St. Hildegard of Bingen

Born in 1098 to a noble family, St. Hildegard was a weak and sickly child.  Her parents promised her to the service of God at an early age.  She was given to a reclusive, holy woman at the age of eight and received little education because of the severity of her illnesses, including the use of her eyes.  She learned to sing the Latin psalms in order to perform the Divine Office, but never learned to write.  She eventually took the Benedictine habit and was appointed Mother Superior of her convent some years later.  Postulants began to seek her out to learn her teachings, but St. Hildegard went to another location by virtue of a Divine command.  She settled near Bingen by the Rhine river with eighteen other sisters in the year 1148.

Because of her frailty, she led a deeply interior life, using all for her own sanctification.  She was favored particularly with visions, seeing events of the future as if in the present.  Her revelations were eventually published during her lifetime, ranging from the prophetic to the contemplation of nature through faith in God.