July 26, 2025

The brilliantly creative and visionary St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179) was not only a mystic, author, artist, composer, founder of monasteries, and advisor to church leaders, but she was also an herbalist and healer. In her comprehensive book of herbal medicine, Physica, she wrote: “Care for your garden that was planted by the gift of God, and be on your guard that its herbs do not wither.” The photo with this post shows one of her herbal gardens which still exists today.

St. Hildegard’s visions also informed her recipes for healthy living, which she called “foods of joy” that could sustain body, mind, and spirit. Bing or Google searches will reveal at least a dozen modern books inspired by St. Hildegard’s herbal remedies, recipes, and medicines, which people still study all these centuries later. In her care for creation and nurturing of native plants, and in deeply understanding their precious qualities, she shows us one path forward in the environmental crisis. We can each grow some herbs, some native plants, some food.

St. Hildegard’s voluminous theological writings, visionary images, musical compositions, and books of herbal medicine are rich and vast, but we can start by studying the works we are most drawn to, or we can simply be inspired by her life example.

This concludes this brief series on St. Hildegard of Bingen. Next up: St. Julian of Norwich (1342 – after 1416).