Commontide
Ecumenical Commemoration
Abbot
August 20 · d. 1153
also known as Bernard of Fontaine, Bernardus Claravallensis, Doctor Mellifluus
Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153) was the most powerful churchman of his age, and its greatest teacher of the love of God. Before his call to monasticism, Bernard was a young Burgundian nobleman. A natural leader, when he took monastic vows thirty companions followed him into the austere new order of Cîteaux. He built the abbey of Clairvaux into the burning center of the Cistercian renewal. His sermons on the Song of Songs and his book On Loving God shaped Christian spirituality for centuries; he advised popes, and rebuked kings, and was named a Doctor of the Church.
Bernard was born about 1090 into a noble family near Dijon, in Burgundy, France. At twenty-two he chose the hardest road open to him, the new and austere reform monastery of Cîteaux, where the monks had stripped the comfortable life of the great abbeys down to silence, labor, and prayer. His personality held such force and charm that when he resolved to give his life to God he would not go alone. He talked his brothers into coming, and an uncle, and his friends, until some thirty men of Burgundy walked into Cîteaux behind him. He was the kind of man others naturally followed.
Three years later his abbot sent the young monk out to found a daughter house in a wild valley, and Bernard built there the abbey of Clairvaux and led it for the rest of his life. Under his guidance it became the burning heart of a movement of renewed learning, passion, and monastic fidelity. The renewal became an alluring anchor. Men poured in to take the Cistercian habit, and Clairvaux sent them out again to found house after house. By Bernard's death the order he had joined as one of only a handful had spread into hundreds of monasteries across Europe. He had set out to let go of earthly wealth and disappear into silence. Instead he became a commanding figure in a movement that reformed the monastic life across Europe.
For all his labors and deep work ethic, Bernard's deepest and most beloved work was about love, and particularly resting in and enjoying God's love. In sermon after sermon on the Song of Songs, and in his small book On Loving God, he taught that the soul is made to love God and is restless until it does, that love is the one response to God that is its own reward, and that there can be no measuring it, and it's full of a joy that this world cannot explain or assail. The measure of loving God is to love him without measure, he wrote. He spoke of the soul and Christ as a bride and her bridegroom, of a love that begins in fear and self-interest and is purified until at last the soul loves and enjoys God for God alone in purity. His prose was so sweet and his works so treasured that the church named him the honeyed doctor, Doctor Mellifluus.
He could not stay in his cloister, much as he wanted to; the age would not leave him alone. He helped to heal a papal schism, counseled popes, rebuked kings, and brought his formidable mind against the brilliant Peter Abelard. Abelard championed reason's certainty to solve spiritual mysteries. Bernard feared that in Peter's attempts to over explain certain mysteries, Abelard was subtly altering the faith he meant to defend. Bernard preferred a humble acceptance of mysteries like the Trinity, Christ's Divine & human nature, grace and free-will. For him reason must operate under not over revelation. His posture and influence carried the day with the Church eventually censuring many of Abelard's propositions.
Bernard's words could and would quite literally move Europe. That gift, from our perspective 1,000 years later, also yielded his great failure. At Pope Eugene III's urging Bernard preached, and infamously helped to launch the Second Crusade across France and Germany. His storied preaching raised armies; and the crusade ended in ruin and slaughter. Bernard was left to face the Middle -Eastern disaster his own eloquence had helped make possible. He accepted the reproach directed at him, preferring that men blame him rather than God, although he continued to defend the crusade’s divine warrant and attributed its defeat to human sin and the mystery of God’s judgment.
He died at Clairvaux in 1153, worn out by a life of fasting and labor and the endless business of the church. He was recognized as a saint within twenty years. The crusade he preached to launch yielded historic wounds that have echoed down through the ages. The schisms he helped salve are largely forgotten, but the thing he most mellifluously taught has never stopped resonating with God's people. He told a hard, ambitious, violent age that the soul was made for one thing only, to love God without measure and to be loved by him. Now almost a millennium of Jesus' followers have gone to his sermons to learn how.
