Fiery Spirit,
fount of courage,
life within life
of all that has being!
fount of courage,
life within life
of all that has being!
Holy are you, transmuting the perfect
into the real.
Holy are you, healing
the mortally stricken.
Holy are you, cleansing
the stench of wounds.
O sacred breath O blazing
love O savor in the breast and balm
flooding the heart with
the fragrance of good,
O limpid mirror of God
who leads wanderers
home and hunts out the lost,
Armor of the heart and hope
of the integral body,
sword-belt of honor:
save those who know bliss!
Guard those the fiend holds
imprisoned,
free those in fetters
whom divine force wishes to save.
O current of power permeating all
in the heights upon the earth and
in all deeps:
you bind and gather
all people together.
Out of you clouds
come streaming, winds
take wing from you, dashing
rain against stone;
and ever-fresh springs
well from you, washing
the evergreen globe.
O teacher of those who know,
a joy to the wise
is the breath of Sophia.
Praise then be yours!
you are the song of praise,
the delight of life,
a hope and a potent honor
granting garlands of light.
you are the song of praise,
the delight of life,
a hope and a potent honor
granting garlands of light.
'O ignis Spiritus paracliti'
Sequence for the Holy Spirit (D 158, R 473r)
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
English version by Barbara Newman
St Hildegard’s theology of music can perhaps be summed up by her meditation own Psalm 150 where she says that
“outer realities teach us about inner ones - namely how, in accordance with the material composition and quality of instruments, we can best transform and shape the performance of our inner being towards praises of the Creator.”
Hildegard believed that the music of heaven is in us and all around us. We have been created to harmonize with it. “The soul is symphonic,” she said. Her music wasn’t primarily a form of personal expression. It was a manifestation of deepest reality. “O Trinity, you are music, you are life,” she prayed. For Hildegard, “all of creation is a song of praise to God.” She didn’t make up her songs; she listened in to the music of heaven:
“Then I saw the lucent sky, in which I heard different kinds of music, marvelously embodying all the meanings I had heard before. I heard the praises of the joyous citizens of heaven, steadfastly persevering in the ways of Truth; and laments calling people back to those praises and joys; and the exhortations of the virtues.”
This was more than metaphor, as her writings make clear. Her compositions came to her whole, given by God. Hildegard was always mindful of the source of her creativity:
The marvels of God are not brought forth from one’s self.
Rather, it is more like a chord, a sound that is played.
The tone does not come out of the chord itself,
but rather, through the touch of the musician.
I am, of course, the lyre and harp of God’s kindness.
power permeating all. iPhone image.
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