O Oriens,
Splendor lucis aeternae, et sol iustitiae:
VENI, et illumina sedentes in tenebris
et umbra mortis.
‘O Rising Sun,
Splendour of eternal light and sun of justice:
COME, shine on those sitting in darkness
and the shadow of death’.
‘…The heart will save, when the dawn will appear with the splendour of the first sunrise. And what follows in the new desire, in the new zeal, is beyond words,’ St Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179).
I wonder whether these words of St Hildegard, written almost a thousand years ago, might have been inspired by today’s ‘O’ antiphon? She was, after all, a Benedictine nun for whom singing the Divine Office was a central part of her vocation. But while an enclosed nun, Hildegard was nevertheless very much involved in the political and ecclesiastical currents of her time which were as tumultuous as our own. There was the ongoing war of the Crusades in the Middle East as Christianity clashed with Islam. There was political intrigue and attempts by the Imperial power to wrest authority from the Church. There was corruption, poverty and disease.
Hildegard’s words above were written in a letter to Pope Anastasius IV whom she challenges for his failure to confront corruption in the Church. In the same letter she speaks of a world ‘steeped in wantonness’ which will be followed by a period of ‘sadness’ and ‘terror’. But this is not her last word; Hildegard continues, in words which anticipate those of Pascal and Pope Francis: ‘but the heart will save, when the dawn will appear with the splendour of the first sunrise’.
And this is what we celebrate in today’s ‘O’ antiphon; the imminence of that Sun/Son of Justice coming into our world to save us and who will rise in splendour from the dead: Jesus Christ. In the northern hemisphere this dawning of a new era is mirrored in the natural world as the sun appears to cross the equator and the hours of daylight lengthen.
Hildegard goes on with confidence in Christ’s coming and his resurrection – her letter admonishes the Pope ‘to listen to him who lives and will not be destroyed’ – and so she sees present troubles as birth pangs for a ‘new desire’ and ‘a new zeal’.
May this be so for our troubled times also. Amen.
Sr Laurentia
Text and image copyright Stanbrook Abbey 2024