Tag Archives: St Bernard of Clairvaux

He inspired others to follow him on the road to Heaven

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Today, 20 August 2012, is the feast day of St Bernard of Clairvaux, priest, Cistercian monk and Doctor of the Church, who lived most of his life in 12th century France. In life he inspired many to embrace a radical Christian lifestyle, and several hundred years later his writings are still inspiring people to love God more and to be more deeply committed to Him.

St Bernard of Clairvaux was born in 1090 at Fontaines into a noble family of Dijon, France. He was the third son of seven children, several of whom are recognised as Saints. Sorrow entered his life early with the death of his mother when Bernard was in his late teens. When he responded to the call of Jesus to follow Him as a monk, he rounded up 30 friends and relatives and inspired them to join the new monastery at Citeaux founded by St Robert, St Alberic and St Stephen Harding. They all arrived at Easter 1112. 

Three years later, Bernard was sent as abbot to found a new monastrery in the Valley of Light, known as Clairvaux.  Bernard remained as abbot for the rest of his life, but was also called upon to preach, to advise popes, and negotiate peace between warring princes. Busy with the things of God, he founded many monasteries and wrote many letters, sermons and books about spritual matters and theological subjects. To him God granted the gift of miracles. Despite all this, Bernard’s one desire was for God alone.

He had a very deep love of the Blessed Mother, and always greeted her with a Hail Mary whenever he passed one of her statues. One day he heard her voice reply ‘Hail Bernard’, so much did this practice of his please her. To St Bernard is attributed the powerful prayer to Our Lady known as the Memorare:

Remember, O most loving Virgin Mary that never was it known that anyone, who fled to your protection, implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence therefore I fly to you, O Virgins of virgins, my mother, to you do I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. Do not O Mother of the Word of God despise my prayers, but in your mercy graciously hear and answer them. Amen.

To St Bernard is also attributed the Prayer to the Shoulder Wound of Jesus:

O Loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I a miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Your Shoulder on which You bore Your heavy Cross, which so tore Your Flesh and laid bare Your Bones so as to inflict on You an anguish greater than any other Wound of Your Most Blessed Body. I adore You, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify You and give You thanks for this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching You by that exceeding pain and by the crushing burden of Your heavy Cross to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards Heaven along the Way of Your Cross. Amen. (Our Father… Hail Mary… x 3)

Here is a small taste of St Bernard’s writings from ‘On the Canticle of Canticles’ (or Song of Songs) : ‘ The Holy Spirit wisely compares the bridegrom’s name to oil when he leads the bride to exclaim: ‘Your name is as oil poured out.’ For oil gives light, nourishes, and anoints. Oil kindles fire, renews the flesh and eases pain. It is light, food and medicine. How much more so is the name of the true Bridegroom! When preached, His Name gives light ; when contemplated, it nourishes the soul ; when invoked, it heals and eases our wounds. We can profitably meditate upon each point…The name of Jesus is not only light, but it is also food. Are you not strengthened as often as you call it to mind? What else so strengthens the soul of the person contemplating it! What else so renews our tired senses, encourages us to virtue, establishes good and holy habits and develops noble affections? All spiritual consolation dries up unless infused with this oil; it all becomes insipid unless seasoned with this salt. If someone writes a book, I cannot savour it unless it speaks to me of Jesus. If someone speaks or preaches, I cannot enjoy it unless I find Jesus therein.’

After a lifetime of bringing souls to God, on August 20, 1153, God called Bernard into eternity. 

If you think you are up to being challenged today by St Bernard and his holy family, read ‘The Family that overtook Christ’ by M. Raymond, which is also available on Kindle. If you feel up to the challenge of reading his writings, try here and here. 

St Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

 

He became a knight of a far better kingdom

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Today, 13 Jun 2012, is the happy memorial of Blessed Gerard of Clairvaux, an elder brother of St Bernard of Clairvaux. At the time Bernard was inspired to join the monks at Citeaux, Gerard was a knight fighting in a siege at Grancy. It took Gerard quite a while to discover that God was calling him to be a knight in His kingdom, but he eventually got the message and lived this calling to the full.

