HF&HF Excerpt

“We see that the food metaphors in which Hadewijch speaks of her mystical craving express her confidence that we experience God through all our senses. Our knowing is a tasting, a swelling, a being full, a flowing out that engages all our humanity. Such metaphors also express her conviction that the sweetness of God’s coming is infinite pain, even madness, for however much we taste, we crave more. The fuller our desire, the hungrier our soul. And, finally, such metaphors of bodily encounter - conjuring up as they do teeth and mouths, bowels and breasts, flesh chewed and swallowed and made into new flesh - reveal how much, to Hadewijch, the God who is the infinite abyss beyond all language and metaphor is also fleshly humanity - a humanity that suffers and feeds.”

- Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women