‘Crunchy’ saints can help us strive to live saintly, natural lives

If St. Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church and renaissance woman of the 12th century (almost 300 years before the Renaissance even happened!), were alive today she would probably be labelled as “crunchy” – one who strives to live an “all natural” lifestyle. 

With her feast day approaching on Sept. 17, her life can be a source of inspiration for those trying to live out their faith while also trying to eat clean and source food and remedies naturally.

I’ve been trying to capture the spirit of St. Hildegard this summer by exploring the making of homemade water kefir (I highly recommend the instructions found at farmhouseonboone.com). Most people are familiar with the probiotic benefits of the milk-based kefir beverage, but the water-based kefir drink, which resembles homemade soda (without the sugar!) is just as good for the body, with lots of healthy gut bacteria. Kefir, essentially jelly-like clusters of bacteria and yeast, seems like something medieval powerhouse St. Hildegard would have promoted in her book Physica, which detailed many food-related cures for illnesses and complaints of her day.

These days it seems one can’t scroll too far without some mention of sourdough, kombucha, fermentation, natural remedies and crunchy moms. I’ve always been drawn to natural ways to nourish and heal the body, though not always successful at the actual practice of it. I probably wouldn’t score too high on the crunchiness scale, but I love the idea of making things from scratch with fresh ingredients, of planting, growing and using the fruits of the earth that God has provided. 

Who doesn’t appreciate a good local farmer’s market, where vendors try to offer products that are truer to their natural state, without contamination by modern, chemical interventions? I can almost picture St. Hildegard manning a table peddling her “cookies of joy”, and giving samples of her violet wine, which she claimed cured melancholy and healed the lungs, all the while evangelizing with her eloquent explanations of creation history and the Scriptures. Oh, and one of her many soothing, liturgical musical compositions would be playing in the background, providing balm to the soul while she talked to you about spiritual and physical health. 

It’s always seemed intuitive that natural living seems a bit closer to the way God intended us to live. St. Hildegard certainly seemed to think so. The idea of clean eating is definitely Scriptural, given that we are told repeatedly by St. Paul that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19, 3:16-17, 10:31). We are called to take the time to discern and care about what we allow our bodies to process. It also seems to make sense to get our foods back to the way they were originally intended to be by God — as sources of nutrient rich nourishment for our bodies.

St. Hildegard was quite concerned with the power of food, acknowledging that some food had the ability to affect the body for good or ill. Though she had no formal education and inhabited an abbey from the young age of 8, Hildegard had a deep intuition about ways to heal with food, herbs and plants, many of which were sourced from abbey gardens. Her Physica is one of the most detailed scripts of its kind from that time period. 

The same goes for her knowledge of theology and music. The majority of St. Hildegard’s writings make up her Scivia, which is a recounting of her many theological visions. The humble saint was reluctant to share her visions with the public and only did so with the encouragement of Pope Eugene III, who also blessed her preaching in public. As her preaching became more popular, people came from all over Germany and beyond to seek her teaching, her wisdom and her healing knowledge. Even though she was well-known in her day and lived a long life to the age of 81, it wasn’t until 2012 that St. Hildegard was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI.

As I was recently extracting the juice (crunch, crunch!) from the grapes picked by my neighbour in his backyard — hello grape-flavoured water kefir and grape jelly! — I couldn’t help but wonder what St. Hildegard would think of modern efforts to get back to our earthly roots. She was certainly an important saint for her time, but maybe she’s called to be an important saint for our time, too. Her blend of wisdom on all things spiritual and physical can be fitting food for thought on our faith journeys — and adding a little crunchiness never hurts.

Lazzuri writes from her home in Nova Scotia, where she lives with her husband, four of her six children, and her mom. She can be reached at [email protected].

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