Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was a Cistercian monk, the founder and first abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, whom the Church counts among its Doctors. Because of the sweetness with which he spoke of Christ, he is called the Mellifluous Doctor. The Church commemorates him on August 20, the day of his death.

He was born about 1090 at Fontaine near Dijon, in Burgundy, into a large and well-to-do noble family. He studied at the school of the canons of the church of Saint-Vorles in Châtillon-sur-Seine. When he was a little over twenty, he entered Cîteaux, a young monastery that sought to live the Rule of Saint Benedict in all its strictness. The Roman Martyrology records that he came there with thirty companions. Among them were four of his brothers.

In 1115 Saint Stephen Harding, abbot of Cîteaux, sent him with a group of monks to found a new monastery at Clairvaux. Bernard was then 25 years old, and he led this community for 38 years, until his death. He required simplicity in food, clothing, and buildings, and care for the poor. Many candidates came to Clairvaux, and new foundations went out from the monastery across Europe.

From 1130 onward he left the monastery more and more often to serve the Holy See. When two popes were elected at the same time, he supported Innocent II and worked for years to restore the unity of the Church. He disputed with Peter Abelard, in whose theology he saw a threat to the truths of the faith. The Synod of Sens condemned some of Abelard’s propositions, and later Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, reconciled the two men. When his former disciple from Clairvaux became pope as Eugene III in 1145, Bernard wrote for him the work On Consideration, full of counsel for the successor of Saint Peter.

At the pope’s command he preached the Second Crusade at Vézelay in 1146. The crusade ended in defeat, and many blamed Bernard for it, although Pius XII wrote that the fault did not lie with him. When at that time a monk was stirring up crowds against the Jews in the Rhineland, Bernard firmly came to their defense. Benedict XVI recalled that he regarded this as his duty.

Bernard’s most precious legacy is his writings, especially the sermons on the Song of Songs and the treatise On Loving God. Benedict XVI called him the last of the Fathers of the Church, because in the twelfth century he brought their theology to life again. Bernard taught that God is known through a personal experience of the love of Christ, more in prayer than in discussion. He had a deep devotion to Mary and urged that in temptations and troubles we look to her as sailors look to a star: “Respice stellam, voca Mariam,” that is, look to the star, call upon Mary.

He died at Clairvaux on August 20, 1153. Pope Alexander III canonized him in 1174, and in 1830 Pius VIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church. In 1953, on the eight hundredth anniversary of his death, Pius XII dedicated to him the encyclical Doctor mellifluus.