Today is the feast day of Saint Hildegard of Bingen! It’s a bit less obvious to find contemplative-related themes in her writings compared to many other friends in heaven, but I see some. For example, in a song celebrating Saint Disibod, she writes,

And, because you devoted yourself to contemplation, you’ve been crowned with the divine reason Who made you His mirror.

The Holy Spirit made His home in you, because you were crowned with the divine reason Who made you His mirror.

If the order can be taken as an indication here, this new Doctor of the Church is saying: devotion to contemplation and perseverance leads to us becoming a mirror of Christ; a mirror of Christ is a home of the Holy Spirit.

What is it to crown? To reward beautifully and fittingly (เหมาะสม in Thai).

What is a mirror? Something that reflects and is visible. That’s a taking up of all our being, spiritual and bodily, into the Spirit. We sometimes call this a Transfiguration of the body by the Spirit: the invisible Holy Spirit engages visibility. (Marie-Joseph Le Guillou, drawing on Saint Paul, uses the same idea of a mirror for Transfiguration also.)

What is a home? A place to dwell, to abide, to really and deeply live.

These are properly a fruit of contemplation, suffering divine things, stillness and perseverance in looking on our God in peace and truth.