About Me

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I am a medievalist and an adjunct college instructor in the humanities at Union College. My research includes medieval theologies of history, text/image relationships in visionary and mystical texts, and the writings of the twelfth-century Doctor of the Church, St. Hildegard of Bingen. I am also a translator of medieval Latin and German texts, especially as relate to my research. My translation of Hildegard's Book of Divine Works is available from Catholic University of America Press here. I completed a Master's in Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2010, a Fulbright Fellowship in Germany in 2008, and a B.A. in Classics and German at Boston College in 2007.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Doctor Ecclesiae: A Chronogram in Honor of St. Hildegard of Bingen

Portrait of Hildegard of Bingen.
From the Rupertsberg Scivias, fol. 1r.
o hILDegarDIs prophetIssa
DoCtor eCCLesIae:
Vera VIsIo XrIstI
sIt nobIs LVX opVsqVe
In VIa.

(O Hildegardis prophetissa, Doctor Ecclesiae: Vera visio Xristi sit nobis lux opusque in via.)

(O Hildegard, prophetess and Doctor of the Church: May the true vision of Christ be for us light and task upon the way.)

Monday, October 08, 2012

St. Hildegard of Bingen made Doctor of the Church: Coverage Round-Up

Here's a round-up of the various coverage--news, commentary, arts, and tributes--of Pope Benedict XVI's declaration St. Hildegard of Bingen as a Doctor of the Church on Sunday, October 7.  I have also corralled at the bottom all of the audiences, speeches, etc. in which Pope Benedict has made major mention of St. Hildegard.

News Reports:

Friday, October 05, 2012

Caritas, Humilitas, and Pax: Theophany of the Fountain in St. Hildegard of Bingen’s Liber Divinorum Operum III.3

Liber Divinorum Operum III.3:
Theophany of Caritas, Humilitas,
& Pax in the fountain.
(From the Lucca MS)

As we celebrate this weekend St. Hildegard of Bingen’s declaration as a Doctor of the Church, we should reflect on how Hildegard understood her theological vocation to be rooted in the self-revelatory relationship between God and Creation.  I have chosen to translate below one of the visions from Hildegard’s last and greatest work, the Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works), in which she offers just such a meditation.  In this work, Hildegard returns to the history of salvation that formed the structure of her first work, Scivias—but this time, prompted by an extraordinary experience of the divine in the early 1160’s, she envisions and explores it through the dynamic relationship between human and divine.