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Icons by Br. Robert Lentz, ofm.
Influenced by his Russian Orthodox background and a period of study with a master iconographer, Lentz's unique style blends classical Eastern iconography with contemporary elements and "witnesses."
Dimensions: 7.25" x 2.5"
Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
St. Hildegard was the tenth child of a noble German family. She was promised to the church and raised from the time she was 8 years old in a hermitage that later became a Benedictine monastery. When she was 52 years old, she founded a monastery of her own, and then a second one 15 years later. Each week she traveled back and forth between these monasteries in a small boat on the Rhine. Because she was known as a healer and a miracle-worker, people gathered on the riverbanks to ask for her help. She used river water to bless them - as she is shown in this icon, ready to sprinkle them with water with a wild rose she has picked.
Apart from healing through her prayers, Hildegard was skilled in herbal healing and in the other medical lore of her day. She took particular interest in the health problems of women. Her scientific books contain over 2000 remedies and health suggestions. Women in her monasteries had opportunities to develop their intellectual, artistic, and spiritual gifts. The monasteries she built had large, beautiful rooms, with piped water. On feast days her nuns wore white veils and gemstones to celebrate the dignity of their espousal to God.
© Robert Lentz, 1997
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