Bernard is among the best-documented figures of the Middle Ages, by his own enormous output and by friends who set out to record his life. His writings fill volumes: the eighty-six sermons on the Song of Songs, the treatises On Loving God, On the Steps of Humility and Pride, On Grace and Free Choice, and On Consideration, and some five hundred letters; the chief works are gathered in English in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected WorksOn Loving God, On the Song of Songs, and other writings — G. R. Evans, in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (Classics of Western Spirituality). A Life was begun in his own lifetime by his friend William of Saint-Thierry and continued for his canonization. He was born about 1090 at Fontaine, near Dijon, entered Cîteaux around 1112 with a band of companions, and in 1115 founded Clairvaux, which he governed as abbot until his death.
His public role was extraordinary for a monk. He took the side of Innocent II in the papal schism of 1130 and did much to settle it; he opposed the rationalizing theology of Peter Abelard at the Council of Sens in 1141; and at the request of Pope Eugenius III, who had been his own monk at Clairvaux, he preached the Second Crusade in 1146 and 1147, whose failure weighed on him to the end. He died on 20 August 1153, was canonized in 1174, and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1830. His theology is affective and monastic, centered on the love of God and the soul's ascent through the degrees of love; the well-loved hymns Jesu, dulcis memoria and the Latin original of O Sacred Head, Now Wounded have long been ascribed to him, though some scholars doubt direct attribution they are certainly steeped in the spirit of Bernard's deep theology.
Bernard is commemorated on 20 August, the day of his death, across the Western calendars; his liturgical color is white. He is honored as abbot and Doctor of the Church, the last of the Fathers in the old reckoning, and is patron of the Cistercian order, of beekeepers and chandlers (a play on his title, the honey-sweet doctor), and of Burgundy and Gibraltar.
His monument is twofold. The Cistercian order he did so much to spread, the white monks, carried his reform and his spirituality across medieval Europe and endures still in its Trappist and other branches. And his writings became a permanent part of the church's devotion: Dante set him in the Paradiso as the soul who leads the pilgrim to the final vision and prays to the Virgin on his behalf, a measure of how completely later Christendom received Bernard as a master of the love of God.
In art Bernard appears in the white Cistercian habit, often with a book or a pen for his writings, sometimes with a beehive for the sweetness of his eloquence, and in scenes of his tender devotion to the Virgin and to the crucified Christ. He is the very type of the contemplative who was also a man of action, drawn out of the silence he loved to serve a church that would not let him go.
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On Loving God, On the Song of Songs, and other writings(Latin, c. 1125-1153)
Recommended: G. R. Evans, in Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (Classics of Western Spirituality)
The single best way into Bernard, Evans's translation gathers On Loving God and the key treatises with selected sermons in one in-print volume; On Loving God itself is freely readable at CCEL.
Public domain: On Loving God (CCEL)
Further reading. The chief works in one accessible volume are in G. R. Evans's translation, Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (Classics of Western Spirituality), listed above; the complete Sermons on the Song of Songs are published in four volumes by Cistercian Publications. For a life and a study of his thought, G. R. Evans's Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford University Press, 2000) is the standard modern guide.
Online resources. Bernard's On Loving God is freely readable in full at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
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Bernard is said of ber, that is, a pit or well, and nardus, which, as the gloss says upon Cantica, is an humble herb and of hot nature and well smelling. He was hot inburning love, humble in conversation, a well in flowing doctrine, a pit in deepness of science, and well smelling in sweetness of fame. His life has written Abbot William of S. Theodoric, and the fellow of S. Bernard, and Hernaldus the abbot of Bonevalle. S. Bernard was born in Burgundy in the castle of Fontaine of noble lineage and much religious. Whose father hight Celestin, and was a noble knight in the world and much religious to God. And his mother was named Aleth. She had seven children, six males and one female. The men children she nourished all for to be monks, and the daughter for to be a nun. And anon, as she had a child she offered it to God with her own hands. She would refuse strange breasts, for like as she fed them with her motherly milk, so fed she them with nature of goodness.And as long as they grew and were under her hand she nourished them more for desert than for the court. For she fed them with more common and grosser meats, like as she would have sent them right forth into desert. And as she bare the third son, which was Bernard, in her belly, she saw in her sleep a dream which was a demonstrance of things to come. Her seemed that she had in her belly a whelp, all white and red upon the back, barking in her belly. And when she had told her dream to a holy man, he answered to her, prophesying: You are mother of a right noble whelp, which shall be a warden of the house of God, and shall give great barkings against the enemies. For he shall be a noble preacher, and shall guerish much people by the grace of his tongue.
