St. Hildegard von Bingen and Encouragement for Writing

One of my favorite saints is Hildegard of Bingen (Feast Day Sept. 17th)--she was so very gifted. Music, medicine, writing, and so much more. So imagine my surprise when I learned how much encouragement she needed to write. She was a visionary and didn't tell anyone except her spiritual director and confessor. 

In A.D. 1141 God infused her with understanding of the religious texts and commanded her to write everything she would see in her visions, she hesitated due to her feelings of inadequacy. She writes: "And it came to pass...when I was 42 years and 7 months old, that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and breast like a flame, not burning but warming...and suddenly I understood of the meaning of expositions of the books... But although I heard and saw these things, because of doubt and low opinion of myself and because of diverse sayings of men, I refused for a long time a call to write, not out of stubbornness but out of humility, until weighed down by a scourge of god, I fell onto a bed of sickness."

She wrote to St. Bernard and he told the Pope, who exhorted Hildegard to finish her writing. Wow! Even the saints need encouragement. I've been turning to her for the same. Pray for us, St. Hildegard.