Saint for the Month of August 2003; 'The character of God's eternal and just law is this: that those refusing to be ruled by God's gentleness will have the misfortune of being ruled by their own selves; that whoever voluntarily throws off the yoke and light burden of charity will be obliged to carry the unbearable burden of their own will,' Bernard of Clairvaux (August 20) Born 1090 in the chateau of his family near Dijon in Burgundy, Bernard led a careless life until the year 1113, when he persuaded four of his brothers and twenty-seven friends to enter the new and strict monastery at Citeaux. So impressive was Bernard's commitment to the reformed monastic ideals that after two years the Abbot of Citeaux sent him to found a daughter house at Clairvaux in Champagne. From Bernard's new foundation no fewer than sixty eight daughter houses sprang-- including Fountains and Rievaulx in Britain. And Bernard's pupils were as famous and important as his monastic foundations. In 1145 one of them was elected pope, and never forgot to whom he owed his deep spirituality. Bernard had the authority to decide between rival popes and persuade the wayward rulers of Europe to support his choice. He was ready preach powerfully against the Albigensian (a mediaeval sect) heretics of Languedoc (a province of France) He inspired countless Europeans to follow Emperor Konrad 111 and King Louis V11 on the second crusade. He attacked the teaching of Peter Abelard, which held that reason was man's supreme faculty, and managed you bring an end to the Jewish pogroms in the Rhineland. Bernard died at Clairvaux 1153. Richard. F. Sibley August 2003. |