Religion - Year 9 - Our Female Heritage and Role Models: Home

Twelfth-century Rhineland mystic Hildegard von Bingen records her exquisite encounter with divinity, producing a magnificent fusion of divine inspiration and human intellect.

Visionary, poet, musician, naturalist, healer, theologian - the Rhineland nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) fascinates people today just as she did her contemporaries. With selections representing her great visionary writings, her medical and scientific studies, poetry, letters and hagiography, this book presents the most comprehensive selection of Hildegard's amazing range of works yet to appear in English.

Surveys the writing of Hildegard of Bingen, both her visionary and non-visionary works, as well as her music, and describes the events and forces in her life that led to Hildegard creating a virtual library of publications. The author provides a sketch of Hildegard as a nun, a religious superior, author, mystic and musician, while defining the theological integration that occurred during her creative life.

Analyzes the feminine motifs that appear in the writings of the remarkabke Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) who was a prophet, visionary, scientist, cosmologist, counselor and reformer.

You will be fascinated and inspired by stories of more than 200 women saints. From mothers like Elizabeth of Hungary and prophetic saints like Hildegard of Bingen to mystics like Julian of Norwich, this treasury chronicles Catholicism's most beloved women saints from the early Church to modern times. Ideal for use in daily devotions, each entry provides a biographical sketch of one or more saints, a life application for you, and a prayer or dedication for the day.

"What makes a saint? Why do we need them? For Joan Chittister, saints are "people like ourselves, reachable figures, who have lived well through situations similar to our own as proof that we too, in all of our smallness, can stretch ourselves to the limits of the best in us. We call them saints, but maybe we should call them "heroes" or stars or icons." In them are reflected the many facets of the face of God." "In A Passion for Life the icons are male and female, Christian and non-Christian, married and single, religious and lay, from different times and diverse cultures. They are activists and mystics, their holiness recognized by due process, or acclaimed by those who lived in the shadow of their lives. Like us, they are not without flaws, but so luminous in their virtues as to be a light for the ages." "Joan Chittister presents some of these men and women to us, reveals their special gifts, encourages us to identify with them, and to follow their example. Robert Lentz's many stunning icons provide a third dimension for the reader, to feast the eye as well as the soul.

This book explores the stories of these women of faith - women who made a difference in the history of the Church and women whose faith is shaping the Church today. Women such as Mary mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha, Perpetua of Carthage, Clare of Assisi, Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, Catherine of Genoa, Teresa of Avila, Dorothy Day, Frances Cabrini, Kateri Tekakwitha, Thea Bowman, Mother Theresa of Calcutta and many more.