And as Bernard was yet a little child he was sick of the headache, and there came a woman to him for to charm him, and thereby to assuage the grievous ache of his head, but he put her from him, crying by right great indignation, and the mercy of God failed not to his infancy in good love, for he arose and felt that he was delivered hereof. In the blessed night of the nativity of our Lord, when the child Bernard abode in the church the office of matins, and coveted to know what hour Jesu Christ was born, the child Jesus appeared to him as he had been born again out of his mother's belly, wherefore, as long as he lived, he supposed that hour to be the hour of the nativity of our Lord. And ever after as long as he lived was given to him in that hour more perfect wit, and speech more abundant in such things as appertain to the sacrament. And after that he made a noble work, among all his other works, of the laud and praising of God and his blessed mother. In the which work he expounded the lesson evangelic, how the angel Gabriel was sent to the Virgin Mary. And when the ancient enemy saw the purpose of the child full of health he bent against him many gins of temptation. And on a time when he had holden his eyes and fixed them upon a woman, he had anon shame in himself and was a cruel venger of himself. For he leapt anon into a pond full of water, and frozen, and was therein so long that almost he was frozen. And by the grace of God he was cooled from the heat of carnal concupiscence.
About that time, by the instigation of the devil, a maid laid her in his bed by him all naked there where he slept, and when he felt her, he let her lie in that side of the bed she had taken, and turned him to that other side and slept. And she tarried a space of time, and felt him and kittled him, and would have drawn him to her intent. And at the last, when she felt him immoveable, though she were unshamefaced, yet she was ashamed, and all confused, arose and went her way. Another time as he was harboured in the house of a lady, she considered the beauty of this young man and was greatly achauffed and strongly desired his company. And then she ordained a bed out from the others. And in the night she arose without shame and came secretly to him. And when he felt her he cried: Thieves! thieves! And she fled, and lighted a candle herself and sought the thief, and none was found, and then each man went to his bed again. But this unhappy woman rested not, but arose again and went to the bed of Bernard, as she did tofore, and he cried: Thieves! thieves ! And the thief was sought but was not found, ne published of him that knew her well. And yet was she chased the third time, and then with great pain she ceased what for dread and despair. And on the morn as they went by the way, his fellows reproved him of that he had so dreamed of thieves, and enquired of him what it was. And he answered: Verily, I have suffered this night the assailings of a thief, for mine hostess enforced to take away from me treasure not recoverable. And then he bethought himself that it was not sure thing to dwell with the serpent, and thought for to flee it. And then he ordained him to enter into the order of Cistercians. And when his brethren knew it they would have taken him from that purpose, and our Lord gave to him so great grace that they might not turn him from his conversion, but he brought all his brethren and many others to religion.
Nevertheless, Gerard, his brother, a noble knight, supposed always that they were vain words and refused always his monestements and treachings. And then bernard, burning in the faith and in the spirit of brotherly love of charity, said: My brother, I know well that one sharp travail shall give understanding to your ears. And after that he put his finger on his side, and said to him: One day shall come, and that soon, that a spear shall pierce your side, and shall make way to your heart, for to take the counsel that you now refuse. And a short time after Gerard was taken of his enemies, and was hurt on the side in the place where his brother had set his finger, and was put in prison fast bounden. And then came to him Bernard, and they would not suffer him to speak to him. And he cried on high: Gerard, brother, know you that we shall go shortly and enter into the monastery. And that same night the bonds of Gerard brake and fell off, and the door opened by himself, and he fled out, and said to his brother that he had changed his purpose and would be a monk. And this was in the year of the incarnation of our Lord eleven hundred and twelve, in the fifteenth year of the order of Citeaux. The servant of God, Bernard, at the age of twenty-two years entered into the order of Citeaux with more than thirty fellows. And as Bernard issued with his brethren out of his father's house, Guy, that was the eldest, saw Nivard, his younger brother, which was a little child and played with the children, and said to him: Nivard, brother, all the possession of our heritage shall appertain to you. And the child answered not as a child, and said: You shall then have heaven, and leave to me only the earth, this part is not evenly ne righteously divided. And after, the child abode a little while with his father, but afterward he followed his brethren.
