Saint Bernard

Today is the feast of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. And at this moment in the history of the Church, we could very much use another like him.

Born in 1090 to a noble Burgundian family near Dijon, he entered the monastery at age 23.

In less than three years, he was sent by his abbot to found a new monastery in Vallée d’Absinthe on 25 June 1115. Bernard named this new monastery Clairvaux, meaning “valley of light”.

From there, Bernard spearheaded a wholesale reform of monastic life.

For thirty-eight years as abbot he nurtured this community, fought heresy and schism, preached crusade and reform, he composed hymns, and he wrote.

Oh! Did he write!

He often is considered the last of the Church Fathers, and is one of the great Doctors of the Church.

But you don’t need to listen to me. Let the Mellifluous Doctor speak for himself:

Love is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice.

I love because I love, I love that I may love.

Love is a great thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be.

For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.

The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?

Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source?

Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.

What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love, her confident assurance?

Is all this to wilt just because she cannot match stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with him who is Love?

No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists.

Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a greater love?

(From a sermon by Saint Bernard, Abbot)

Is it any wonder that Saint Bernard has been called “one of the greatest spiritual masters of all times“?

He stands also as one of the great monastic reformers of all time, for during his time as abbot, three hundred Cistercian monasteries were founded. Of these, he personally supervised the creation of sixty-five of them.

We could use another Saint Bernard right about now.

So let us commend our efforts to him, who did so much in his lifetime and continues to intercede for us at the throne of God.

O God,
who made the Abbot Saint Bernard
a man consumed with zeal for your house
and a light shining and burning in your Church,
grant, through his intercession,
that we may be on fire with the same spirit
and walk always as children of light.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.

Amen.