The things, Dear Readers, I do for you! For nothing,
ordinarily, would get me to re-listen to the Italian nun, Sister Christina, who
has quite the voice, matched by none of the taste. Why else would she sing,
“Like a Virgin,” which was a hit by someone named—although apparently not a
nun—Madonna.
Well, it seemed like the thing to do, so I sat through it,
and quite a slick affair it is: beautiful shots of Italy, incredible
architecture, and then, of course, the rapturous Sister Christina herself: the
rapture being conveyed by the three hand movements God has given her. But no
matter, because she has over three million hits in the video I watched, and
that, by the way, was uploaded less than a month ago. Am I placing the YouTube
clip at the bottom of the post? Or even hyperlinking it? No way, since Sister
Christina needs no help from me. So you’re on your own, guys.
Ah, how one longs for dear Pope Benedict, now reverently
retiring under the nose and presumed eye of the new pope, who, according to The
New York Times, is confusing his cardinals, archbishops, and bishops. Here’s
what the Times has to say, in an article entitled “Bishops
Struggle to Follow Lead of Francis.”
Change is rattling the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, as the American bishops
hold their annual fall meeting here this week. The vast majority of them were
appointed by Francis’ two more conservative predecessors, and some say they do
not yet understand what kind of change Pope Francis envisions and whether it is
anything more than a change in tone.
Well,
the bishops may be struggling, but the rest of us? It’s pretty clear: enough
already with all the talk about same-sex marriage and traditional values and
let’s focus on the poor, about which Jesus spent a bit more time than he did
preaching traditional moral values. At least, that’s my reading of the whole
thing.
So
now we have a singing nun, and guess what! She’s even appeared with our own
Ricky Martin—soo all the world is seeing an Ursuline nun appearing with a gay
parent of surrogate children. All this in presumably hyper-Catholic Italy; no
wonder the bishops are confused.
Well,
the BBC reports on all of this, since Christina has just released her first and
undoubtedly-already hit recording called—no self-aggrandizing, here—“Sister
Christina!“ Will I be excommunicated if I express the hope that all you out
there pirate the music from YouTube?
The
BBC, however, takes a bit of the stench away by offering up some really first
rate nuns, whom the term “rebel.” That would seem to apply to the older of the
two nuns, Hildegard von Bingen, whom I’ve always shied away from, since all the
New Age types were listening to her. But really, what a remarkable woman she
was: writing her theological texts, as well as…wait, Wikipedia to the rescue….
Saint Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B.
(German: Hildegard
von Bingen; Latin:
Hildegardis Bingensis) (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint
Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer,
philosopher, Christian mystic,
Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath.[1] Elected a magistra by her fellow
nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of
her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an
early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.[2]
She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts,
as well as letters, liturgical
songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations
in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias.[3]
Wikipedia
goes on to say that Hildegard—who isn’t formally a saint, but a lot of people,
including popes, refer to her as one—wasn’t afraid to buck the system,
including going over the head of her abbot to the archbishop, all to get
permission to move her nuns to simpler lodgings in Rupertsberg.
Interestingly,
she took the time to invent a language—wow, the stuff you can get up to if you
don’t have a man around the house!—which she called lingua ignota, and which may have been used to, according to
Wikipedia, “increase solidarity among the nuns.” Is it just me, or does anyone
else sense there might be another motive involved?
Though
she professed to be an “unlearned woman, completely of Biblical exegesis,” she
acquired fame in Europe, and corresponded with many notable people, including
two popes.
Then
there are the famous visions, which prompted a lot of writing, after initial resistance. But
wait, were they really visions, or were they, as no less than Oliver Sacks
diagnosed, or were they migraine? Again, here’s Wikipedia:
Oliver Sacks, in his book Migraine, called her
visions "indisputably migrainous,"[26] but stated that this does not invalidate her visions,
because it is what one does with a psychological condition that is important.
Look—this
is screwy to me: if I take LSD and experience the vision of God as Chippendale
models playing celestial cellos, does that count? And isn’t a migraine a
physiological condition, not a psychological one?
Lastly,
back to the BBC, which claimed that Hildegard served up the first description
of the female orgasm, and even provided the link,
which of course I had to look up. So am I any smarter on the subject? Not
really, though I did stumble across this:
From tasting evil, the blood of the sons of Adam was
turned into the poison of semen, out of which the sons of man are begotten.
OK
so we don’t always agree. But look…
…at
least she’s not singing “What a Feeling” from Flashdance on YouTube!
