A Living Light. Edward L. Risden
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his name) recorded testimony as men of power, learning, and experience argued the fate of the learned nun, yet little known to the wide world, but loved among her folk. Some of the men sipped Tuscan wine. The Pope drank nothing, not even cool water, which he knew would have done him good: he wanted his thoughts fixed and precise. Volmar scratched his tonsure and drank several bowls of water as the discussion continued and as he knew his time to speak drew near. The Pope’s stern forehead and impassive, almost charcoal-grey eyes intimidated the monk, but something affable about the mouth made him feel eager to speak. He tried to calm himself to wait his turn.
Eugenius: Enlighten us to your opinion, Constance.
Herman: I have indeed sought her prayers, Eminence. She is as well known for their efficacy as for that of her medicines, which, though we value the less, draw the more worldly of her flock. And yet I fear to give too quick credence to these wild visions.
Eugenius: And you, Mainz: fair or fulsome?
Henry: Sincerity scatters like moths at the dawn, your Holiness, and yet I think her sincere. The visions seem to come conveniently, when she desires what the vision confirms, and yet I believe them from God.
Volmar: Visions, Holy Father, visions that spark joyous as a greenwood fire on the Christmas hearth, youthful as spring and ancient as air, dancing as mayday children yet somber as final unction.
Eugenius: Please, my son, we will hear you, but let us defer first to your father the abbot.
Volmar: Apologies, your Holiness.
Eugenius: She has been in your charge many years, Abbot. What then do you see in these visions, our dear Kuno? Have you not compassed her training?
Kuno: In truth, My Lord, neither drawn nor circled it. She is a willful one, given more to flowers, trance, and parchment than hours and office.
Eugenius: Has she failed in her duties or offended?
Kuno: Not so much failed or offended as strayed from a sister’s truer course, that of quiet, unobtrusive obedience. The folk flock to her, write to her . . .
Herman and Henry: So we have.
Kuno: . . . call her name in the towns, and for herself, she will fall into a fit or lingering humor until her latest fancy is dictated word for word for posterity.
Volmar: But her words, Holy Father, or rather God’s words through her, have such truth and power!
Herman: This council shall determine that.
Eugenius: We have reviewed much of her book, but we would hear more. If you please, Our Son, read to us and let the words speak, that we may judge whence they come.
Volmar: Gladly, Holiness. “Behold, in the forty-third year of my journey I saw a living light, from which heaven’s voice spoke to me, saying ‘Weak one of ashes, dust of dust, decay of decay, tell and write what you see and hear. Because you are simple and timid, do not speak according to the words of humans, but listen and tell plainly the wonder of God according to the words of God.’” (He thumbed through pages.) And later she tells, “Then I saw a multitude of living torches and, beneath, a wide lake deep as the mouth of a well that billowed forth clouds of smoke that climbed, till out of them fell like a shooting star the figure of a man into the smoking depths, and the heavens were brightened again, but the earth trembled.”
Herman: Surely that means Satan!
Volmar: And again later: “And then I saw a huge egg, encircled by flame, and within the egg a fire-red globe, and above the globe torches that kept the flame from burning the globe to ashes, and the globe would rise and fall toward the willing flame above or sink toward gloomy fire below.”
Herman: God and Satan calling the souls of the earth, and the saints interceding.
Volmar: “And next I saw a great, peaceful brightness full of eyes turned toward all the four corners of the world and, within, a purple lightening brightening the way for those who carried milk and bread and cheese, and among the folk a woman carrying a child inside her, and the brightness, from its own heart, reached within her, quickening the child from the womb.”
Herman: That is God bringing Christ to the world.
Eugenius: I see, Bishop, that you are as taken with these visions as I am.
Henry: And I, am, too, Milord, and so the people, who love her benign temper and humble wisdom without knowing her visions.
Eugenius: And you, our dear friend Bernard? You have kept silent. Tell us what you think–and why you gape so.
Bernard: Out of wonder rather than desire: these visions touch my soul.
Eugenius: As they do mine, Clairvaux. But you, Abbot, remain skeptical.
Kuno: Unconvinced, Milord. How does one prove visions, which may come from God or the Devil?
Eugenius: Can you believe such beauty and piety from the devil?
Kuno: Though she be sincere, she is simple, insistent, and, finally, Milord, but a woman.
Eugenius: And we, dear Abbot, are finally fearful, dust, and but men. The people do love this nun, and we would loath to see the Church, local or general, suffer from her censure when all can benefit from her talents and service. We do approve these remarkable visions, and with our thanks to all of you, we believe they may come from God and should be harbored, plenished, and praised as His gift. We declare this woman one of our living lights. Abbot, you will support and sustain our sister in her study, speech, and writing. For love of Christ do so.
Kuno: Holiness, shall we churchmen be led by a woman, and shall this woman drain the faith of the populace from us? We should wield God’s pen and be God’s flagons, filling souls with His spirit.
Herman: With His spirit or our own?
Eugenius: You must understand, Kuno, that we wish you no harm, but that we wish our Church good. As the Church flourishes, and as our flock flourish, so we flourish. Draw the water from the bread, and though it be but water, the flour blows away like dust. She tends the flowers that we may grow them, and she draws the hungry to us that we may feed them.
Kuno: And be fed by them. And to them. I defy this pragmatism, and I defy the vomit of these visions that reek of earth’s decay rather than heaven. Have we no pride?
Eugenius: We too must wear our humility, Abbot, and take our bread from the servants God sends us. Now hear me: you will nurture our daughter Hildegard, the Flower of Prophecy, and through her we shall all be fed. I will not be forsworn. I tell you, support and encourage her and serve your Church.
Kuno: (Aside.) Mother Church.
Eugenius: Abbot?
Kuno: As you will, Holiness.
Eugenius: So we will. Come, my friends, let us rise and take some air. A cool wind blows at the window at last, I think, and our day has drawn long.
So they spoke. Kuno, you see, had no particular fondness for intellectual women. What had happened, he asked himself, since on one else was paying him any attention, to the proper order of things, to Degree, respect for Estates, as God the Father had built the world? As he must bear subservience to the Pope, so the woman should endure subservience to him. Who can trust, he thought, the visions of women, churned by emotion and tainted with the guilt of Eve? The pope could be right, of course, must be right, unless evil or, rather, weariness, or political currents had obscured his sight or maladjusted his thinking. Though he must encourage her work, though, he need not permit insubordination; in fact, Kuno appointed his own particular duty to keep the woman first on her course to salvation and only second on the paths of knowledge—rather, third, he thought, after also her devotion to the duty of obedience, a duty he as well as anyone might teach her, knowing its gall himself. The road home, long, difficult in any day, would give him room and time to brood, to meditate how best to direct her course and to restrain his disappointment.
Far away, back in Germania, among the Rupertsberg streets, a crowd gathered for a festival: a brief time of pleasure amidst lives hounded by pain and