“Wield the shield of faith and lovingly embrace the beautiful and resplendent righteousness of God in your heart” (St. Hildegard of Bingen).
We are familiar with the first part of this phrase from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians: “Take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one” (Eph 6:16). This applies not only to misleading information that comes to us from the outside, but also to any thought or feeling that the forces of evil seek to whisper to us from within.
Our Heavenly Father has granted us authentic faith—without cutbacks or relativizations—as a powerful weapon of defense. In view of the attacks to which the faith is exposed, what grace and what providence that the Church has been entrusted with infallible truth in dogmas! This is why it is important to take up this shield and, when necessary, accompany it with an energetic exhortation: “Vade retro, Satana!”—“Withdraw, Satan!”
In today’s passage, St. Hildegard offers a second valuable piece of advice that, while not directly related to rejecting evil, concerns cultivating an intimate interior life with God. She invites us to meditate on God’s holy justice with love, to embrace it with our hearts, and to remain ever mindful of it. We should give thanks and praise to the Lord for it and allow it to permeate us deeply as a divine grace.
Combining these two aspects is deeply beneficial. Indeed, as we deepen our interior life, we also become more capable of fighting the necessary battles with the Spirit of the Lord. This is important so that we do not rely primarily on our human strength to defend the faith, but instead act in God’s way and in His Spirit. In fact, when we must engage with those who are in error, it is important to win them over to the truth. In this sense, a living and loving relationship with the Lord leads to great fruitfulness in the apostolate.