Presentation

Don Rocco Zappia is by now well known to the press and the public for his studies, works, articles, lectures, conferences, and study groups on Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Abbess of Bingen, born at the end of the year 1000 and declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI.
Anyone unfamiliar with the works written by Saint Hildegard can hardly imagine the visual, mental, and emotional kaleidoscope into which one would fall from the very first encounter with her writings.
The author of this book, which could be titled The Living Light, after research, study, reading, and meditation on the works of the mystic Hildegard - theologian, philosopher, naturalist, and much more - moves within mystical visions, doctrines, interpretations, and actions, arranging them in a clear succession of logically ordered elements drawn with ease and fluidity from the Saint's works.
It follows that this work, which the Author describes as a "novel," is in reality a richly woven tapestry filled with well-defined lights and shadows, describing an immense and cosmic composition in which the "Living Light" expresses all its power of salvation and redemption - the foundation of hope and victorious opposition to every form of evil.
It is very difficult to move within - to understand and interiorize - the mystical and spiritual world of Hildegard of Bingen. Yet the essential and agile reading of Don Rocco Zappia's book helps and facilitates an approach to a world of the highest intellectual and spiritual level.
Through reading this work, one undergoes a true experience that will lead the struck and enraptured reader to behold the descent of "threads of light" coming from on High and from the "Living Light," offering the vision of a perfect tapestry woven from an infinity of luminous threads that lead to purification and to the reordering of one's interior life, trust, and peace.
The Author does not miss the opportunity - not only pastoral but also human and scientific - to place Hildegard of Bingen in comparison and challenge with the surrounding world of virtual intelligence and the many other technologies at the disposal of modern humanity, which nevertheless cannot go beyond a disappointing condition of life.
In this comparison and challenge, the victory of the battle the Author seeks to fight through Hildegard's "Living Light" appears not only plausible but indeed evident. It is an invitation to test and believe. The spiritual, psychological, charismatic, and human results will be received with welcome surprise and renewed confidence.
Rome, February 21, 2025

• Mons. Paolo De Nicol