difficult journeys into remote parts of the world to seek out the teachings of various men— and all in vain? Why, when afflicted with thirst, hunger, and cold, do they sweat over the profundity, or, rather, the enigma, of sententiae, listening to disputes in the courts and remaining awake at all hours of the night? We know for certain that they endure all these things not with a simple view to zeal, but out of the depravity of simony. Thus because they accomplish very little, if anything, they cannot grasp the commandment of the Spirit of God—nay, rather, they extinguish the spark of God's Spirit by their contempt for it, although they think that by that spark they are something important. The result is that to the embarrassment of modern scholastics who abuse the knowledge given them from above, the Spirit of prophecy and vision, revitalized in a fragile vessel and without help of secular learning, brings forth things that they cannot comprehend in any way.'