Blessed Gerard of Clairvaux was born in the latter part of the 11th century into a noble family residing in the castle of Fontaines, dear Dijon in France. All he ever wanted in life was to be a knight, fighting battles. When Bernard started inspiring his relatives and friends to come with him to Citeaux, Gerard found it hard to comprehend why such excellent fellow knights would want to become monks living in swamp land.

In order to detach Gerard from his ideal of being a knight, God had to use a form of shock tactics. To begin with, Bernard came again to invite him, and when he wasn’t getting anywhere prophesied that things would change when Gerard suffered a lance wound below his ribs. The promised wound happened soon after when the garrison was surprised at night and Gerard became a prisoner of war. For several months Gerard was incarcerated. As he suffered through each day he began to think more and more about God and what Bernard and his followers were doing to serve Him. Slowly, very slowly, his mind detached from the ideal of being a noble knight and began to entertain the notion of becoming a knight of the King of kings. When God determined that Gerard had at last got the message, he was miraculously set free from the dungeon.

From there Gerard settled his affairs and presented himself at Citeaux asking to be admitted as a monk. The lives of these monks were full of prayer and lots of penance. During the night they would rise to pray in chapel, and spent as many as seven hours in prayer a day. Communication was usually done via sign language so as to keep silence and they only had one very simple meal a day. It was to this battle to win perfection, self mastery, and the conversion of souls that Gerard dedicated himself.

When Bernard moved to Clairvaux to set up the new monastery there, he asked Gerard to come with him and to serve as cellarer. A cellarer’s task was to look after all of the provisions of the monastery. To do this Gerard got involved in all of the manual labour involved in planting vineyards, tending herbs, raising livestock, setting up orchards and growing wheat. They were humble tasks, but he did them with all his heart and to the very best of his ability. Once in a while when things were grim Bernard had to remind Gerard about God’s providence and Gerard in his turn was a source of immense encouragement and wisdom to Bernard.

Gerard with God’s grace managed to pentetrate the secret of monastic life, that all they did was to love Jesus Christ better, and to see His presence in all the things they did and to unite themselves to Him as closely as possible. When monastic life is lived into order to show Jesus how much He is loved, it becomes a joy.

After a while Bernard was called upon to go and preach in various cities. Wisely he took Gerard with him. Gerard had a gift of being able to deftly sift a crowd, into those who had a true need to see Bernard and those who didn’t. This was such a valuable gift, because it meant that Bernard wasn’t being distracted with frivolous queries, that Bernard made a bargain with God. If Gerard who had been ill was made able to go on Bernard’s next preaching mission then Bernard would let God take Gerard to Himself at the time of His choosing afterwards. Having got through that round of preaching, they were only back in Clairvaux for a few months before the good Lord gave Gerard the grace of a happy death in the year 1138.

Needless to say, Bernard was distraught at his brother’s death, because they were brothers in blood, brothers in Jesus and brothers in religious life, but he bowed to God’s decree. Bernard lived out the active preaching life of Jesus, Gerard lived out the hidden life of Jesus. Both of them have been recognised by the Church as having lived lives of great sanctity.

To learn more about Bernard, his brother Gerard and several other holy members of their family, read ‘The Family that overtook Christ’ by Fr M. Raymond OCSO, published by St Paul editions and also available on Amazon Kindle. It is one of those books that you will always treasure the memory of having read it, and the challenge of the call to holiness that it contains.

Blessed Gerard of Clairvaux, we love you, too. Pray for us.

 

 

 

Third Witness of Jesus Incarnate

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Today, 28 Dec 2011, is the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, of those young children who were murdered in Bethlehem because King Herod saw the infant Jesus as a threat to his kingship. They are the third great set of witnesses to the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus.

