Cistercian Fathers Series – serie

Founded in 910 to return to the authentic monasticism of St Benedict, the Abbey of Cluny led a revolution in the medieval Church. Wresting secular hands from control of monastic offices and finances, the great burgundian monastery and its hundreds of daughter houses inspired eleventh-century churchmen to seize control of the Church from petty lords and outraged emperors. Powerful and respected, the Cluniac order cast a long shadow over the european Church, but it's very position of leadership brought prosperity into the cloister and, in its train, complacency. The Cistercians were founded in 1098 to revive the primitive observance of the Rule of St Benedict. Having experienced the worldly dangers threatening, even embraced by, the Black Monks of Cluny, the White Monks of Cîtwaux resolved to withdraw from, not to reform, the world. Their uncompromising asceticism attracted scores of young men, and soon the Cistercian Order outstripped the Cluniac in pious prestige and personnel. Cluniacs felt censured; Cistercians grew smug. As rumors mounted in the spring or summer of 1125, William, the Benedictine abbot of Saint-Thierry, exhorted his good friend Bernard, the Cistercian abbot of Clairvaux, to take pen in hand to check mutual rancor. This Apologia, composed by Bernard and approved by William, is the result. it excoriates monks black and white: Cistercian who had become slanderers, Cluniacs who had grown self-indulgent, Bernard's satirical wit spared no one who had lost sight of the monk's first duty, the love of God and the brethren.

Two great institutions sprang from the self-confident ground of twelfth-century Europe: the University and the Cistercian Order. Isaac of Stella participated in both. Born in England in the opening years of the century, he seems to have moved to France for his education. His works reveal his mastery of the very technical vocabulary of the cathedral schools there and their love for subtle logic. Not long after 1140, he entered the austere monastic life of the White Monks, and seven years later became abbot of Stella (L ’Étoile) near Poitiers. An intractable animosity between monks and schoolmen has been posited by some modern scholars. In Isaac's mind, contends Bernard McGinn in his introduction to this first English translation of his sermons, "the relation of these two great movements of the twelfth century, the world of the Schools, and the world of Citeaux was complimentary, not antagonistic. It is hard not to think that his theological studies had been a contributing factor in the search that led him to Citeaux; his sermons and treatises are evidence of the fact that his experience of the monastic life provided an ideal situation for theological meditation, while his duties as abbot saw to it that these meditations were communicated to others." Isaac of Stella was an English-born Cistercian who studied in the schools before entering monastic life and becoming abbot of Stella in 1147. His liturgical sermons inject a speculative philosophical inquisitiveness into imaginative meditations on scenes from Scripture. Isaac combined the increasingly technical vocabulary of the cathedral schools with the spiritual tradition of the monastery. Dialectic is here combined with meditative reflection.

Saint Bernard's On Loving God is one of his most delightful, and most widely read, works. It stands in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, but it carries patristic teaching into the Middle Ages and into the cloister. Its famous affirmation that God is to be loved without limit, sine modo, is taken directly from the letters of Saint Augustine. While the tract is not an example of scholastic theology, it shows a typically twelfth-century love of logic and an unexpectedly precise use of terminology. In his analystic commentary, Emero Stiegman not only introduces readers to the abbot of Clairvaux's thought, but carefully analyses his language, his logic and his theology. In doing so, he demonstrates the vital importance of reading medieval authors on their own terms, without superimposing on them categories favored by later generations, even our own.

Love came more naturally to Bernard of Clairvaux than did humility. The son of burgundian nobility, 'people of rank and dignity', Bernard attracted followers and exercised authority with an easy grace. After years of struggle in the monastery, he admitted that humility remained for him one of the hardest virtues to acquire. yet the uncompromising vehemence of his love for God drew him to embrace the discipline and to learn the humility which monastic tradition taught prepared him for the perfect love of God.

