Hildegard of Bingen: Lady of the Light, Woman for the World

In 2012 Hildegard was elevated to a “Doctor of the Church”, a title awarded only 34 persons in 2000 years and only four women. With intricate knowledge of the time and place of the story, weaving into her text Hildegard’s own vivid accounts of “the Living Light”, this novel makes palpable the life of the “feather of God”, Hildegard of Bingen, who shattered stereotypes of women, scholars, saints, and of God for all time.

Hildegard of Bingen will rivet the modern reader with its masterly evocation of times and peoples past, of saints and sinners, abbots and popes, and the shadows of great monasteries spreading across the landscape. Joan Ohanneson breathes life into the statued choirs of the Middle Ages, so that they stand vividly before us debating far more seriously than we the questions we think of as our own bold inventions. Soon the pages and binding fall away and we find ourselves eavesdropping on all that is human in Hildegard, and all that is divine as well. … an episode of Masterpiece Theatre at its most arresting and enlightening.”—Eugene Kennedy, author of Queen Bee and On Becoming a Counselor