Professor Katie Bugyis joins the Rhythms of Faith podcast to discuss her research on medieval liturgy, particularly how veiled religious women used the metaphor of the honeybee to authorize their prophetic voice. She traces her passion back to studying Hildegard of Bingen at Notre Dame, which led her to Yale's Institute of Sacred Music. Bugyis explains how Hildegard, a 12th-century polymath and Benedictine abbess, strategically commissioned saints' lives during her lifetime to secure her community's future, though her canonization dossier was famously lost en route to Rome. The conversation explores the relationship between liturgy and care, drawing on Bugyis's first book, The Care of Nuns, which examines how Benedictine women tended to body, mind, and soul through liturgical practice. Bugyis reflects on liturgical participation as a daily commitment—showing up to pray even when you don't feel like it—comparing it to the dedication required in a friendship or marriage. The episode closes with a discussion of music's power in the liturgy and a surprise answer to the hosts' signature animal question: a peregrine falcon, inspired by Bugyis's secret dream of becoming an urban falconer.
0:00 - Introduction
0:34 - Discovering Hildegard and Medieval Liturgy
2:04 - The Honeybee Metaphor
5:25 - Who Was Hildegard of Bingen?
8:05 - The Making of Saints
13:20 - Liturgy and the Care of Nuns
26:24 - Liturgical Participation
29:10 - Music, Mystery, and Falconry
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