Bernard was born about 1090 at Fontaine-lès-Dijon in Burgundy, the third of seven children of Tescelin de Fontaine, lord of that place, and Alèthe de Montbard, both of the highest nobility. At nine he was sent to the school of the secular canons of Saint-Vorles at Châtillon-sur-Seine, where he excelled in literature and rhetoric. His holy mother died while he was still young; her memory drew him toward the priesthood and a life wholly given to God.
In 1098 Robert of Molesme had founded Cîteaux near Dijon to live the Rule of Saint Benedict in its literal rigor, giving birth to the Cistercian Order. After his mother's death Bernard resolved to enter that new monastery. In 1113, at about twenty-two, he arrived at Cîteaux with some thirty young noblemen of Burgundy—many of them his own relatives—and sought admission. His example was so powerful that scores more followed, including his own father. For this reason the faithful have long regarded him as a special patron of religious vocations.
Three years later, in 1115, the abbot of Cîteaux sent Bernard with twelve monks to found a new house in the wild Vallée d'Absinthe in the Diocese of Langres. On 25 June he named it Claire Vallée—Clairvaux. William of Champeaux, Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, blessed him as abbot. The beginnings were extremely austere; Bernard's own extreme fasting left him often ill, yet candidates flocked to him. From Clairvaux he founded or received more than sixty houses in his lifetime, beginning with Trois-Fontaines (1118), Fontenay (1119), and Foigny (1121). He became known as both the most contemplative and the most active man of his age—the "chimera of his age," as he once called himself.
Trials accompanied success. While he was absent, the prior of Cluny drew his cousin Robert of Châtillon away to the Black Monks, prompting Bernard's longest and most emotional letter. The death of his brother Gerard plunged him into deep mourning that inspired one of his most moving sermons. When Cluny criticized the Cistercian way, Bernard answered with his Apology at the request of William of Saint-Thierry; Peter the Venerable of Cluny replied with friendship, and reform advanced on both sides.
In 1128 Bernard attended the Council of Troyes and helped shape the Rule of the Knights Templar, which soon became an ideal of Christian knighthood. When Pope Honorius II died in 1130, a double election produced Pope Innocent II and the antipope Anacletus II. Summoned to the council of French bishops at Étampes, Bernard judged in favor of Innocent. He then traveled through France, Germany, and Italy, reconciling cities, detaching Duke William X of Aquitaine from the schism—famously admonishing him at Mass in the church of La Coudre not to despise God as he despised God's servants—and persuading King Roger II of Sicily. Anacletus died in 1138; the schism ended. Bernard assisted at the Second Lateran Council in 1139. He formed a deep friendship with Saint Malachy of Ireland, who later died at Clairvaux in 1148.
Bernard also confronted doctrinal error. He met Peter Abelard, denounced his teachings when persuasion failed, and at the Council of Sens in 1141 secured their condemnation; Abelard submitted and retired to Cluny. In 1145 Bernard preached in southern France against the Henricians and Petrobrusians; the sects withered. He likewise opposed Cathar errors and pressed for clarity against Gilbert of Poitiers.
When one of his own monks, Bernard of Pisa, became Pope Eugene III in 1145, Bernard sent him the treatise De consideratione, insisting that reform begin with the pope's own piety and that meditation must precede action. In 1146 Eugene commissioned him to preach the Second Crusade. On 31 March at Vézelay, before King Louis VII, Bernard delivered the sermon of his life; cloth for crosses ran out as multitudes took the cross. He wrote to the pope that cities and castles stood empty. The crusade ended in disaster; Bernard accepted the humiliation and continued to serve the Church.
Throughout these labors he remained a master of prayer and Christian rhetoric, preaching personal friendship with Christ and composing sermons on the Song of Songs. He spread tender devotion to the Virgin Mary, calling her the aqueduct of grace and teaching her humility and her role as mediatrix. Dante later placed a Marian prayer on Bernard's lips in the Paradiso.
Bernard died at Clairvaux on 20 August 1153. Pope Alexander III canonized him in 1174, only twenty-one years later. In 1830 Pope Pius VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church; in 1953 Pius XII honored him in the encyclical Doctor Mellifluus as "the last of the Fathers." Turn to Saint Bernard: ask his intercession for a living faith and, today, practice the same generous obedience that led a young nobleman to leave all for Christ and to spend himself without reserve for the Bride of Christ.
Pidamos la intercesión de Bernard of Clairvaux e imitemos hoy la santidad de esta Vida.
