-
Written by: Frank Zapatka, St. Ann DC Parishioner
A complete catalogue of women who have contributed to Catholic Culture would include the following women, among whom, some made such contributions in addition to fulfilling other pressing obligations.
German Benedictine abbess and Doctor of the Church, Saint Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) an early major contributor to Catholic Culture, was extraordinarily multi-talented; she was a spiritual writer, composer, poet, dramatist, mystic, pharmacist, preacher, theologian and a patron saint of ecology as well as of musicians and writers.
Her music is still performed and is available on CDs. She wrote her poems in Latin to be chanted by the nuns of her convent. Her spiritual works include Scivias (Know the Ways); Book of the Merits of life; Book of Divine works.
We note also, that one of her poems “Q frondens virga,” a psalm antiphon, was sung by the choir in Latin with facing English translation as a communion motet last summer at Saint Stephen Martyr Church in downtown Washington, DC. It translates as “O blooming branch”. It continues: “in tua nobilitate stans (you stand upright in your nobility):
sicut aurora procedit: (like the dawn breaking)
nunc gaude et laetare (rejoice now and be glad)
et nos debiles dignare (and deign to free us, frail and weakened)
a malas consuetudine liberare (from the wicked habits of our age)
atque manum tuam porrige (stretch forth your hand)
ad erigendum nos (to lift us up).
Nothing in the text, however, specifically indicates who the addressee is.
We do know the poem was written for the nuns of a 12th century Benedictine convent. It seems very likely, therefore, that the authorial speaker of the poem is metaphorically addressing the Blessed Virgin, or our Lord.
Another major contributor to Catholic Culture was St. Teresa of Avila (also called St. Teresa of Jesus, 1515-1582). She was a Doctor of the Church and an important co-reformer of the Carmelite order with St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), “the Mystical Doctor.”
She herself was a mystic; among her writings were The Interior Castle (El Castillo Interior) and The Way of Perfection (El camino de perfección).
Additionally, like St. John of the Cross, she wrote poetry. Her widely known “St. Teresa’s Bookmark” [for her breviary] or “Letrilla’’ has been set to music, including for Taizé; it reads: “Nada te turbe (Let nothing disturb you) / “Nada te espante” (Let nothing frighten you) / “Todo se pasa” (All things pass away) “Dios no se muda” (God never changes) / “La paciencia todo lo alcanza” (Patience obtains all things) / “Quien a Dios tiene” (He who has God) / “Nada le falta” (Lacks nothing) / “Solo Dios basta”/ (God alone suffices).
The poem can be said to echo Psalm 16:2: “I say to the Lord, my Lord are You. Apart from You, I have no good.” It also echoes the last sentence of Book One of Saint Augustine’s Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
We note, as well, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), who spent most of her life in Mexico. Like Saint Hildegard, she was a polymath: philosopher, composer, and a poet, she has been described as “the greatest lyrical poet of the colonial period” and is often called “the tenth muse of Mexico (Decima Musa de Mexico” (the ancient Greeks represented inspiration for the various arts as nine feminine figures called the Muses).
She is also remembered as “the first published feminist of the New World and stands as a national icon of Mexico.” She is recognized for both her outstanding writing and her influential perspectives on women and scholarship.
One of her frequently anthologized Poems is “Redondillas” (literally, quatrains”).The first quatrain reads:
Hombres necios (stupid men) /
que acusáis (who accuse) /
a la mujer (women) /
sin razón (unreasonably) /
sin ver (without seeing) /
que sois la ocasión (that you are the cause) /
de lo mismo (of the very thing) /
que culpáis (you blame).
The last quatrain in translation reads:
“I have good reason for saying that your arrogance fights with many weapons, for with your promises and your insistence you band the devil, the flesh and the world together.”
“The greatest saint of modern times” is how Saint Pius X (1835-1914, pope from 1903-1914) described St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897). She is also known as St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, and, as is well known, the “Little Flower,” an image she applied to herself to “describe her relationship to God.” It does not mean she was weak; rather her character and strength of will are more like an oak tree than a little flower, suggests John Beevers, one of her translators.
Like St. Hildegard von Bingen, she was a Doctor of the Church, as were her fellow Carmelites, Saints Teresa of Avila, and John of the Cross.
As an author, she is best known for her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, which she wrote in obedience to her Carmelite superiors. A short volume, the book was first published in 1898. Since then, millions of copies have been sold and it has been translated into 38 languages. At its core, is what she called “spiritual childhood,” which is “based on complete and unshakeable confidence in God’s love for us,” Beevers writes. She herself says: “I want to seek out a means of going to heaven by a little way.” Others also, like Saint Teresa of Kolkata were very aware of the importance of the little way of doing “little things with great love,” and Saint Augustine, who once asked rhetorically: “You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.”
Beevers also writes that none of what Thérèse writes is new; what she does is to throw already-known truths into sharp relief, “and to insist on their vital importance.”
What is probably less well known than The Story of a Soul is the fact that she wrote poetry and drama, at the request of her Carmelite sisters. Her dramas, she called Récréations pieuses (pious diversions). They are short theatrical pieces performed by certain nuns for the rest of the community on various saints’ feast days.
One was called “Jeanne d'Arc accomplissant sa mission” (Joan of Arc accomplishing her mission). An ambitious piece with 16 costumed actors, she herself played Saint Joan “whom she had always admired.” She is, we note, with Saint Joan “the secondary patron of France” (Saint Denis is the principal patron of France).
Among her lyrical poems, we quote from “Au Sacre Coeur de Jesus” (To the Sacred Heart of Jesus), followed by a prose translation.
Afin de pouvoir contempler ta gloire (In order to be able to contemplate your glory) /
Il faut, je le sais, passer par le feu (It is necessary, I know, to pass through fire) /
Et moi je choisis pour mon purgatoire (And I choose for my purgatory) /
Ton Amour brûlant, ô Coeur de mon Dieu! (Your burning love, O heart of my God!) /
Mon âme exilée quittant cette vie (My exiled soul leaving this life) /
Voudrait faire un acte de pur amour (Would make an of pure love) /
Et puis s'envolant au Ciel sa Patrie (And then sending it to heaven, its homeland) /
Entrer dans ton Coeur sans aucun détour. (Enter your heart with no detours.)
Sources:
Beevers, John, translator. St Therese of Lisieux The Story of a Soul.
Cohen, J. M. Editor. Penguin Book of Spanish Verse. 1959.
Poésies----Archives de Carmel therese-de-LIsieux.catholique.fr/lhistoire/les- .ecrits-de-therese/poesies
Magnificat , Oct 2023 p. 404, 4, 5.
Newmark, Maxim. Dictionary of Spanish Literature. 1963.
franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-Hildegard-of- .Bingen
Internet, passim.