When the servant of God, Bernard, was entered in to the order, he was so esprised and in all things occupied in God that he used no bodily wits. He had been a year in the cell of novices, and yet he knew not whether there were any windows in the house or no, and oft-times he had entered and gone out of the church whereas in the head were three windows, and he supposed there had been but one. And the abbot of Citeaux sent of his brethren for to edify the house of Clerevaux, and made Bernard there abbot, which was there long in great poverty, which oft made his pottage with leaves of holm. And the servant of God waked over man's power, and said that he lost no time but when he slept, and said that the comparison of sleep and of death were like semblable, so they that sleep be like as death were with men, and like as dead men be seen sleeping to God. He was unnethe drawn to any meat for delight of appetite, but only for dread of failing, and he went to take his meat like as he should have gone to a torment. And he was always accustomed, when he had eaten, to weet if he had eaten too much or more than he was accustomed, and if he had so done he would punish himself so that he refrained his mouth, that he lost a great part of the savour and tasting of his meat. For sometimes he drank oil when it was given him by error instead of drink. He said that the water was good alone and refreshed him well, and he perceived not that he drank oil, but when his lips were anointed some told him thereof. And some time and other while he ate the fat of raw flesh instead of butter. He said that all that he had learned of holy scripture he had learned it in woods, in fields, most by meditation and praying, and confessed that he had none other masters but oaks and holm-trees, this confessed he among his friends. At the last he confessed that sometime, when he was in meditation or praying, him thought that all holy scriptures appeared to him expounded. On a time, as he rehearses in Canticis, that he would put among the words such as the Holy Ghost counselled him, and whiles he made that treatise he would think, of good courage, what he should do when that were made. And then a voice came to him, saying: Till you have accomplished this work you shall do none other. He had never pleasure in clothing; he said that filths were in demonstrance of negligence, and outrageous clothing was folly, a man but glorifying himself in respect of outward vain glory. He had in his heart always this proverb, and oft said it: Who does that no other man cloth, all men wonder on him. He ware many years the hair, and as long as he might hide it he ware it. And when he saw that it was known, he left it anon and took him to common vesture. He laughed never but if he made greater force to laugh than to refrain him. He was wont to say that the manner of patience was in three manners, of injuries of words, of damage of things, and of misdoing of the body. On a time he wrote a letter to a bishop, friendly, and admonished him amiably, and he was much wroth, and wrote to him a letter saying thus at the beginning: Greeting to you that have the spirit of blasphemy. To whom he answered: I suppose not to have the spirit of blasphemy, ne have said evil to any man, but only to the prince the devil. An abbot sent to him six hundred marks of silver for to make a convent, but all the money was robbed by thieves by the way. And when S. Bernard heard thereof he said none other thing but: Blessed be God that has spared me from this charge. A canon regular came to him and prayed him much that he Bernard would receive him to be a monk, and he would not accord it to him, but counselled him to return to his church. He said to him: Why have you so much in your books praised perfection if you will not show it, and deliver it to him that covets it? If I had your books I would all torend them. And Bernard said to him: You have not read in any of them but that you might be perfect in your cloister; I praise in all my books the correction of manners and not the mutation of places. And the canon being all araged leapt to him and smote him on the cheek, that it was red and swollen. And they that were by arose against this cursed man for to have smitten this cursed man, but Bernard came between, crying and conjuring by the name of Jesu Christ that they should not touch him, ne do him none harm. He had a custom to say to the novices that would enter into religion: Leave there without your body, you that will enter into religion, leave the body without that you have taken from the world, and join you to them that be here within, let the spirit enter only, for the flesh profits no thing.
S. Bernard's father went into the monastery and dwelled there a certain time, and after died in good age. The sister was married in to the world, and on a time she arrayed and apparelled her in riches and delights of the world, and went into the monastery for to visit her brethren in a proud estate and great apparel. And he dreaded her as she had been the devil, or his net for to take souls, ne would not go out for to see her. And when she saw that none of her brethren came against her, one of her brethren, that was porter, said to her that she was a foul ordure stinking, wraped in gay array. And then she melted all in tears, and said: If I be a sinner, God died for sinners, and because I am a sinful woman I come to ask counsel of them that be good. If my brother despise my flesh, he that is servant of God ought not to despise my soul; let my brother come, and what he shall command me I shall do. And she held that promise. And he came with his brethren, and because she might not depart from her husband, he taught her to despise the glory of the world, and showed to her how she should ensiew the steps of her mother. And then when she came home again she was so sore changed, that in the middle of the world she led the life of a hermit, and all estranged from the world. In the end she vanquished her husband by prayers, and was assoilled by the bishop of her vow and entered into a monastery.
