Newsgroups: bit.listserv.christia
Date:         Thu, 20 Aug 1992 17:12:38 EDT
From:         JEK@NIHCU.BITNET
Subject:      Bernard of Clairvaux (20 August)
X-To:         CHRISTIA@ASUACAD.BITNET, BSTUDY-L@UTARLVM1.BITNET,
              IVCF-L@UBVM.BITNET

BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX, ABBOT (20 AUGUST 1153)

     Bernard, third son of a Burgundian nobleman, was born in 1090.
His brothers were trained as soldiers, but Bernard from youth was
destined for scholarship.  One Christmas Eve as a child he had a
dream about the infant Christ in the manger, and the memory of it,
and consequent devotion to the mystery of the Word made flesh,
remained with him throughout his life.
     Bernard had good prospects of success as a secular scholar, but
he began to believe that he was called to the monastic life, and
after a period of prayer for guidance, he decided at age 22 to enter
the monastery of Citeaux, an offshoot of the Benedictines which had
adopted a much stricter rule than theirs, and became the founding
house of the Cistercian (Trappist) order.  He persuaded four of his
brothers, one uncle, and 26 other men to join him.  They were the
first novices that Citeaux had had for several years. After three
years, the abbot ordered Bernard to take twelve monks and found a
new house at La Ferte. The first year was one of great hardship.
They had no stores and lived shiefly on roots and barley bread.
Bernard imposed such severe discipline that his monks became
discouraged, but he realized his error and became more lenient. The
reputation of the monastery, known as Clairvaux, spread across
Europe. Many new monks joined it, and many persons wrote letters or
came in person to seek spiritual advice.  By the time of his death,
60 new monasteries of the Cistercian order were established under
his direction.

     For four years after 1130 Bernard was deeply involved with a
disputed papal election, championing the claims of Innocent II
against his rival Anacletus II. He travelled throughout France,
Germany, and Italy mustering support for his candidate (and, it
should added, preaching sermons denouncing injustices done to Jews),
and returned from one of these journeys with Peter Bernard of
Paganelli as a postulant for the monastery. The future Pope Eugenius
III spent the next year stoking the monastery fires.  Years later,
Bernard wrote a major treatise of advice to Eugenius on the
spiritual temptations of spiritual power.
     The papal election was not the only dispute in which Bernard
became involved. He was the implacable enemy of Peter Abelard, one
of the most brilliant theologians of the day. Bernard believed that
Abelard was too rationalistic in his approach, and failed to allow
sufficiently for the element of mystery in the faith. When Abelard
rejected some of the ways of stating Christian doctrines to which
Bernard was accustomed, Bernard concluded, perhaps too hastily, that
this was equivalent to rejecting the doctrine itself.
     Bernard was one of the chief preachers of the Second Crusade,
and when that venture ended in disaster, he was largely blamed for
it.
     In 1153, Bernard journeyed to reconcile the warring provinces
Metz and Lorraine. He persuaded them to peace and to an agreement
drawn up under his mediation, and then, in failing health, returned
home to die.

     If Bernard in controversy was fierce and not always fair, it
partly because he was a man of intense feeling and dedication, quick
to respond to any real or supposed threat to what he held sacred. It
is his devotional writings, not his polemical ones, that are still
read today. Among the hymns attributed to him are the Latin
originals of "O Sacred Head, sore wounded," "Jesus, the very thought
of Thee," "O Jesus, joy of loving hearts," "Wide open are Thy hands
(to pay with more than gold the awful debt of guilt and sin, forever
and of old)," and "O Jesus, King most wonderful." His sermons on the
Song of Songs, treated as an allegory of the love of Christ, are his
best-known long work.

PRAYER
   O God, by whose grace thy servant Bernard of Clairvaux,
   enkindled with the fire of thy love, became a burning and a
   shining light in thy Church: Grant that we also may be aflame
   with the spirit of love and discipline, and may ever walk
   before thee as children of light; through Jesus Christ our Lord,
   who with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, liveth and
   reigneth, one God, now and for ever.
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