About

For St Hildegard’s Community the spiritual life is rooted in a three-fold pattern of
contemplation, action, and community. 

Contemplation

Our community supports one another in deepening our inner lives. Intimacy with Sacred Mystery and ones own depths is transformative as the path of contemplation leads us to become more human and open to divine generosity. We are a community that listens to our dreams, commits to daily spiritual practices, and begins our worship and most gatherings with silence to center us.

Action

Called to action, we respond from our heart's deep desire to transform the world with compassion, peace, and justice. We embrace active and creative non-violence. We cherish and protect the earth as God's creation. We choose the struggle of the oppressed as our own. We embrace a lifestyle of simplicity which frees our resources for the dream of God.

Community

We share our vulnerability within the community as participation in the love of God. We seek to create community that is gentle and generous, while fostering accountability, healing, and growth. In community we come to know and share our unique gifts. Community creates opportunities to practice forgiveness and healthy boundaries as well as compassion and love.

Gathering at a recent retreat at Wild Hare Abbey. Members prepare lunch with red and yellow roses in the foreground.

The Vision for St Hildegard's was crafted in 1995 by five founding members. It enlivens us as we still grow into it.

Our Vision helps us recognize the Holy Spirit’s action in the life of the Community.  There are aspects of our vision that have remained dormant and may spring to life in the years to come. Rather than setting and pursuing goals to live the Vision in particular ways, our experience is that we are being led by the Vision and the Holy Spirit that calls us to “boldness and passion” 

Our Vision

We are a community of faith, sharing from the springs of living water we know in our own lives, and reaching out for others who thirst.  We are restless in the church that we love, longing for faithful change. We see a flowering of the Holy Spirit, drawing deeply from the lively tradition to do a new thing for a new time.  We recognize the Spirit calling us to boldness and passion. We want to follow Jesus in compassion and the liberating discipline of the Spirit.  Belonging to the larger Body of Christ, we are called to help recreate the church for the future, to be new wine in new wineskins, a church in reverent relationship to all of creation.

We will reach out to those longing for authentic community: 

  • For those seeking intimacy with God, self, and other that is gentle and generous, fostering accountability, healing and growth. 
  • For those seeking the nurture and stretching of the nephish, which encompasses both intellectual liveliness and openness to the wisdom of our bodies. 
  • For women and men seeking discipleship and maturity in faith, the deep listening for the piece of God’s dream which calls forth initiative and the releasing of unique gifts and creativity in community. 
  • For children and young people who need a community which embodies the hope-filled dream of God’s abundant creation. 

We will reach out to those who long to worship the compassionate God in beauty and in truth:

  • For those who long for liturgy that is truly a poetic work of the people. 
  • For those who seek emancipating speech about God that challenges the assumptions woven into language by the Domination System. 
  • For those seeking richness of liturgical, sacramental expression with diversity of music and arts. 
  • For those who seek contemplative worship that call forth our creativity and our questions. 
  • For those who seek to hear the word of the Gospel enriched by the understanding of science and the wisdom of other sacred traditions.

We will reach out to those who hear God’s call to be a prophetic church: 

  • To create a partnership of men and women living in hope as we work to overcome the Domination System.
  • To make peace through active and creative non-violence which will bring humanity beyond war. 
  • To cherish and protect the earth as God’s creation, exploring the implications of the  connectedness of all life. 
  • To choose the struggle of the poor and powerless as our own, knowing our own brokenness, and having compassion and seeking justice for ourselves and others.
  • To embrace a lifestyle of simplicity which frees our resources for the dream of God. 
  • To belong to a beloved community open to the outcast and the marginalized of our society.

Awaken

“We shall awaken from our dullness and arise vigorously toward justice.” 
—Hildegard of Bingen