A Certain Brother to Hildegard
The Letters
Do likewise. For since you have not performed your duties well, help your daughters now with sound advice and be compassionate toward them, just as seasonable rain falls on the grass and brings forth luxuriant vegetation. In this way, through penitence and compassion you will be wiser than the sons of light
[cf. Luke 16.8], that is, the fallen angels, who were unwilling to behave thus.
For when you do good works, those works will receive you "into everlasting dwellings" [Luke 16.9] after your death. For if you had plowed the earth properly and had seasonable rain, you would be fertile soil. But the dew that should have caused you to bring forth is lacking in you, and you are turning on the wheel which you call your salvation, but which is, in fact, full of ashes.
Now plow in your heart with the knowledge of sacred Scripture, receive the rain through sighs of earnest zeal, and in your felicitous way of life keep the dew of blessing through good works. Do this before the day of your death, and you will live forever.
Otterberg
A Certain Brother to Hildegard Before 1173 The brother asks Hildegard to appease God's wrath against him for his many offenses.
To the lady Hildegard, his spiritual mother, Brother S., least of the brothers of the church at Otterberg and darkened with the filth of sin beyond all others, with a prayer that she serve the spiritual banquet with Martha, and sigh with Mary for the joys of life in heaven [cf. Luke 10.38ff].
I rejoice with joy [cf. Is 66.10; Matt 2.10], spiritual mother, that you have found grace in the sight of our Lord God, and that you have kept the lamp of your blessed soul kindled so far with the fire of the Holy Spirit in anticipation of His coming, and have not grown weary [cf. Matt 25.lff].
O friend of God, because with the wise virgins you are strong in the integrity of chastity, and because you keep the eye of contemplation firmly fixed upon the divine brightness, my puny devotion prays that with your righteous prayers you will take pains on my behalf to appease the face of the Lord [cf. I Sam 13.12], which I have greatly offended with the fiery brand of my perversity. I am certain that our God, our refuge and strength, will gladly deign to hear your petition on my behalf [cf. Ps 6.10], and, for your sake, will not cause me, justified because of you, to founder forever [cf. Ps 54.23]. Surely, because He is righteous,