Love abounds in all, from the depths exalted and excelling over every star…
Hildegard of Bingen
Love Abounds in All
Topic: Creativity, Culture, & the Arts
Love
abounds in all,
from the depths exalted and excelling
over every star,
and most beloved
of all,
for to the highest King the kiss of peace
she gave.
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a Benedictine abbess and mystic of medieval Germany. She was born into a noble family in Bermersheim vor der Höhe, Germany, and entered religious life at the age of eight. She received a rudimentary education, but at the age of forty-two, she began to experience a series of visions that would shape her life and work.
Hildegard described these visions as "the living light," and they were often accompanied by physical sensations such as heat, cold, and pain. She believed that these visions were a gift from God, and she felt called to share them with the world. She began to write down her visions, and she also composed music and poetry to express her spiritual insights.
Hildegard was a prolific writer, and her works cover a wide range of topics, including theology, natural science, medicine, and music. She is best known for her three volumes of visionary theology: Scivias, Liber Vitae Meritorum, and Liber Divinorum Operum. These works are rich in symbolism and imagery, and they offer a unique perspective on the nature of God, the human soul, and the world.
In addition to her writings, Hildegard was also a gifted musician and composer. She wrote over 70 songs, including the Ordo Virtutum, an early example of liturgical drama. Her music is characterized by its simple melodies and its use of plainchant.
Hildegard was a complex and multifaceted figure, and her work continues to inspire and challenge people today. She was a visionary, a mystic, a writer, a composer, a scientist, and a healer. She was also a woman of great courage and determination, and she used her gifts to make a difference in the world.
Hildegard of Bingen was a remarkable woman who left a lasting legacy. She was a pioneer in the fields of theology, natural science, and music, and her work continues to be studied and appreciated today. She was also a powerful voice for women's rights, and she challenged the patriarchal structures of her time. Hildegard of Bingen was a true visionary, and she continues to inspire us with her courage, her intellect, and her creativity.
Hildegard of Bingen. Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum. Edited and translated by Barbara Newman, 2nd ed., Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 140, 279.
Hildegard of Bingen
Theme: The Musical Arts
About This Hildegard of Bingen Quotation [Commentary]
Hildegard of Bingen’s vision of Divine Love—Caritas—is expressed in her lyrical antiphon: “Love abounds in all, from the depths exalted and excelling over every star…” This is not abstract sentiment but a declaration of love as the most vital, animating force in the universe. For Hildegard of Bingen, love does not hover far off; it dwells deeply within and rises beyond the visible cosmos. The lines go on to describe love as “most beloved of all,” and the one who gives “the highest King the kiss of peace.” These words portray love not only as universal and exalted, but also as active—offering peace, revealing divine presence.
Hildegard of Bingen’s use of music to give voice to this vision is central to her spiritual expression. Her compositions were not created for display or technical achievement, but as a form of prayer and theological witness. In Caritas Abundat in Omnia, the theme of Divine Love is not merely told, but sung. Hildegard offers love as both message and medium—her music becomes the vessel through which Divine Love reveals itself. As she wrote elsewhere, “There is the music of heaven in all things. But we have forgotten to hear it until we sing.” In this light, her musical art is inseparable from her understanding of love—it enables the soul to remember what it already contains.
The feminine figure of Caritas appears throughout Hildegard of Bingen’s visions, often alongside Divine Wisdom (Sapientia), as a personification of the creative power of God. In the opening vision of Liber Divinorum Operum, Caritas speaks as the “fiery life of the essence of divinity”—present in the sun, wind, and stars, enlivening the world with invisible life. This is not symbolic decoration but Hildegard’s way of naming reality as she saw it. Music, then, for Hildegard, is more than sound; it is a spiritual act, a form of recognition, and a way of aligning with the divine rhythm that sustains all things. Her voice, through sacred song, invites us to remember that love truly “abounds in all.”
Mary Sharratt on Hildegard von Bingen’s Quotations [Commentary]
I find her song Caritas Abundant in Omnia (Divine Love Abounds in All Things) to be particularly stirring. Hildegard conceived of Caritas, or Divine Love, as a feminine figure, an aspect of the Feminine Divine:
Themes and Theology, by Nathaniel M. Campbell [Commentary]
The connection between Divine Love (Karitas or Caritas) and the Holy Spirit is rooted in Christ’s promise of the Paraclete’s coming in the Last Supper discourse. The new commandment, to love each other as Christ has loved us (John 13:34), is followed in the very next chapter:
Like Spiritus sanctus vivificans, this antiphon shares a key thematic with O virtus Sapientie, for in Hildegard’s visionary allegories, Caritas takes her place alongside Sapientia (Divine Wisdom) as a manifestation of the eternal counsel and God’s self-manifestation into creation. She makes her most dynamic and impressive appearance in the opening vision of the Liber Divinorum Operum, where she declares herself in a jumble of different images and metaphors, moving effortlessly from one to the next, never stopping in any one place long, yet often circling back around from a new direction. In each instantiation of this panoply, she reveals herself as the creative, fiery force driving the living dynamics of all creation and its microcosm in the human being:
I am the supreme and fiery force, who sets all living sparks alight and breathes forth no mortal things, but judges them as they are. Flying around the circling circle with my upper wings, that is, with wisdom, I have ordered all things rightly. But I am also the fiery life of the essence of divinity; I flame above the beauty of the fields and I shine in the waters and I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind I rouse to life all things with some invisible life, which sustains all things.
Therefore I, the fiery force, lie hidden in these things, and they burn because of me, just as breath continually moves a human being and a flickering flame exists within the fire. All of these things live in their essences and are not found in death, because I am life. I am also reason, possessing the wind of the resounding Word, through which every created thing was made; and in all these things I blow, so that none of them might be mortal in its nature, because I am life. (…)
But I also fulfill my duty, since all living things are set ablaze from me; and I am uniform life in eternity, which has neither beginning nor ending. God is this life, working and moving itself, and yet this life is one in three forces. Therefore Eternity is called the Father, the Word is called the Son, and the breath connecting these two is called the Holy Spirit, just as God is signified in human beings, in whom are body, soul, and reason.
—Liber Divinorum Operum,
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