To celebrate the great feast of Pentecost, here is the unforgettable Spiritus Sanctus by the Benedictine abbess,  St Hildegard of Bingen - writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and polymath of the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. Click on the image above to hear the Spiritus Sanctus sung by  the Benedictine community of the Abbey of St Hildegard, an abbey founded by the saint herself. 

Spiritus sanctus vivificans

 Spiritus sanctus vivificans
vita movens omnia,
et radix est in omni creatura
ac omnia de inmunditia abluit,
tergens crimina ac ungit vulnera,
et sic est fulgens ac laudabilis vita,
suscitans et resuscitans
omnia.

​​Holy Spirit, living and life-giving

​Holy Spirit: living and life-giving,
the life that’s all things moving,
the root in all created being:
of filth and muck it washes all things clean--
out-scrubbing guilty staining, its balm our wounds constraining--
and so its life with praise is shining,
rousing and reviving
all.