Healing a Divided Church, 1130–1135

2020 ◽  
pp. 79-109
Author(s):  
Brian Patrick McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Guidance ◽  
Saint Bernard Of Clairvaux ◽  
Firm Commitment ◽  
Saint Bernard ◽  
Secular Politics

This chapter describes how in the first years of the 1130s, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux became a European figure, involving himself in the ecclesiastical and secular politics of his time and influencing them to a greater or lesser degree. He dedicated himself to solving the perilous situation in which there were two popes at the same time in the Western Church. By 1138, he had been to Italy a number of times and had traversed what today is France. These journeys must have been grueling for an individual with gastric problems and with a firm commitment to the prayer life of the monastery. At the same time as Bernard missed the daily office, he was separated from the brothers he loved in Clairvaux, both his brothers in the flesh and his spiritual brethren, who looked to him for spiritual guidance and inspiration.

The World after the Schism: One Thing after Another, 1140–1145

2020 ◽  
pp. 141-180
Author(s):  
Brian Patrick McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Peter Abelard ◽  
The World ◽  
Saint Bernard Of Clairvaux ◽  
Saint Bernard ◽  
The Trinity

This chapter studies how, in the years that followed the final departure of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux from Italy, he encountered what might be called “one damn thing after another,” the chaos that makes up the very stuff of history and human life. Probably during Lent of 1139, he faced his first challenge. His friend and later biographer, William of Saint-Thierry, sent him a brief treatise attacking the theology of Peter Abelard. Sometime between May of 1139 and June of 1140, Bernard composed a fairly lengthy treatise attacking what he considered to be the heresies of Abelard, concerning the doctrines of the Trinity and the Redemption. He addressed it to no less a person than Pope Innocent II, the very man from whom he temporarily had broken off contact because of Innocent's refusal to reinstate Cardinal Peter of Pisa. The Abelard affair thus forced Bernard to get back in touch with Rome and abandon the solitude he must have sought at Clairvaux after the death of his brother Gerard.

Business as Usual in Preparing for Death

2020 ◽  
pp. 215-250
Author(s):  
Brian Patrick McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Way Of Life ◽  
The North ◽  
Saint Bernard Of Clairvaux ◽  
Cistercian Order ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Business As Usual ◽  
The City ◽  
Saint Bernard

This chapter shows how the last years of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, from 1150 until his death on 20 August 1153, were spent in a flurry of activities that provide little indication that he was a dying man. Indeed, he was still involving himself in matters outside the Cistercian Order, so his commitment hardly reflects the situation of someone in the process of dying. Bernard seems to have suffered from some kind of gastric disturbance, perhaps a result of his ascetic way of life. It is something of a wonder that a man who for years had experienced stomach cramps and could hardly consume food or drink, could continue to be active for such a long time. Bernard refused to make any concessions to his own weakness and went ahead with his concerns, dictating one letter after another. One can assume that for the most part he had to remain at Clairvaux during these years, except for a final excursion that brought him to the city of Metz in what today is the north of France. Bernard was tireless, willing, perhaps obsessed with responding to requests for help from other churchman.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

1938 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 836
Author(s):  
Austin P. Evans ◽  
Watkin Williams
Keyword(s):  
Saint Bernard Of Clairvaux ◽  
Saint Bernard
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