17/09/2026
🟢VIRIDITAS & ARIDITAS
Today is the feast of St Hildegard of Bingen, one of my heavenly patrons and mentor.
I’m reflecting on two beautiful images from her spirituality:
🟢Viriditas — greenness, vitality, fruitfulness… the soul alive in God’s grace.
🔘Ariditas — dryness, barrenness, the withering that comes when we become disconnected from the Source of Life.
Hildegard saw this spiritual movement reflected in the struggle between virtue and vice.
🌿 Virtue nourishes life.
🌿 Vice diminishes it.
🌿 Grace restores what has become dry.
Perhaps holiness is, in part, learning to notice what is causing us to wither — and allowing Christ to bring us back to life.
What is God inviting you to cultivate today?
More patience?
More charity?
More humility?
More courage?
🌱 “O noblest green viridity, you’re rooted in the sun…”
St Hildegard of Bingen, pray for us. 🙏