MYSTICISM: First Vision—On The Oright Of Life (3) by Hildegard of Bingen

From: Hildegard of Bingen’s Book of Divine Works, With Letters and Songs

And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me:

God, who created everything, has formed humanity according to the divine image and likeness, and marked in human beings both the higher and the lower creatures.  God loved humanity so much that God designated for it the place from which the fallen angel was ejected, intending for human beings all the splendor and honor which that angel lost along with his bliss.  The countenance you are gazing at is an indication of this fact.

For what you see as a marvelously beautiful figure in God’s mystery and in the midst of southern breezes – a figure similar to a human being – signifies the Love of our Heavenly Father.  It is Love – in the power of the everlasting Godhead, full of exquisite beauty, marvelous in its mysterious gifts.  Love appears in a human form because God’s Son, when he put on flesh, redeemed our lost humanity in the service of Love.  On this account the countenance is of such beauty and splendor that you can more easily gaze at the sun than at it.  For the abundance of Love gleams and shines in the sublime lightning flash of its gifts in such a way that it surpasses every insight of human understanding by which we can otherwise know in our soul the most varied things.  As a result, none of us can grasp this abundance with our minds.  But this fact will be shown here in an allegory so that we can know in faith what we cannot see with our outward eyes.