Hildegard to the Abbot Dietmar
1 74 The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen St. Walburga
Hildegard to the Abbot Dietmar Before 1170 Hildegard advises action, rather than simply passive reliance on God.
The Living Light says to you: Keep vigilant, and do not gather weariness in the coffer of your mind as if you were a foreigner without the ability to speak. God requires you to maintain the ability to chastise your sheepfold. Therefore, accuse yourself that in this matter you are failing to see God in the pure fountain, and only say: "God, my God help me" [Ps 69.6]. And yet by doing so, you do not touch Him.
O valiant knight, rise up now because the grace of God is hastening toward you. And you will live forever, a living stone [cf. I Pet 2.4—5] in the heavenly
Jerusalem [cf. Heb 12.22].
Salem
The Abbot Gero to Hildegard 1165-73 The abbot writes asking Hildegard's advice concerning the disposition he should make of the office to which he has recently been elected.
To the beloved lady in Christ and his mother, Hildegard, Gero, ineffectual minister of the brothers in Salem, if a sinner's prayer has any efficacy.
Everyone who loves Christ also has the spirit of Christ, "and no man can say the Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Spirit" [I Cor 12.3]. By a special gift of the Holy Spirit that sets you apart from the other members of Christ, you, sweet mother, have been sent to witness the end of this world." For truly the Holy Spirit is openly acknowledged and revealed through you and in you, as if speaking through His instrument. I have seen and read the great sacraments of God's mysteries that the Lord of all knowledge has opened up to us unworthy mortals through you in the book you have written. And so I believe and hold as indisputable that by speaking through you "the Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from"
God the Father (John 15.26] and His Son, will flash out and, in flashing out, will