O tu illustrata (Symphonia 23)

For the Feast of the Annunciation, an Antiphon for the Virgin
by St. Hildegard of Bingen^[1]

Chastity, from
Scivias III.8: The Pillar
of the Savior's Humanity.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 178r.

O tu illustrata de divina claritate, clara Virgo Maria, Verbo Dei infusa, unde venter tuus floruit de introitu Spiritus Dei, qui in te sufflavit et in te exsuxit quod Eva abstulit in abscisione puritatis, per contractam contagionem        de suggestione diaboli.

Illumined by God’s clearest brightness, O Virgin Mary bright, and flooded with the Word of God: your womb then flourished at the entrance of God’s Spirit— he breathed within you, within drew out the loss of Eve, a purity cut off and silenced by that disease contracted at the Devil’s sly persuasion.

O vos imitatores (Symphonia 39)

For the Feast of Pope St. Gregory the Great, a Responsory for Confessors
by St. Hildegard of Bingen ^[1]

Scivias II.6: Eucharist.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 86v.

V. O vos imitatores      excelse persone in preciosissima et gloriosissima significatione,      o quam magnus est      vester ornatus, ubi homo procedit, solvens et stringens in Deo pigros et peregrinos, R. etiam ornans      candidos et nigros et magna onera remittens.

V. O actors, you who play      the Highest Role within that precious drama, that glorious sacrament! How great and beautiful      your vested costume, as steps forth such a man to loose and bind in God the slacker and sojourner, R. the shining and the squalid      both to beautify and all their heavy burdens to remit.

Vos flores rosarum (Symphonia 38)

For the Feast of Sts. Perpetua and Felicity, a Responsory for Martyrs
by St. Hildegard of Bingen^[1]

Agony in the Garden.
Drawing from the Abbey of
St. Walburg, Eichstätt, ca. 1500.
(From J. Hamburger,
Nuns as Artists, plate 8)

V. Vos flores rosarum, qui in effusione sanguinis vestri   beati estis in maximis gaudiis, redolentibus et sudantibus in emptione que fluxit de interiori mente consilii manentis ante evum R. in illo, in quo non erat constitutio a capite. V. Sit honor in consortio vestro,   qui estis instrumentum ecclesie et qui in vulneribus vestri sanguinis undatis: R. In illo, in quo non erat constitutio a capite.

V. You blooms of roses, within your blood outpoured you’re blessed in joys supreme— the fragrance and distilled perfume of that redemption that flowed from th’ inmost heart of counsel kept before all time R. in him who was unfounded at the start. V. An honor in your fellowship! The Church’s instrument you are as in your wounds, your waves of blood, you surge and gush: R. in him who was unfounded at the start.

Cum erubuerint infelices (Symphonia 14)

For Ash Wednesday, an Antiphon for the Virgin by St. Hildegard of Bingen^[1]

Scivias I.2: The Fall.
Rupertsberg MS, fol. 4r.

Cum erubuerint infelices in progenie sua, procedentes in peregrinatione             casus, tunc tu clamas clara voce, hoc modo homines elevans de isto malicioso casu.

While downcast parents blushed, ashamed to see their offspring wand’ring off into the fallen exile’s      pilgrimage, you cry aloud with crystal voice, to lift up humankind from that malicious fall.