Dear Friends of the Kolbe Center,
Glory to Jesus Christ!
Many of St. Hildegard’s private revelations concern Creation and the Fall. In visions she was shown the fiat creation of all things exactly as Moses had described it in the book of Genesis:
By His word God commanded that the waters bring forth reptiles and birds with a living soul, like blossoms that sprout from the branches of trees. In the beginning God created the creatures, then He let them come forth from others. For He foresaw what would be necessary for survival for the entire order of creation . . . God created only two of each species of creatures, one male and one female, which were already fertile in seed and later became scattered and reproduced across the earth. Of the trees and herbs He didn't make two of each species, but several of a kind across the entire earth.
According to St. Hildegard’s visions, as in the Mosaic account in Genesis, fiat creation of the various creatures culminated with the creation of Adam and Eve as the king and queen of the universe.
Man as a Microcosm of the Universe
When God created Adam, divine radiance surrounded the clay substance of which he was formed. That way this lump of clay appeared on the outside as an outline of its parts, after its shape had been given to it, but inside it was hollow. Then, from the same mass of clay God created inside of the figure the heart, the liver, the lung, the stomach, the intestines, and the brain, as well as the eyes and the tongue together with all the remaining organs . . . When he awoke afterward he was a prophet of heavenly things, knowledgeable of all powers of the creature and of all arts . . . God gave over to him all creatures, that he might make them his own by his manly power because he knew of them and about them. For man represents all creatures, and the breath of life, which never ceases to live, is in him.
St. Hildegard’s vision of the creation of Eve confirmed the literal historical truth of the Mosaic account and testified to the distinct roles of man and woman from the beginning of creation:
After God had created Adam, Adam experienced a strong sense of love, when God sent sleep over him. And God created a figure to love for the man out of his rib, and so the woman is the love of man. As soon as the woman was shaped, God gave man the procreative instinct, so that through his love for the woman he would father sons. For when Adam saw Eve, he was completely filled with wisdom, because he saw in front of him the mother through whom he was to father sons. But when Eve saw Adam, she saw him as if she was seeing heaven, and as the soul lifts up desiring the heavenly, for her hope was resting in man. So also only mutual love and no other shall and may be between man and woman.
Like Moses, St. Hildegard was shown that the work of creation was finished with the creation of Adam and Eve, thus making it impossible for natural scientists to explain the origins of man and the universe in terms of the same natural processes that are going on now. She writes:
The completion of the six different workdays, as described [above] is called the seventh day, since God had brought to completion all that He had prearranged for creation. And so He rested on the seventh day and stopped His work, because He had finished His work in every way. God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, since on it He refrained from every one of His works that He had planned. God blessed the seventh day with glory and sanctified it with the honor of a holy day, for in it lives all of creation which was created in well-rounded abundance . . .Therefore all hosts of angels and all hidden mysteries of divinity were praising their God for the completion of the work of God, for with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit He had completed all His work.
The glory of the first created world shown to St. Hildegard in her visions contrasted violently with the darkness that covered the world after the Original Sin. She wrote that after Adam's fall:
the elements were covered in complete darkness; while this lasted Adam was sent into exile. When he then saw the light of this world, he rejoiced, for he himself belonged to darkness, and in tears he said: I will have to live differently now, than God had bestowed upon me before! So he then began to work in sweat. Previously – before Adam and Eve had transgressed against the divine commandment, they had been shining with splendor like the sun and that light formed their clothing. After the transgression against the divine commandment they were no longer shining like they had been before, but had become dark and have remained in this darkness. When they saw that they were no longer shining in that way, they noticed that they were naked and covered themselves with leaves of a tree, as it is written.
Since man rose up against God, creation which used to be submitted to him, now resisted him. And so all the elements, that had been resting in equilibrium up to then, rose up and became a terrible sight: Creation, which had been created to serve man, had felt no resistance whatsoever; but when man arrogantly fell into disobedience and refused to obey God, it [creation] too lost its equilibrium and fell into unrest. It has brought mankind many and great disadvantages . . .
How perfectly the visions of this Doctor of the Church agree with God’s revelation to Moses! And how completely they contradict the evolutionary mythology that passes for a scientific account of the origins of man and the universe in so many Catholic universities today! In our next newsletter, we will consider how God’s Genesis revelation and the private revelations He has given to the mystical doctors and saints about Creation and the Fall underscore the importance of the Church’s teaching on modesty.
Through the prayers of the Mother of God, may the Holy Ghost lead us all into all the Truth!
In Domino,
Hugh Owen
P.S. I will be giving a talk on “The Errors of Evolution” at the FSSP parish in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on December 9. If anyone in the state of Washington or Idaho, would be willing and able to organize a venue shortly before or after that, I would be happy to oblige. (California might be a possibility, too, if someone could organize a venue there.)
