Aug. 20th - St. Bernard

 

 St. Bernard, doctor of the Church, was born in 1090 in France. He comes from a noble family of eight children. Four of them became beatified and one canonized. After the death of his mother, fearing temptations of the world, he resolved to embrace the newly established and austere institute of the Cistercian order. He entered the order in 1112 bringing thirty of his relatives with him, including five of his brothers-- his youngest brother and his widowed father followed later. After receiving a monastic formation from St. Stephen Harding, he was sent in 1115 to begin a new monastery near Aube: Clairvaux, the Valley of Light. At the age of 25, he became the abbot.

He helped to bring about the healing of the papal schism which arose in 1130 with the election of the antipope Anacletus II. At the same time he labored for peace and reconciliation between England and France. His influence mounted when his spiritual son was elected pope in 1145. At Pope Eugene III's command he preached the Second Crusade and sent vast armies on the road toward Jerusalem. Due to his preaching, St. Bernard of Clairvaux was instrumental in getting European leaders to commit to the Second Crusade. Bernard would later blame the failure of the Crusade on the sins of the Crusaders themselves.

Although he suffered from constant physical debility and had to govern a monastery that soon housed several hundred monks and was sending forth groups regularly to begin new monasteries (he personally saw to the establishment of sixty-five of the three hundred Cistercian monasteries founded during his thirty-eight years as abbot).

In his last years he rose from his sickbed and went into the Rhineland to defend the Jews against a savage persecution. He was a brilliant writer, and eloquent preacher. His sermons were so intense, one writer said, “He thinks like the Scriptures and speaks like them.” Bernard died at Clairvaux on Aug. 20^th, of 1153. He was canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1174. Pope Pius VII declared him a Doctor of the Church in 1830.

St. Bernard also had a great devotion to Our Eucharistic Lord. One day, he corrected a royal duke, who had banished two bishops from his region. During Mass, Bernard took the consecrated Host, placed it on the paten, and carried it to the back of the Church, where the duke was standing. Holding the Host above the paten before the man he said, “Now the Son of the Virgin, the Lord and Head of the Church which you persecute, comes in person to see if you will repent. Will you scorn Him as you scorned your servants?” The duke became terrified, fell on his face, and abandoned the schism.

St. Bernard greatly loved Our Lady. His sermons on the Blessed Virgin amount to a complete Mariology. He was an eloquent witness to Mary’s Assumption about 840 years before it was proclaimed a dogma. He likewise, spoke of Mary’s title, Mediatrix of All Graces. Dante called him, “Mary’s Faithful Bernard”. The prayer (the Memorare) is attributed to him.

Let us pray the Memorare written by St. Bernard.

Remember, O gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection or implored thy help or sought thy intercession, was left unaided, inspired by this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother! To thee I come; before thee stand sinful and sorrowful, O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy, hear and answer them, Amen.