Roman Catholic Womenpriests: Cloud of Witnesses Retreat

Bishop Elect Andrea Johnson and Hildegard
of Bingen and RCWP Community with our communities and support people, our fillling Cloud of Living Witnesses

My conversation with Andrea was just a bit different from my exchange with Dana Reynolds. Andrea had to think about her real names first. Andrea? Andrew? That didn't seem to work. And Michelle or Michael in his armor and brandishinig his sword didn't fit either.

"Hildegard, Andrea then replied, " because of her boldness and the way she spoke back to bishops!"

Not unlike their Eastern Saint Katherine Drexel.--I thought. Katherine had written in her journals,
" To speak only and when it pleases God; but to lose no opportunity of speaking before priests and beareded men."
PEOPLES' COMAPNION to the BREVIARY,Vol. 1. Carmelites of Indianapolis,1997. 535.

.It seemed to me then, that for Andrea and for all of our Bishops elect and our ordained bishops and ourselves: candidates, deacons, and priests that the work by Hildegard entitled "O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti" is a most powerful and relevant prayer for us in Cloud of Witnesses International and I offer it in prayer for us today.

I am taking the opportunity to re-language from Norma Gentile whose translation comes closest to contemproary conceptions but not close enough for RCWP realities.

I found a statement which links Hildegard to our time and it is from this statement that I am working the re-languaging..

The statetment is from "Poetry Chaikhana" http://www.poetry-chaikhana..com/H/Hildegardof%20B/OignisSpirit.htm

Hildegard believed:

"All of physical reality even in its most solid forms of earth and rock, all of 'solid' reality...flows . Nothing is as tangible or stationary as it may superficially appear.
All forms possess a sort of divine inner 'sap.'
The fluid Holy Spirit.. that is the true being or essence which shows itself as life: ' and earth sweats her green vigor.' (Hildegard)

This is not a dusty theological statetment, but a vision of life, how the Divine flows unhindered through all creation, and it is that flowing that is life. And all things, all people, you and I, we are not solid, separate physical bodies. We, too, are nothing less than that eternal flow."

Quantum Physics, we could say, has caught up with Hildegard.

O Ignis Spiritus Paracliti(O Comforting Fire of the Spirit)

O life bringing Divine Paraclete
Spirit Holy. O Divine Fire of Ruah
of Wisdom Sophia, you comfort us.
You are the life that flows through
all of Creation. We praise you,
You are the Holy One.

O Holy Anointing Spirit,
you heal us. You suffuse
all our wounds. Even the deepest
receive your life-giving balm.
New life comes to us inwardly
and you then gradually draw us out.

Fire of Love, your Sacred Breath
infuses us. You know us
in the marrow of our bones,
in the core of our hearts and souls.
You then instill us with the strength
and graces we most need.

Fountain of flowing Lght,
you enlighten and draw to you those who are lost. You bring strangers together.
You make possible the re-union of those who are estranged.

You who are our Holy Protector,
show us how to bring unity
in diversity without the divisions created by the need to be right. Keep us as one
and enfold us in your infinitie blessings.

O Caring One of great compassion,
free those held by dark forces from within and without..Dissolve the bonds of all those imprisoned literally or in their hearts and spirits.

O Peneterating Light and Fire,
fill the universe in the height and depth the length and breadth of your great
Wisdom and Love.

As the clouds suffuse the skies.
and wind comes streaming.
As rain falls against stone
and new and fresh water rises,
cleanse our ever greening earth
and bring your refreshing Living water, the Light and Fire of your Living Truth to our understanding and our hearts..

Emboldening Fire of Ruah, draw Your knowledge out from the hidden places within us that we may speak with courage in Holy Wisdom's ways.

We praise you as we hear you in the Universe
that praises you. Sustain us and the Universe through the power of your Holy Spirit Who infuses all Being in the fluid circulation of Your Divine Love.

From RCWP Canada and Europe West
Cloud of Witnesses
re-languaged mbc
jpeg painting "On Holy Ground"
Rose Mewhort
diaconate candidate/.Canada