St. Bernard of Clairvaux has been given many charisms. Among them the Mellifluous Doctor because of his gift of the word. But others that were given him which seem to speak for themselves would include Oracle of the Twelfth Century, Thaumaturgus of the West, Arbiter of Christendom and the Last of the Fathers. St. Bernard was not only eloquent in speech, but very ascetic in his monastic life. He disparaged the monks who struggled to live a life of austerity and found the weakness of the stomach and the flesh highly disagreeable. s
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Born in a Castle
Born to the daughter of the Lord of Montbard, St. Bernard of Clairaux was born at the family castle near Burgundy. He was the third of seven children and spent his youth frivolously. Upon the death of his mother, however, he decided to look into the religious life.
St. Bernard, a Persuasive Youth
Somehow, he convinced thirty one of his friends to travel to the first Cistercian monastery which followed a strict rule. In 1115 A.D., Bernard was asked to found a new Cistercian house elsewhere, so he brought twelve monks with him to Langres. This house, Vallee d’Absinthe, became the mother house to over 68 Cistercian monasteries over time.
The Mellifluous Doctor
St. Bernard’s amazing capability for learning quickly brought him renown outside the monastery. He was considered to have so much wisdom and learning, he became one of the most well-known and consulted people in Europe by rules and Popes. Miracles were attributed to him, and he was considered the greatest preacher of his time.
For this reason, he was involved in many councils and debates to present the teaching of the church, most notably, he led the verbal conquest in the Abelard questioning. St. Bernard successfully defended the teaching of the church against the ‘extreme exaltation of human reason’ defending faith and traditional authority.
St. Bernard’s defeat of the Albigensian Heresy
St. Bernard went to France to verbally combat the Albigensians, who were also known as Cathars. Cathars believed in a profound cosmology, and despite St. Bernard’s great work in debating with them in his own time, the Cathars were eventually slaughtered in France in later centuries during the crusades.
Unfortunately, St. Bernard had a pretty large role in the crusades as he did preach for a crusade against the Turks and actually had a great part in igniting the fire of Europe for the Second Crusade which was a disaster. St. Bernard blamed that fate on a lack of dedication by the crusaders. It is one of the black moments in the history of the church, and the history of St. Bernard.
But shortly before his death, he used his verbal skills to negotiate a peace between nations just months before his own death.
His formal declaration as Doctor of the Church was given in 1830 A.D.
Bernard of Clarivaux’s Written Works
Innumerable Letters, Concerning Meditation, The Liber Miraculorum, On the Necessity of Loving God, The Degrees of Humility, Life of St. Malachy, Eighty Six Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles, De Consideratione, Various Hymns Including Jesu dulcis memoria and the Memorare, Innumerable Sermons on Mariology
The Nineteenth Doctor of the Catholic Church
The Twenty First Doctor of the Catholic Church
Sources: The 33 Doctors of the Church – By Fr. Christopher Rengers, A Catholic Dictionary – By William Addis, The Writings of the Early Church Fathers (Thirty Eight Volumes): Ante-Nicene, Nicene and Post Nicene – Hendrickson Publishers, Dictionary of Saints – By John J. Delaney, Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics – By Chas S. Clifton, A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham – Edited by Eugene R. Fairweather, A Short History of Christian Doctrine: From the First Century to the Present – By Bernhard Lohse
 |
