Bernard of Clairvaux
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 — 1153) was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. "The voice of conscience, the dominating figure in the Catholic Church from 1125 to 1153", his authority helped to end the schism of 1130. Bernard was the main voice of conservatism during the intellectual revival of Western Europe called the Renaissance of the 12th century and the main opponent of rising scholastic theology. Devoted to promoting the veneration of the Virgin Mary, he was also the most influential advocate of the Second Crusade. He was canonized as a saint in 1174 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1830…He is credited with bringing emotion and a focus on the humanity of Jesus into Christian spirituality. 

It's hard to know how to characterize Bernard of Clairvaux. On the one hand, he is called the "honey-tongued doctor" for his eloquent writings on the love of God. On the other hand, he rallied soldiers to kill Muslims. He wrote eloquently on humility; then again, he loved being close to the seat of power and was an adviser to five popes.

What Bernard is remembered for today, more than his reforming zeal and crusade preaching, is his mystical writings. His best known work is On Loving God, in which he states his purpose at the beginning: "You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason he is to be loved.”

Quotes
​“Suppose you saw a starving man inhaling great deep breaths, filling his cheeks to stay his hunger, would you not call him mad? And it is just as mad to think that blowing yourself out with earthly goods can satisfy your reasonable soul.”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

“It was not by his motions he was recognized by me, nor could I tell by any of my senses that he had penetrated to the depths of my being…only by the movements of my heart.”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

“No being can be at the same time opposed to God, and in harmony with itself.”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

“To shame our sins He blushed in blood; 
He closed His eyes to show us God; 
Let all the world fall down and know 
That none but God such love can show”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

“Our vocation is to take the lowest place, it is the way of humility, voluntary poverty, obedience and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Our vocation is to be under a master, under and abbot, under a rule, under discipline.  Our vocation is to cultivate silence, to exert ourselves in fasts, vigils, prayers, manual labor and above all to keep to that more excellent way which is the way of love, to advance day by day in these things and persevere in them to the last day.”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

"God’s business is mine.  Nothing that concerns Him is foreign to me.” 
-Bernard of Clairvaux

“What we love we shall grow to resemble”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

As followers of Jesus, we want to be people who pour out their lives for others.  This is a good and beautiful thing!  However, if we are not continually being replenished by living water we will end up drained, dry, and exhausted.  A church leader named Bernard of Clairvaux diagnosed this very problem, way back in the 12th century.  He observed many well-intentioned people were constantly trying to serve, teach, and give to others without receiving what they needed in order to keep themselves healthy.  He described these people as “canals,” and urged them to become “reservoirs” instead: “if then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as reservoir than as canal.  A canal spreads water as it receives it, and a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself communicates its superabundant water.  In the Church at the present day we have many canals but few reservoirs.”
-Bernard of Clairvaux

Prayers

​"Let me hold fast to You, beautiful Lord, whom the angels themselves yearn to look upon.  Wherever You go, I will follow You….You carry my grief, because You grieve for my sake.  You passed through the narrow doorway from death to life, to make it wide enough for all to follow.  Nothing can ever now separate me from Your love.  Amen"
-Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

​"We taste Thee, O Thou living bread, and long to feast upon Thee still; we drink of Thee, the fountainhead and thirst our souls from Thee to fill."
-Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

​"You taught us, Lord, that the greatest love a man can show is to lay down his life for his friends.  But Your love was greater still, because You laid down Your life for Your enemies.  It was while we were still enemies that You reconciled us to Yourself by Your death.  What other love has ever been, or could ever be, like Yours?  You suffered unjustly for the sake of the unjust.  You died at the hands of sinners for the sake of the sinful.  You became a slave to tyrants, to set the oppressed free.  Amen"
-Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
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