The monk and the knight—the two quintessentially medieval European heroes—were combined in the Knights Templar and in the other military orders founded in the era of the Crusades. With characteristic eloquence, Bernard of Clairvaux voices the cleric's view of knights, warfare, and the conquest of the Holy Land in five chapters on the knights' vocation. Then the Cistercian abbot who never visited Palestine and discouraged monks who proposed doing so, in another eight chapters, provides a spiritual tour of the pilgrimage sites guarded by this 'new kind of knight-hood and one unknow to ages bone by'.

Caesarius was a monk at the Cistercian monastery of Heisterbach in Germany, where he served as Master of novices. For their instruction and edification, he composed his lengthy Dialogue on Miracles in twelve sections between 1219 and 1223. The many surviving manuscripts of this and other works by Caesarius attest to his stature in the history of Cistercian letters.This volume contains sections one through six of Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogue on Miracles, the first complete translation into English of an influential representation of exempla literature from the Middle Ages. Caesarius’s stories provide a splendid index to monastic life, religious practices, and daily life in a tumultuous time.

Taking up Saint Bernard's unfinished sermon-commentary, Gilbert ruminates on verse 3:1-5:10 in forty-eight sermons, leaving the task to be finished by John of Ford.This volume contains sermons 33 through 48. To encounter a person who makes holiness attractive is an enviable experience. Such a person was Gilbert of Hoyland, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Swineshead in Lincolnshire, a friend of Aelred of Rievaulx, and the continuator of the sermons on the Song of Songs begun by Bernard of Clairvaux. When the great saint of Clairvaux died in 1153, his sermon commentary had reached only the first four verses of chapter three of the Canticle. Gilbert took up the task, but left the commentary unfinished at his death. It was brought to completion by another English abbot, John of Ford. Those who know and admire Bernard's eloquence and contemplative insight will enjoy making the acquaintance of his successors. While conscious of continuing Bernard's work and remaining true to his spirit, they infused their sermons with their own personalities and shared their own rich experiences of God. As Lawrence C. Braceland says in his introduction to this first English translation of Gilbert's work, 'Gilbert is an experience. He has found the Beloved.'

Caesarius was a monk at the Cistercian monastery of Heisterbach in Germany, where he served as Master of novices. For their instruction and edification, he composed his lengthy Dialogue on Miracles in twelve sections between 1219 and 1223. The many surviving manuscripts of this and other works by Caesarius attest to his stature in the history of Cistercian letters. This second volume contains sections seven through twelve of Caesarius of Heisterbach’s Dialogue on Miracles, the first complete translation into English of an influential representation of exempla literature from the Middle Ages. Caesarius’s stories provide a splendid index to monastic life, religious practices, and daily life in a tumultuous time.

Gertrud the Great (1256–1302) entered the monastery of Helfta in eastern Germany as a child oblate. At the age of twenty-five she underwent a conversion that led to a series of visionary experiences, some of which she recorded in Latin “with her own hand,” in what became Book Two of The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness, the standard version of her revelations. The other four books were written down by a close confidant of the saint, now often known as "Sister N."Recently a different version of Gertrud's revelations has been discovered, in an early fourteenth-century manuscript held at the University of Leipzig, Germany, much older than the known manuscripts of The Herald. The Memorial of the Abundance of the Divine Sweetness is shorter than The Herald, and while the two versions have some text in common (notably most of The Herald's Book Two), the new manuscript also contains some completely new material, which sometimes modifies and sometimes complements what readers already know of the saint.

"Even though there is no real need for me to write this for the brothers' spiritual progress—which must always be my first concern," reflected the conscientious young abbot of Clairvaux as he began his four homilies in praise of the Virgin Mary., ". . . as long as it in no way prevents me from being at their service, it seems to me they ought not to take it amiss if I satisfy my own devotion." To sing the praises of Mary, Bernard studies and contemplates her there where God has so perfectly revealed her, in the Scriptures, taking as his text the passage from Luke, An Angel was sent to a virgin named Mary. In the company of the Church Fathers and with the help of the liturgy, he uses Holy Writ to provide both the content of what he says and the form in which he says it. Theologically the sermons are thoroughly traditional; in the beauty of their expression they are unparalleled. The Cistercians have always had a special devotion to Our Lady, dedicating each abbey to her and closing each day with the beautiful hymn-antiphon Salve Regina.

