St Bernards School - Crusader Yearbook (Gladstone, NJ)

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THE DINING ROOM THANKSGIVING DAY DINNER I949 IMI

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ERNARD was born at Fontaines-les-Diion in the year 1090. His parents were Tescelin the Sorel and Aleth de Montbard, descended from the ducal family of Burgundy. The third child of a family ultimately seven in number, he had a most remarkable mother. She was a great lady in the social sense, but her dignity was most evident in her beneficence toward the sick and the poor. The implied spirit of self-dedication to the work of God was renewed in her domestic life. Bernard was nurtured in the discipline of simplicity. His emphatic characteristic was urbanity, like Moses he was a proper child , and he never lost his child-heart. Thoughtful, submissive, gracious, somewhat silent and reserved, he grew into a singularly attractive youth and was capable of responding to congenial friendship. Fair in color, of transparent complexion, of moderate height and spare of body, he was not robust, and the severities of his later life were destined to drain his physical strength. When Bernard was about eight years old, his mother sent him to the school of the Canons Secular of St. Vorles, long famous for its educational value. Here, after a solid grounding, he read widely and with keen enioyment the Latin Classics, especially in Cicero and in the poets. His conscious purpose was to make them and anything which he might learn from the study of the Greek philosophers, subservient to his knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, and through them of God. He was sixteen years old when his mother died. It was a crucial moment to find himself out of that noble lady's tutelage. His intellectual gifts were a rich endowment and it was contemplated that he devote himself to further study at some great seat of learning. But Bernard wanted God and conditions in which to find God. He decided to enter Citeaux, a vast space of solitude and silence, with its New Monastery of a few impassioned enthusiasts resolved, to establish afresh the standard of the Order of St. Benedict on an exacting scale unknown for generations. At the end of March 1112, thirty kindred and friends led by the twenty-two year old Bernard were welcomed by Abbot Stephen Harding, the English monk who ruled Citeaux. Faithful to the spirit of St. Benedict, the Cistercians were keen agriculturists, but Bernard, frail of body, made him a poor harvester. By prayer and spiritual absorption he was learning the great secret of his future influence, how to estimate true values. Much of his time was spent in studying the Bible and the writings of the Latin Fathers. ln June 1115 he was despatched from Citeaux, with twelve monks under his abbatial rule, to found the Abbey of Clairvaux with which his name is immemorially associated. In a valley grim enough for its solitude and desolation, reputed to be a den of thieves, yet possessing a wild beauty of its own, down which a stream ran into the River Aube, the young pioneer chose his site. The chief donors were Hugh of Troyes, and Jasbert, a kinsman. The buildings, erected by the monks themselves, were on a modest scale. The fare was meagre beyond words, the bread was made of some unspecified ingredient, less costly than oats. The only relish was in summer the leaves of trees, in winter roots. Cloth, leather and money were scarce. Some of them complained that they must return to Citeaux, and persisted until in answer to Bernard's prayer money came in. God, in Bernard's view, held his money and dispensed it as seemed best to Him. i231