On a time S. Bernard was sore sick, so that him seemed he should give up his spirit, and was at his end as him seemed in a trance, and him thought that he was tofore God in judgment and there was the devil on that other side, which put on him many accusations and reproaches, and when he had all said, Bernard said without fear, dread, or wrath: I confess me that I am not worthy to have the kingdom of heaven by mine own merits, but our Lord which holds me by double right as his heritage and by the merits of his passion. By that one he is content, and that other he gives to me, by which gift I ought not to be confounded, but it appertains to me by right. And thus he was confused and the vision failed, and the man of God came to himself and destrained his body by so great travail of fastings and wakings, that he languished in continual malady, that he might not follow the convent but with pain.
On a time he was so grievously sick that all the brethren prayed for him, so that he felt him a little alleged and eased of his pain. Then he did do assemble all his brethren, and said: Wherefore hold you so wretched a man? You be stronger and have vanquished, I pray you, spare me and let me go. This holy man was elect of many cities for to be a bishop, specially of the city of Milan, and refused it not follily, ne granted thereto, but said to them that required that he was not his own, but deputed to other. And by the counsel of this holy man, the brethren so provided by the authority of the pope, that none might take him from them which was their joy to have him.
On a time when he visited the order of Charterhouse, and when the brethren were well edified by him, one thing there was that moved a little the prior of the place, and that was, the saddle that S. Bernard rode on was over precious and showed little poverty of the brethren, and the prior told it to one of the brethren. And the brother said it to S. Bernard, and he marvelled and asked what saddle it was, and sent for it. For he knew not what saddle it was, how well he had ridden upon it from Clerevaux to the Charterhouse. He went all a long day by the lake of Lausanne and saw not the lake ne took heed of it, and at even as his fellows spake of that lake, he demanded where was that lake. And when they heard that, they marvelled strongly, for certainly the humbleness of his heart vanquished in him the height of name. For the world could never enhance him so high, but be alone humbled himself the more; he was reputed sovereign of all, and he accounted himself Ieast and most low. And at the last he confessed that when he was among his sovereign honours and favours ot the people, him seemed that there was another man changed in him, or as he had been in a dream. And there where he was among the most simple brethren he used most amiable humility, there he joyed, there found he himself, and that he was returned in to his own person. He was always found tofore the hours, or reading, or writing, or in meditation, or in edifying his brethren by word. On a time as he preached to the people, and that they all understood devoutly his words, such a temptation arose in his heart: Verily, now preachest thou well, now are you well heard of the people, and are reputed wise of them all. And the holy man feeling him to be put in this temptation, rested and tarried a while, and thought whether he might say more or make an end. And anon he was comforted by divine aid, and answered softly to him that tempted him: I neither began by you, ne shall I end by you; and so performed surely all his sermon.
A monk that had been a ribald in the world and a player, tempted by a wicked spirit, would return again to the world. And as S. Bernard retained him, he demanded him whereof he should live. And he answered to him that he could well play at the dice, and should well live thereby. And S. Bernard said to him: If I deliver to you any good, will you come again every year that I may part half gain with you ? And he had great joy thereof, and promised him so to do. And then S. Bernard said that there should be delivered to him twenty shillings, and he went withal. And this holy man did this for to draw him again to the religion, as he did after. And he went forth, and lost all, and came again all confused tofore the gate. And when S. Bernard knew him there, he went to him joyously and opened his lap for to part the gain. And he said: Father, I have won nothing, but have lost your chattel; receive me, if it please you, to be your chattel. And S. Bernard answered to him sweetly: If it be so, it is better that I receive you, than lose both you and that other.
