Hildegard to the Dean
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen In the meantime, beloved mother, please pray to our Creator and Redeemer on my behalf to so order our life to His will that He may be pleased with us. I ask further that if you have need of our service, you will instruct us as seems best to you. I also long to be consoled again by your writings, brought to me by the present messenger.
May God deign to preserve you and to always illumine you with His Holy Spirit, O blessed mother worthy to be revered with all my devotion.
167r Hildegard to the Dean Before 1173 The dean, Hildegard writes, suffers the weariness of sin on account of his previous licentious life. Now, her advice is to do good works, and emulate the prodigal son.
As a result of excessive eating and wine-drinking, excessive vices grow unchecked, and a man's flesh sometimes languishes so much that it can barely live.
Afterwards, it is weighed down by the weariness of sins, as if by a heavy sleep.
But the devil once more arouses him to sin, and persuades him to put off the time of penance. And from that lethargy, he awakes to sin, with the devil vehemently urging him to continue in his sin. Thus it is that many men put off penitence through the deception of the devil, and wind up in perdition.
When a person sighs for his sins, however, he joins the angels in hymns of praise, and when he performs good works, he shines like the sun. But when he adorns himself in this way, the devil, who had previously roused him to sin through his wicked machinations, attacks him in a furious storm of desperation.
Let that man take heed from the publicans and sinners [cf. Matt 9.10–11; Mark 2.15-16; Luke 5.30]: However much they had sinned, they rose again through penitence, and, afterward, became pillars of heaven. Let him put on the breastplate of faith and the helmet of hope [cf. I Thess 5.8], and he will vanquish his enemies.
O servant of God, you lived luxuriously in your childhood, as you know, and you sinfully enjoyed the taste of the flesh in your youth. For this reason you now endure the weariness of sin. Therefore, begin now to do good works before the shadow of this life departs from you, so that in the future you will be able to give a joyous response to the voice that is saying to you now: You were to be a garden on which I could feast my eyes, but you are'not, because unwholesome weeds, thorns, and thistles have grown there and choked off the wholesome herbs
[cf Matt 13.7]. Cut down those weeds with the sharp sickle of penitence, and