St. Hildegard's Sequences to Mary - "O Salvatrix!"

St. Hildegard of Bingen - Two Sequences to Mary

Alleluia!

O branch and mediatrix,

your sacred flesh

has conquered death,

your womb all creatures

illumined

in beauty’s bloom from that exquisite purity

of your enclosèd modesty

sprung forth. (Alleluia! O virga mediatrix)

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That woman, whom God made to be the mother of the world,

had pricked her womb

with wounds of ignorance—the full inheritance of grief

she offered to her offspring.

But from your womb, O dawn, has come the sun anew;

the guilt of Eve he’s washed away

and through you offered humankind a blessing

even greater than the harm that Eve bestowed.

O Lady Savior (o salvatrix), who has offered to the human race

a new and brighter light: together join the members of your Son

into the heavens’ harmony. (O virga ac diadema, incomplete sequence)