On a time S. Bernard rode upon an horse by the way, and met a villein by the way, which said to him that he had not his heart firm and stable in praying. And the villein or uplandish man had great despite thereof, and said that he had his heart firm and stable in all his prayers. And S. Bernard, which would vanquish him and shew his folly, said to him: Depart a little from me, and begin your paternoster in the best entent you can. And if you can finish it without thinking on any other thing, without doubt I shall give to you the horse that I am on. And you shall promise to me by your faith that if you think on any other thing you shall not hide it from me. And the man was glad and reputed the horse his, and granted it him, and went apart and began his paternoster. And he had not said the half when he remembered if he should have the saddle withal. And therewith he returned to S. Bernard and said that he had thought in praying, and after that he had no more will to advance him.
There was monk of his named brother Robert, nigh to himself as to the world, had been deceived in his childhood by the enticement of some persons, and was sent to the abbey of Cluny, and the honourable man left him awhile there. And he would call him again by letters; and as he indited the letter by clear day, and another monk wrote it, a rain came suddenly upon them. And he that wrote would have hid the parchment from the rain, and S. Bernard said: This work is the work of God, write on hardily and doubt you nothing. And then he wrote the letter in the midst of the rain without being wet, and yet it rained all about them; for the virtue of charity took away the moisture of the rain from them.
A great multitude of flies had taken a church that he had do make, so that they did much harm to all them that came thither. And he said: I curse and excommunicate them, and on the morn they were found all dead. He was on a time sent from the pope to Milan for to reconcile the church, and when he had so done and was returned, a man of Milan brought to him his wife which was demoniac. And anon the devil began to missay him through the mouth of the wretched woman, and said: You eater of porret, ween you to take me out of mine house? Nay, you shall not! And the holy man, S. Bernard, sent him to S. Syrus in his church, and the said S. Syrus gave the honour to his host and healed her not, and thus was she brought again to S. Bernard. And then the devil began to cry, and said: Neither Syrus ne Bernard shall put me out. And S. Bernard said: Syrus ne Bernard shall not put you out, but our Lord shall put you out. And as soon as he made his prayer the wicked spirit said: Ha ! ha! how gladly would I issue from hence, for I am here tormented grievously. But I may not, for the great Lord wills it not. And the holy man said: Who is that Lord? and he said, Jesus of Nazareth. And S. Bernard said: Sawest thou him ever? And he answered: Yea. S. Bernard said: Where sawest thou him? And he said: In his glory. And S. Bernard asked him: And were you in glory? And he said: Yea. How wentest thou from thence? And he said: With Lucifer many of us fell. All these he said by the mouth of the woman, that every man heard. Then said to him the holy man: Would not you go again into that glory? And he said, mowing marvellously: It is too late. Then the holy man prayed, and the wicked spirit issued out of that woman, but when the man of God was departed thence, the wicked spirit entered again. And her husband came after the holy man and told him what was happed. And he made to bind a writing about her neck containing these words: I command you in the name of our Lord Jesu Christ that you be not so hardy to touch more this woman, and he durst never after touch her.
There was a piteous woman in Guienne, which was vexed with a devil that dwelled in her and vexed her marvellously six years during, in using her to his lechery. And the holy man, S. Bernard, came in to the parts. And the devil menaced her, if she went to him that it should not profit her. And if she went, he that was her love should be to her a cruel persecutor. But she went surely to the holy man, and told to him, weeping strongly, what she suffered. And he said: Take this staff which is mine, and lay it in your bed, and if he may do anything let him do it, and she did so and laid it in her bed. And he came anon, but he durst not go to his work accustomed, ne presumed to approach her bed, but he threatened her right eagerly that, when he was gone, he would avenge
him right cruelly on her. And when she had said this to Bernard, he assembled the people that every each should hold a candle burning in his hand, and came to this devil, and with all them that were there he cursed him and excommunicated him, and defended that never after he should so do to her ne to none other. And thus was she all delivered of that illusion. And when on a time as this holy man went as a legate in to that province
for to reconcile the duke of Guienne to the church, and he refused to be reconciled in all manners, the holy man went to the altar for to sing mass, and the duke abode without the church as excommunicate. And when he had said Pax domini, he laid the body of our Lord upon the paten, and bare it without the church, and went out with a face flaming and burning, and assailed the duke by fearful words, saying: We have prayed you and
you have despised us, lo! here is the son of the Virgin which is come to you, which is Lord of the church whom you persecute. This is your judge, in the name of whom all knees bow, in the hands of whom your soul shall come, despise him not as you have his servants, resist him if you may. Then anon the duke waxed all stiff and was impotent in all his members, and then he fell down at his feet. And the holy man put his foot at him, and commanded him to arise and to hear the sentence of God. He then trembling arose, and accomplished anon that the holy man commanded.
