19/08/2026
MEMORIAL OF ST. BERNARD (Abbot and Doctor of the Church)
August 20
Bernard was born in 1090 at Fontaine, in France, of a good family. When he was 22, after having studied grammar and rhetoric, he entered the monastery founded by Robert of Molesme at Citeaux. Twelve companions joined him, including four brothers, an uncle, and a cousin. Following his example, many of his relatives undertook to enter religious life.
For Bernard, the monastic life should involve work, contemplation, and prayer; and revolve around two fixed points: Jesus and Mary. For the Cistercian abbot, Christ is all: “When you discuss or speak, nothing has any flavour for me, if I have not heard you resound the Name of Jesus (Sermons on the Song of Songs, XV). And Mary, St Bernard writes, leads us to Jesus: “In dangers, In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may more surely obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for guide, you shall never go astray…”
In his work On Loving God, Bernard points out the path of humility in order to achieve love of God. He exhorts us to love God without measure. For the Cistercian monk, there are four fundamental degrees or grades of love: Love of oneself for oneself, Love of God for love of self, Love of God for God, and Love of self for God.
Bernard of Clairvaux died on 20 August 1153; he was proclaimed a saint by Pope Alexander III in 1174. Pope Pius XII dedicated an encyclical to him, entitled Doctor mellifluus, in which he recalled, in particular, these words of St Bernard: “Jesus is honey on the lips, melody in the ear, joy in the heart.” “The mellifluous doctor,” the Pope wrote, “‘The ‘Doctor Mellifluus,’ ‘the last of the Fathers, but certainly not inferior to the earlier ones,’ was remarkable for such qualities of nature and of mind, to which God added an abundance of heavenly gifts.”
Let us pray:
"O God, who made the Abbot Saint Bernard a man consumed with zeal for your house and a light shining and burning in your Church, grant, through his intercession, that we may be on fire with the same spirit and walk always as children of light. Amen."
Sources: www.vaticannews.va/en/saints and www.facebook.com/HugotSem