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.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

O viriditas digiti Dei (Symphonia 42)

For the Octave of St. Disibod, a Responsory by St. Hildegard of Bingen[1]

St. Disibod
Oil on canvas, 17th c.
(From Colonial Art)
V. O viriditas digiti Dei,
in qua Deus constituit
     plantationem
que in excelso resplendent
     ut statuta columna:

R. Tu gloriosa in
preparatione Dei.

V. Et o altitudo montis
que numquam dissipaberis
in discretione Dei,
tu tamen stas a longe ut exul,
sed non est in potestate armati   
qui te rapiat.
V. O fresh viridity of God’s creative finger,
in which God planted his
     green vineyard
that glistens in the heights,
     a lofty pillar:

R. How glorious you are
as you prepare for God!

V. And O, the mountain’s height!
O never shall you be laid low
at God’s discerning judgment—
no, you stand yet afar, an exile,
but not ensnared by that brigand’s power
who snatches after you.

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

O mirum admirandum (Symphonia 41)

For the Feast of St. Disibod, an Antiphon by St. Hildegard of Bingen[1]

“The Ruins of the Disibodenberg
Monastery,” Lithograph, 1833.
From Gemeinfrei IGL-Bildarchiv.
O mirum admirandum quod   
absconsa forma precellit
     ardua
in honesta statura,
ubi vivens altitudo
profert mistica.
Unde, o Disibode,
surges in fine,
succurrente flore
omnium ramorum
     mundi,
ut primum surrexisti.
O wonder, O how wondrous!
A hidden form, so hard, so high,
     so steep,
surpasses in its lofty honor—
where Living Height itself
reveals the mysteries.
And so, O Disibod,
you shall arise at th’ end of time
as first you rose—
the flow’r of all the branches
     of the world
comes to your aid.