Hildegard on Our Work as Cosmic and Sacramental Work

Not too long ago, a profitable businesswoman in Oakland who runs a automotive restore store, instructed me that my e-book The Reinvention or Work “is much more wanted right now than 30 years in the past while you wrote it.”  She instructed me she offers the e-book out to all her workers when she hires them because it lays out the values for her office.

The Conclusion chapter of the e-book, entitled, “Work as Sacrament, Sacrament as Work” treats—as does the entire e-book—the sacredness of our work. The primary part of that chapter cites Thomas Aquinas and Bhagavad Gita teachings that we shared in yesterday’s DM. 

Hildegard too is cited:

Every thing in nature, 
the sum whole of heaven and of earth,
turns into a temple and an altar
for the service of God.

I acknowledge this superb sentence as a press release of what Teilhard de Chardin and Brian Swimme, amongst others, name Cosmogenesis. The entire cosmos, all of creation, is in a relentless strategy of birthing.  

As Pére Chenu says, there’s a steady creation.  And a steady incarnation. And people are integral to each, we’re referred to as to contribute to creation and to contribute to the divinizing of the universe.  That is our work, that is, as Hildegard places it, our “service of God.”

When she talks about all of nature being a temple and an altar for the service of God—”the sum whole of heaven and earth”—i.e. of the universe—she is celebrating our purpose for being.  

We’re right here to contribute to the continuing evolution of the universe and take part within the surprise of all of it which additionally means discovering increasingly more about creation, in regards to the ongoing birthing or genesis round us, all 13.8 billion years of it and even all two trillion galaxies of area encircling it.

In Hildegard’s imaginative and prescient, cosmogenesis turns into our frequent work, our frequent service to God and to the world.  

And it’s sacramental, thus the phrases “temple” and “altar” are spoken of.  Our work is the sacrifice, the thing-made-sacred, that’s an providing of reward and thanks we placed on the altar.  It’s our thanks for being right here, the reward we depart behind once we die.

Tailored from Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood For Our Instances, pp. 296ff.

See additionally Fox, Hildegard of Bingen: A Saint For Our Instances, pp. 33-44, 81-96.

Banner Picture: A sacred deer among the many stone lanterns resulting in the Kasuga Shrine advanced, Nara, Nara Prefecture, Japan, established in 768 CE. Picture by Joey Huang on Unsplash

Queries for Contemplation

How do you see your work—each inside and outer—as a sacrifice on the temple and on the altar of cosmogenesis, the universe coming to be?

Really helpful Studying

The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood For Our Time

Thomas Aquinas mentioned, “To reside effectively is to work effectively,” and on this daring name for the revitalization of day by day work, Fox shares his imaginative and prescient of a world the place our private {and professional} lives are celebrated in concord–a world the place the self just isn’t sacrificed for a job however is sanctified by genuine “soul work.”
“Fox approaches the extent of poetry in describing the reciprocity that have to be current between one’s inside and outer work…[A]n essential street map to social change.” ~~ Nationwide Catholic Reporter

Matthew Fox writes in Hildegard of Bingen about this superb lady and what we will be taught from her.
In an period when ladies had been marginalized, Hildegard was an outspoken, controversial determine. But so visionary was her perception that she was sought out by kings, popes, abbots, and bishops for recommendation.
“This e-book offers sturdy, sterling, and unvarnished proof that all the pieces – all the pieces – we ourselves grow to be will have an effect on what ladies after us may grow to be….This can be a really marvelous, helpful, profound, and artistic e-book.” ~~ Andrew Harvey, writer of The Hope: A Information to Sacred Activism.