Such a cruel massacre could only come about if King Herod believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah, the one foretold to sit on King David’s throne for ever. If Jesus had been an ordinary human baby, and not the God-man, none of this would have happened. By their innocent blood the infants of Bethlehem witnessed to Jesus.

St Bernard of Clairvaux explained how these three post-Christmas feasts fit together in his sermon for ‘The Feast of the Holy Innocents’ translated by Leo Hickey.’ Here is an excerpt from it…

‘Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord : the Lord is God, and He had shone upon us. Blessed be His glorious Name for He is holy. It was not in vain that Holiness Itself was born of the Virgin Mary since It has spread both the name and the grace of sanctity so widely. Unquesionably, it is because of this grace that Stephen is holy, Jphn is holy and the young Innocents are holy. It is therefore by a profitable disposition that these three feasts accompany the birth of Our Lord, not only in order that our devotion may be kept alive by so many feasts, but also in order that we should see the fruit of the birth of Our Lord more clearly in them as an effect and a consequence of the Nativity. We can notice in these three feasts, three different types of sanctity as it were ; and I do not think it possible that any fourth type can be found in men outside of these three. In blessed Stephen we have both the will and the act of martyrdom ; in blessed John we have the will only ; in the Holy Innocents we have the act only. All of these drank the chalice of salvation, either in the body and the spirit, or in the spirit alone or in the body alone.’

So today we remember not only those little ones killed in Bethlehem around 2000 years ago, but also all innocents who have died, particularly those miscarried, still-born, aborted, frozen in test-tubes, victims of infanticide and those frail ones who have been euthanised. It is a day to pray for them, to pray for all those who are at risk of joining them. It is a day to pray for all those who have succumbed to the culture of death, who have been complicit in contraception, abortion, infanticide and euthanasia or who are greatly at risk of doing so. Today, in the face of such horror, is the day when we renew our commitment to the culture of life.

Two ways to make this commitment to life practical and real are ’40 Days for Life’ and ‘the Spiritual Adoption of the Unborn Child’.

40 Days for Life takes place in Lent and between late September and early November each year. If you are lucky enough to live near a city where a campaign is happening, join in. Otherwise sign up for the daily meditations and stories of God’s saving grace during each day of the campaign and choose some extra prayer and self denial as personal offerings to God pleading that lives of the yet unborn may be saved. Through the prayers and prayerful witness of many, thousands of little ones are alive today, several abortion centres have been closed and a number of staff and doctors have left the abortion industry. Should you read some of the Blog at the website, www.40daysforlife.com , you will be inspired.

The Spiritual Adoption of the Unborn Child is another way to choose life rather than death. It starts with a commitment prayer, and then for each day of nine months you pray a short prayer, a decade of the Rosary and whatever other prayer or self denial commitment you choose. If a decade of the Rosary is difficult to squeeze into your prayer life, start with three Hail Mary’s daily and increase it by one each time you start a new nine month novena. It is a good idea to write the start date in the front cover of your diary as a reminder. Here are the prayers (I couldn’t find a website that had a copy of the ragged pamphlet in my prayer book)…

The Commitment Prayer : I glorify You the Father Almighty, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, that You have hidden these things from the mighty and wise but have revealed them to the poor. Yes, Father, this was Your Will. The most holy Virgin, Mother of God, Mary, and all the Angels and Saints, led by the desire to bring help to the child threatened in the womb, I (….insert name…) undertake today to spiritually adopt one child whose name is known only to God. I undertake to pray for this child’s life and to obtain for him (or for her) Your graces to live a just and true life in You. I will say: One Decade of the Rosary ( ..or what you can manage…), the Daily Spiritual Adoption Prayer and (…your own undertaking…..)

Daily Spiritual Adoption Prayer: My Lord Jesus, through the intercession of Mary Your Mother who bore You so lovingly, and of St Joseph, strong man of faith who protected You both, I pray to You for the life of the unborn child in danger of abortion, the one I have spiritually adopted. Please give to the parents of this particular child, the grace and courage to bring him or her to the life You have destined for him or her. Amen.

Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, pray for us.