The Meditations, written over a period from 1125 to 1137, are a personal account of William of Saint-Thierry’s ascent into Trinitarian intimacy. Writing to the monks of Mont Dieu sometime around 1144, he proposed the Meditations as helpful in forming minds in prayer. These Meditations, with their accompanying commentary, are now presented as helpful in forming an intimate relationship with the triune God.

The First Life of Bernard of Clairvaux, traditionally known as the Vita Prima, originated to prepare the case for canonization of Bernard, first abbot of Clairvaux. The work was begun by William of Saint-Thierry, continued by Arnold of Bonneval, and completed by Geoffrey of Auxerre.  When the initial case put forth for Bernard was rejected by Innocent II, Geoffrey undertook a revision of the original vita (Recension A) and submitted another version (Recension B) to Pope Alexander III, who declared Bernard a saint in 1174. This work emphasizes the deep love in which Bernard was held during his life by his monks and the people of France and Italy as well as his role as a powerful public figure.This book contains the first English translation of Recension B, drawn from what is apparently the only manuscript of the work found today in a Cistercian monastery, Mount Saint Bernard Abbey. The introduction begins with the story of how this manuscript came to Mount Saint Bernard, so fixing this translation of the Vita prima within Cistercian life from the twelfth century to today.

Aelred, abbot of the Yorkshire Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx from 1147 to 1167, wrote six spiritual treatises, seven historical treatises, and 182 liturgical sermons, most of which he delivered as chapter talks to his monks. Translations of the first twenty-eight of these sermons appeared in The First Clairvaux Collection, Advent-All Saints, published in 2001. The current volume contains eighteen sermons given on feasts beginning with the Nativity and concluding with a sermon for All Saints.

Aelred, abbot of the Yorkshire Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx from 1147 to 1167, wrote six spiritual treatises, seven historical treatises, and 182 liturgical sermons, many of which he delivered as chapter talks to his monks. Translations of the first twenty-eight of these sermons appeared in CF 58 in 2001, translated by Theodore Berkeley and M. Basil Pennington, and sermons twenty-nine through forty-six appeared in CF 77 in 2015, translated by Marie Anne Mayeski. The current volume contains thirty-eight sermons for feasts from Advent through the Nativity of Mary, taken from the Durham and Lincoln collections, edited by Gaetano Raciti in CCCM 2B and 2C.

Aelred (1110–1167) served Rievaulx Abbey, the second Cistercian monastery in England, for twenty years as abbot. During his abbacy he wrote thirteen treatises, some offering spiritual guidance and others seeking to advise King Henry II. He also wrote thirty-one sermons as a commentary on Isaiah 13–16 and 182 surviving liturgical sermons, mostly addressed to his monks.  This volume contains the first half of Aelred's ninety-eight liturgical sermons from the Reading-Cluny collection, Sermons 85 through 133. For the most part, the collection follows the liturgical year, beginning in this volume with three sermons for Advent and ending with five for Pentecost and three for the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. Sermons 134 through 182, from the Nativity of John the Baptist (June 24) through the Feast of All Saints, will appear in CF 87. These sermons appear to contain evidence of Aelred's editorial additions to the autograph of the sermons, as he added selections from patristic and medieval authors within the sermons and between them.

During his twenty years as abbot of the Yorkshire monastery of Rievaulx, Aelred preached many sermons: to his own monks, in other monasteries, and at significant gatherings outside the cloister. In these thirty-one homilies on Isaiah chapters 13–16, together with an introductory Advent sermon, Aelred interprets the burdens that Isaiah prophesied against the nations according to their literal, allegorical, and moral senses. He sees these burdens as playing a role both in the history of the church and in the progress of the individual soul. This collection of homilies is an ambitious, unified work of a mature monk, synthesizing biblical exegesis, ascetical teaching, spiritual exhortation, and a theory of history.

