A version of Hildegard of Bingen’s “Ave generosa” by Gabriele Uhlein

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Mary,

God delights in you so much, 
God was so taken with you,
          he sank his love’s fire
          deep within you.

So much love he gave you,
          that with it you nurture his son.

So full of ecstasy is your body
that it resounds with heaven’s symphony.

Your womb exults.

It exults like the grass,
          grass the dew has nestled on,
          grass the dew has infused with verdant strength.

That is how it is with you,
Mother of all joy.

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From Meditations with Hildegard of Bingen, introduction and versions by Gabriele Uhlein (Rochester, VT: Bear & Company, 1983). Used by permission of Inner Traditions International. All rights reserved.

This book is the first time Hildegard’s writings appeared in English. In selecting, translating, and adapting the material for it, Uhlein worked from the German critical editions of De Operatione Dei (1965), Liber Vitae Meritorum (1972), and Hildegard’s letters (Briefweschel) (1965) and songs (Lieder) (1969), all published by Otto Müller Verlag in Salzburg.

For the original Latin of the above hymn and a more straightforward translation by Nathaniel M. Campbell, see here. This link also includes a musical performance of the Latin (Hildegard wrote her own lyrics and music!).

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Hildegard of Bingen, OSB, (ca. 1098–1179) was a German Benedictine abbess, theologian, preacher, poet, composer, playwright, and medical writer and practitioner. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg and Eibingen and was named a “doctor of the church” by Pope Benedict XVI in recognition of “her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching.” Hildegard’s most significant works are her three volumes of visionary theology: Scivias (Know the Ways) (for which she also supervised miniature illuminations), Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of Life’s Merits), and Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works). But she is also well known for her liturgical hymns and antiphons, as well as the many letters she wrote to popes, emperors, abbots, abbesses, fellow mystics, and layfolk, dispensing wisdom and advice.

Gabriele Uhlein, OSF, (born 1952) is a retreat guide, workshop leader, and artist dedicated to the recovery of the Christian mystical tradition and the honoring of intuition and creativity in spiritual deepening. Born in Klingenberg, Germany, she emigrated to the US at age two. She has a PhD in process theology and Jungian-oriented psychology from Chicago Theological Seminary and is a member of the core staff at the Christine Center, a natural sanctuary in Willard, Wisconsin, rooted in the Franciscan principles of contemplation, hospitality, compassion, simplicity, transformation, and care for the earth.