The rule of St. Benedict for daily life, learning to listen to God with a discerning heart, I'm

Chris McGregor.

Skifius, God's living work, Episode 33.

At this point, we turn to St. Heligard of Bingen, a Benedictan Abyss teacher and doctor

of the Church. To understand St. Heligard well, it helps to remember the Benedictan formation

that shaped her life. She didn't speak from isolation or spiritual novelty. She spoke

from within a life of prayer, stability, obedience, and deep attentiveness to God.

That matters because St. Heligard's Charism can seem unfamiliar at first. Her visions

were not of an outward or merely ocular kind. They were interior visions of the heart.

The Heligard herself describes them in relation to what she calls the living light, or the

reflection or shadow of the living light. When we remember that, our way of seeing becomes

easier to discern, especially in a soul formed by the Holy Rule, recollected, reverent,

attentive, listening, and grounded in God. Her great work, Skifius, opens out a vast

vision of God's living presence in creation and in the human person. St. Heligard doesn't

begin with self. She begins with God, whose life sustains, orders, and heals all things.

And when we approach her that way, her teaching doesn't feel strange or distant. It begins

to feed the spiritual life.

From St. Heligard of Bingan, Skifius, this blazing fire that you see symbolizes the omnipotent

and living God, who in his most glorious serenity was never darkened by any iniquity, incomprehensible

because he cannot be divided by any division or known as he is by any part of any of his

creature's knowledge.

Inextinguishable because he is that fullness that no limit ever touched, holy living, for

there is nothing that is hidden from him or that he does not know, and holy life for

everything that lives takes its life from him.

St. Heligard speaks of God as living and active. He isn't distant from what he has made,

his life upholds it, fills it, and orders it. That is the vision she passes on to us.

Not a world closed in on itself, and not a human life cut off from its source, but

a creation held in God and alive because of him.

That matters because we so easily forget it. We begin to live as though life were something

we manage, secure or generate by our own effort.

Once that happens, we lose our sense of dependence on God, and things begin to fall out of

right order.

St. Heligard sees that clearly. She reminds us that our life is given by God and held in

him. That is where healing begins.

This is where her Benedictine formation matters so much, the holy rule forms a person in that

order of God. Stability is not just remaining in place. It's learning to rest in the balance

that comes from God who orders all things well.

Obedience is deep listening, attentiveness, and a ready response to his voice. Prayer teaches

the soul to stand before him in truth, and to receive life from him rather than try

to possess it.

St. Heligard's visions open this out even further. They help us see the vastness of the

God in whom all things live and move and hold together.

That is why St. Heligard can speak so often about life, fruitfulness, and what she elsewhere

calls greenness, by which she means the freshness, vitality, and living fullness that come from

God.

Sin drives the soul out. Grace restores what has withered. God's life moves toward healing.

This reaches into daily life more than we think. It matters when fear makes us tighten our

grip on everything. It matters when we begin to live mechanically without wonder or reverence

It matters when we forget that prayer is not an escape from the world, but a way of seeing

the world more truly.

St. Heligard helps recover that vision.

Christ stands at the center of all this. He is the living word, through whom all things were

made and through whom all things are restored. St. Heligard's vision is wide and luminous,

but it is not vague. It is ordered toward Christ in whom creation binds its meaning and

the human person finds healing.

So St. Heligard helps us do something important. She helps us see that the Holy Role is not

only shaping conduct. It is shaping perception. It is teaching the soul to live in reality,

to receive life as gift, and to recognize the living presence of God in all things.

This blazing fire that you see symbolizes the omnipotent and living God, who in his

most glorious serenity was never darkened by any iniquity, incomprehensible because

he cannot be divided by any division or known as he is by any part of any of his creature's

knowledge.

Inextinguishable because he is that fullness that no limit ever touched, holy living for

there is nothing that is hidden from him or that he does not know, and holy life for

everything that lives takes its life from him.

Before listening to scripture, allow your body to settle. Sit and stand comfortably,

let yourself be present without striving to understand or interpret. Remain attentive.

This posture supports receptivity rather than effort.

Now turns the letter to the Colossians, chapter 1 verse 17.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Lord Jesus Christ, you hold all things together. Restore in us the life you have given and

draw us into your living order, Amen.

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