![\"Blessed](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/hermann_de_reichenau_45_01.jpg?resize=240%2C291\" "\\"Blessed")
<\/a>Blessed Hermann of Reichenau<\/p><\/div> But the child had the great fortune to be born in 1013, a much less progressive time, and into a devout family in Catholic Europe. They named him Hermann.<\/p>\n At the age of seven, his parents placed the boy, who could hardly move, into the Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau.<\/p>\n He professed his monastic vows at the age of 20 in 1033. He was bedridden, and his speech impediment made him nearly impossible to understand.<\/p>\n But here’s the thing. Hermann was a genius. He was a gifted mathematician and astronomer, who built his own astronomical equipment. Although he could barely speak, he could write.<\/p>\n \nH<\/span>e also wrote<\/em> a treatise on the science of music, several works on geometry and arithmetics and astronomical treatises (including instructions for the construction of an astrolabe, at the time a very novel device in Western Europe). <\/p>\n As a historian, he wrote a detailed chronicle from the birth of Christ to his own present day, for the first time compiling the events of the 1st millennium AD scattered in various chronicles in a single work, ordering them after the reckoning of the Christian era.<\/p>\n (Wikipedia <\/a>)\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n He built musical instruments and wrote music for them. His brother monks chanted the songs he wrote, which rose to sublime poetry.<\/p>\n In fact, Blessed Hermann of Reichenau<\/a> become the most famous religious poet of his day.<\/p>\n Many of his compositions have become enduring, including most especially Salve Regina<\/a> and Alma Redemptoris mater<\/a>, both of which entered the Liturgy through the Divine Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n He died on 24 September 1054 at the young age of 41. His feast is celebrated today.<\/p>\n So won’t you sing a Salve Regina<\/i> to the memory of Blessed Hermann, and ask for his intercession for all the unborn children suffering from birth defects?<\/p>\n
\nW<\/span>hat kind of life could the child possibly look forward to? He was born with a cleft palate, cerebral palsy, and spina bifida. In these progressive days, the child very well might have been aborted<\/a> after the doctor showed the mother her first detailed fetal ultrasound.<\/p>\n