In the audience granted this Thursday, 10 May, to the Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, His Eminence Cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B., the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI has extended the cult of St. Hildegard to the Universal Church.
Whereas the process of her canonisation was one of the first officially begun by the Holy See, it has never been completed, apparently due to resistance from the See of Mainz, which opposed the recent reservation of the competence for canonisations to the Roman Pontiff. Nevertheless, she was included in the Roman Martyrology since its first edition in 1584. Her feast has been on the calendar of many German dioceses for a long time, and on that of all German dioceses since the first half of the 20th century. It has been suggested by the well-known vaticanista Andrea Tornielli that the extension of her cult to the Universal Church, together with her formal insertion into the canon of the Saints, is being done with a view to her proclamation as the fourth female Doctor of the Church later this year.
Here are some of the proper texts (Extraordinary Form) of her feast on 17 September as granted to the German dioceses.
I Vespers (where celebrated as a first class feast)
Hymn
Salve, nostra tu glória,
Exémplar es quæ Vírginum!
Audi benígna súpplices
Tibi canéntes cánticum.
O virgo, quæ mirábilis
Vixísti amóris víctima,
Et nunc beáris fúlgidis
Cæli recépta sédibus.
Vitæ per æquor túrbidum
Tuos cliéntes dírige,
Nobísque amícum cómpara,
Cui te revínxit grátia.
Sicut dolos intérrita
Vicísti, et artes hóstium,
Et robur in discrímine
Sumens, nitébas púlchrior:
Sic bella nos quot íngruunt
Da, te favénte, fúndere,
Virtútis almæ ac sémitam
Vultu seréno cúrrere.
Alat repóstam méntibus
Fidem superna cáritas;
Mores adórnet áureos
Intemeráta cástitas.
Summo Parénti ac Fílio
Tibíque, Sancte Spíritus,
Sit laus, potéstas, glória,
Per sempitérna sæcula. Amen.
Magnificat Antiphon
Hildegárdis prophetíssa, * Spíritus Sancti splendóribus illustráta, vias Dómini revelávit.
Collect
Deus, qui beátam Hildegárdem Vírginem tuam donis cæléstibus decorásti: tríbue, quæsumus; ut, ejus vestígiis et documéntis insisténtes, a præséntis sæculi calígine ad lucem tuam delectábilem transíre mereámur. Per Dóminum.
Lauds
Benedictus Antiphon
O digníssima Christi sponsa! * quam lux prophetíæ illustrávit, zelus apostólicus inflammávit, láurea vírginum coronávit, divíni amóris incéndium consummávit.
II Vespers
Magnificat Antiphon
Súbveni nobis, Hildegárdis virgo sanctíssima, ætérni regis sponsa, in cujus aula splendéscis sicut stella fulgentíssima.
The picture at the top of this post is of the Shrine with the relics of St. Hildegard at the parish church of Eibingen. It is taken from an older post on the Abbey of St. Hildegard which you may read here.