On a time as this holy S. Bernard entered into Almaine for to appease a great discord, there was an archbishop that sent an honorable clerk against him. And when the clerk said to him that he had been sent from his master against him, the holy man answered to him and said: Another lord has sent you. And he marvelled and said that he was sent of none other, but of his lord the archbishop. And S. Bernard said: Son, you are deceived, our Lord Jesu Christ, which has sent you, is a greater master. And when the clerk understood him he said: Sire, weenest thou that I will be a monk? Nay, I thought it never, ne it came never in my heart, yet after in the same voyage he forsook the world and received the habit of this holy man, S. Bernard.
He took also on a time into the order a noble knight, and when he had followed S. Bernard a little time he began to be grievously tempted, and when a brother saw him so heavy, he inquired the cause of his heaviness. And he answered him: I wot well that I shall never be glad. And the brother told it to S. Bernard, and he prayed to God much ententively for him, and anon that brother that was so pensive and so heavy, seemed more joyous than the other, and more glad than he had been tofore heavy. And the brother blamed him because he had said that he should never be joyous. And he answered and said: I wot well I said I should never be glad, but I say now that I never shall be sorrowful.
When S. Malachi, bishop of Ireland, of whom he wrote the life, full of virtues, passed out of this world out of his monastery blessedly to our Lord Jesu Christ, and S. Bernard offered to God for him sacrifice of health, he saw the glory of him by revelation of our Lord, and by the inspiration of God he changed the form of prayer after the communion, saying thus with joyous voice: God, that have accompanied S. Malachi by his merits with your saints, we pray you to give to us that we that make the feast of his precious death, may follow the examples of his life. And when the chanter heard him,he said to him, and showed that he erred. And he said: I err not, but I know well what I say, and then went to the body and kissed his feet. And in a time that the Lent approached he was visited of divers knights. And he prayed them that at the least in these holy days they should abstain them from their vanities, their jollities, and doing outrages, and they in no wise would agree thereto. And then he bade make ready wine, and said to them: Drink you the health of your souls, and when they had drunk the wine they were suddenly changed and went to their houses, and they that had denied to do a little time, they gave to God after, all the time of their life, and led a right holy life. At the last the holy S. Bernard, approaching to the death, said blessedly to his brethren: I require and command you to keep three things, the which I remember to have kept to my power as long as I have been in this present life. I have not willed to slander any person, and if any have fallen I have hid it as much as I might. I have ever trusted less mine own wit than any others. If I were hurt, I never required vengeance of the hurter. I leave to you charity, humility, and patience. And after that he had done many miracles, and had made one hundred and seventy-one monasteries, and had ordained many books and treatises, he accomplished the days of his life the sixty-third year of his age, in the year of our Lord eleven hundred and fifty six. He slept in our Lord among the hands of his sons, and his glory showed his departing hence to much people.
He appeared to an abbot in a monastery and admonished him that he should follow him, and he so did. And then S. Bernard said: We be come to the mount of Lebanon, you shall abide here, and I shall ascend up on high. And he asked him wherefore he would go up, and he said: For to learn, I will go up. And he being greatly admarvelled, said: What will you learn, father, of whom we believe that there is none to you like, ne holden so wise in science as you are? And he said: Here is no science, ne here is no knowledge of truth, but there above is plenty of science, and on high is the very knowledge of truth. And with that word he vanished away. And then that abbot marked that day, and found that S. Bernard was then passed to our Lord, which showed for him many miracles and innumerable. To whom be given laud and praising everlasting. Amen.
Of S.
British (Received Pronunciation): Bernard /ˈbɜːnəd/; Bernardus Claravallensis /bɜːrˈnɑːrdəs ˌklærəvəˈlɛnsɪs/; Doctor Mellifluus /ˈdɒktər mɛˈlɪfluəs/
Readings for a Teacher of the Faith
Proverbs 3:13–26Psalm 119:89–1061 John 1:1–10Matthew 13:47–52
Almighty God, you gave your servant Bernard of Clairvaux special gifts of grace to understand and teach the truth revealed in Christ Jesus: Grant that by this teaching we may know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.