On the happiest and most peaceful day of my life, I went up and down the Rhine valley in a little car driven by a seminarian friend. Our northernmost destination was a Benedictine abbey from which my friend wished to buy wine. Only when we approached did I realize that this was the Abbey of St. Hildegard von Bingen. We visited the remains of St. Hildegard herself in a little town nearby.
It was a truly beautiful day. We had a hot bright blue sky as we passed the steep vineyards, and then a powerful rainstorm as we crossed the Rhine on the ferry. The rain pelted down as we climbed to Anbingen and then the Abbey, but the reconstructed convent was just as beautiful by rain as it would have been in the sun. We tasted the wine, chatted with a Sister and browsed the giftshop. Later we sat in the shelter of the information room while we waited for Vespers.
Afterwards, we made our way back down the valley, stopping in now this, now that ancient town. We drank Rhine wine with the new pastor of a perfectly preserved because utterly isolated fourteenth-century village church. We stopped at a desanctified Cistercian monastery and marvelled at the tiny frogs in the damp, darkening grounds. I listened to my friend sing the "Ode to Joy" with his tape of the German Reunification performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. As he sang, the lights of Frankfurt appeared before us.
My friend will be ordained to the priesthood on the 10th of May in Germany. Whatever happens, I want to be there.
