I gotta be honest: running the Hildegard Collective has been nothing like me or Cecilia thought it would be.
The idea for this project came about when we were both pursuing music performance degrees in college, and we saw a real need for support for Catholic musicians working in secular spaces. In those early days, our time was filled with dreaming and planning, and we definitely viewed our ministry through rose-tinted glasses.
Since our college days, both of our lives have changed drastically. We both went on to get Master’s degrees, we’re both married now, I’ve moved 5 times in those years—including twice internationally—and Cecilia has become a mother to two beautiful children.
Somehow, life seems to feel increasingly less manageable, and figuring out priorities is really hard. I am optimistic, maybe to a fault, in believing that I can manage everything that needs my attention, and to do so well. These past few months especially, I have been putting together a house with my husband, getting into a much-needed gym routine for our health, figuring out how to cook now that we’re once again in a new country together, learning my new, wonderful job, and somehow attempting to build a social life in our new city.
Amidst all of this, we expected that the Hildegard Collective would skyrocket. We were building, what we felt, were the bridges to create an intentional, focused community of musicians, and we sacrificed a lot to bring this ministry to life. But somehow, it didn’t quite happen in the way we expected. While we’ve had periods of great traction, more often than not, our growth has been very slow and required herculean effort from us both. This has left us really asking ourselves - what are we even doing here?
We’ve felt this way before, and every time we have doubted ourselves and the realness of our mission, the Lord has provided consolations exactly when and how they’ve been needed. These consolations have left us both feeling comforted that there’s no question of IF The Hildegard Collective is needed, it’s a question of HOW we follow God’s Will for this ministry. A very big question, if I do say so myself.
A few months ago, we heard the gospel of the 5 loaves and 2 fishes, which, as a cradle Catholic, I’ve heard probably hundreds of times before. This time, however, I was struck in a completely new way.
I was reflecting on the disposition of the disciples, and putting myself in their shoes. At the beginning of the story, they make a (imo) very reasonable request for Jesus to release the crowds so that they can go get food. There were over 5,000 people in attendance, so logically, it makes way more sense for the people to go back into town, get some food in the shops there, and then return a while later for Jesus to continue teaching. But Jesus says no.
In truth, I think I probably would have pushed back in defiance a little bit. Again, I find it to be a super reasonable request, and having the disciples collect the scraps of food from the crowds so that Jesus could feed them? To me, that sounds like a humiliation ritual.
(P.S. when Jesus says “Oh ye of little faith”, I’m pretty sure He’s talking to me.)
I can just picture myself saying, “Jesus, 5 loaves and 2 fish just literally isn’t enough. How about they just go back to town and get their own food, and they can bring back some food for you to bless instead?”. And Jesus would insist. And how my little faith would be proven so wrong by His great miracle!
Sometimes, the Hildegard Collective work feels a bit like that miracle, to me. I want to wait until things make sense, until I can rationalize them, until I feel really good about them, before I offer them up to Jesus. He is so quietly and patiently insisting. Things don’t have to feel perfect, they don’t even have to feel good. “I am sufficient,” He says to me “Trust Me, and give Me your all, right now”. I want to grip and cling with all my might onto my plans and ideas and hopes and dreams, even though I know that things would be so much better if I stopped trying to control and micromanage everything, and just surrendered to Him.
This goes for the Hildegard Collective, but it also goes for everything else in my life. Surrender, surrender, surrender. Especially in those areas of my life where I want to grip the tightest, surrender even more. Without that radical surrender, miracles cannot happen.
As we’ve been encountering our own human limitations in our work with The Hildegard Collective, I feel God calling us more and more towards this radical surrender. To every frustrated cry of “What the heck are we even dong here?!”, comes Jesus’ gentle invitation “Let Me show you.”