This last small group of Bernard's sermons to be published in translation by Cistercian Publications rightly goes by the title De varii in the critical edition. While most of them treat feasts on the church calendar, they do so in a somewhat hit-or-miss fashion. Three sermons also deal with God's will, God's mercies, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Two sermons for the feast of Saint Victor are a response to a request to Bernard from the monks of Montiéramey; the Bollandist Life of Saint Victor appears here as a complement to those sermons. Besides the nine sermons normally assigned to the De varii, this volume also includes a sermon on the feast of Saint Benedict that was recently added to the collection in Sources Chrétiennes. The survival of this loose assemblage of sermons outside of the organized collections of Bernard's sermons provides a reminder of Bernard as preacher and writer, able despite all his other activities to turn his hand to preaching when called upon. While they treat of disparate themes, they allow us to encounter the quintessential Bernard-speaking of the life of desire, the true meaning of holiness, and the awakening of the spiritual senses in the search for God.

For over forty years Bernard of Clairvaux composed works of theology and spiritual reflection. He became the counselor of kings, nobles, popes, and scholars. He advocated a strong, reformed papacy and was the spiritual leader of the early twelfth-century European Church.Often overlooked, these short works by Bernard may well give readers their truest insight into the saint's sermons as his monks heard them. The Parables explore the spiritual meaning of Scripture directly and dramatically. The Sentences likely represent his sermon style before he polished his work for publication.

Gertrud the Great (1256–1302) entered the monastery of Helfta in eastern Germany as a child oblate. At the age of twenty-five she underwent a conversion that led to a series of visionary experiences. These centered on “the divine loving-kindness,” which she perceived as expressed through and symbolized by Christ’s divine Heart. Some of these experiences she recorded in Latin “with her own hand,” in what became book 2 of The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness.Books 1, 3, 4, and 5 were written down by another nun, a close confidant of the saint, now often known as "Sister N." Book 5 details the sickness, deaths, and afterlife fates of various Helfta nuns, novices, and lay brothers, as witnessed by Gertrud in her visions. It also describes Gertrud’s preparations for her own death and her predictive visions of her ultimate glorification in heaven. The Herald concludes with Sister N.’s personal account of her presentation of the whole book to the Lord at Mass, the welcome he gave it, and the privileges he attached to it.The Book of Special Grace, which mainly records the visions of Mechtild of Hackeborn, was probably compiled by Gertrud herself with the help of Sister N. Parts 6 and 7 recount the deaths of the abbess Gertrud and of Mechtild, her younger sister. As many passages overlap, sometimes verbatim, with corresponding chapters in book 5 of The Herald, a translation has been included for purposes of comparison.

Aelred (1110–1167) served Rievaulx Abbey, the second Cistercian monastery in England, for twenty years as abbot. During his abbacy he wrote thirteen treatises, some offering spiritual guidance and others seeking to advise King Henry II. He also wrote thirty-one sermons as a commentary on Isaiah 13–16 and 182 surviving liturgical sermons, mostly addressed to his monks.  This volume contains the second half of Aelred's ninety-eight liturgical sermons from the Reading-Cluny collection, Sermons 134 through 182, as well as Aelred's sermon for the translation of Saint Edward the Confessor in 1163, from the critical edition by Peter Jackson first published in Cistercian Studies Quarterly. For the most part, the collection follows the liturgical year; this volume begins with a sermon for the birth of John the Baptist and ends with three sermons for the feast of All Saints. It contains sixteen Marian sermons as well as a sermon for the birth of Saint Katherine and a sermon for nuns.

Abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Perseigne, Adam was a 'director of souls' in the late twelfth century. By his letters he counselled clerics and kings, nuns and nobles with affection, respect, and candor. Because his monastery lay in Normandy, he enjoyed close ties with Norman England and acted as an adviser to the crusader-king, Richard the Lion-hearted. Yet this intimate of the high-born was himself the son of a serf. Nothing certain is know of the education by which Adam rose from the peasantry, but he is an example of the way in which a young man could improve his station by entering clerical life. After being ordained priest, Adam found favor at the witty and sophisticated court of the Countess of Champagne. In his letters, Adam reveals that at some point he began to seek a disciplined life of prayer and entered a monastery of cannons regular. Dissatisfied there, he transferred to a Benedictine monastery, and then to a Cistercian abbey, likely Pontigny. His final choice may have been guided in large part by his great personal devotion to the infant Jesus and to His Mother, the patroness of the Cistercian Order. Marian devotion had grown rapidly in the twelfth century and was echoed in secular life by the increasing chivalric regard for ladies which found its greatest expression at the court of Champagne. In several of his letters Adam speaks tenderly of the virtues and graces of Saint Mary, giving eloquent voice to the popular love and admiration which swept across western Europe in the twelfth century.

Guerric of Igny (†1157) ranks with Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx, and William of Saint Thierry as one of 'the four evangelists of Citeaux'. Yet he is know only through these Liturgical Sermons and a scattering of historical references. Born probably at Tournai and educated in the humanities and theology at the noted cathedral school there, he visited the Cistercian abbey of Clairvaux as a seasoned scholar, with no intention whatever of abandoning academic life for the cloister. Urged to stay by the always persuasive Abbot Bernard, however, 'without delay or looking back, the cleric became a monk, the master a schoolboy.'In 1138, again at Bernard's suggestion and despite his own protestations that he lacked the requisite wisdom and health, Guerric was elected as the second abbot of Igny, a daughter house of Clairvaux near Rheims. There he wrote the sermons which reveal the quality of his education, the profundity of his theology, and the pervasiveness of his Cistercian spirit.   The Liturgical Sermons of Guerric of Igny are published in two volumes: Book One contains Sermons 1-21; Book Two contains Sermons 22-54.

Aelred of Rievaulx, like his Cistercian brothers, believed that the human person is created in the image and likeness of God. He analyzed the human soul therefore to understand by analogy something of the being of God. Possessing three faculties—intellect, memory, and will—the one, indivisible soul resembles the triune, simple Godhead. In that it is to some degree incomprehensible, the soul shares in the incomprehensibility of its Creator. By ascetic discipline and by training their innate spiritual faculties, the early Cistercians sought to restore persons to the perfection in which God had created them: to remember without forgetfulness, to know without error, to love without satiety.

Guerric of Igny (d. 1157) ranks with Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rievaulx, and William of Saint Thierry as one of 'the four evangelists of Cîteaux'. Yet he is known only through these Liturgical Sermons and a scattering of historical references.Born probably at Tournai and educated in the humanities and theology at the noted cathedral school there, he visited the cistercian abbey of Clairvaux as a seasoned scholar, with no intention whatever of abandoning academic life for the cloister. Urged to stay by the always persuasive Abbot Bernard, however, 'without delay or looking back, the cleric became a monk, the master a schoolboy'.In 1138, again at Bernard's suggestion and despite his own protestations that he lacked the requisite wisdom and health, Guerric was elected as the second abbot of Igny, a daughter house of Clairvaux near Rheims. There he wrote the sermons which reveal the quality of his education, the profundity of his theology, and the pervasiveness of his cistercian spirit.

Founded in 910 to return to the authentic monasticism of Saint Benedict, the abbey of Cluny led a revolution in the medieval Church. Wresting secular hands from control on monastic office and finances, the great burgundian monastery and its hundreds of daughter houses inspired eleventh-century churchmen to seize control of the Church from petty lords and outraged emperors. Powerful and respected, the Cluniac Order cast a long shadow over the European Church, but its very position of leadership brought prosperity into the cloister and, in its train, complacency. The Cistercians were founded in 1098 to revive the primitive observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Having experienced the worldly dangers threatening, even embraced by, the Black Monks of Cluny, the White Monks of Cîteaux resolved to withdraw from, not to reform, the world. Their uncompromising asceticism attracted scores of young men, and soon the Cistercian Order outstripped the Cluniacs in pious prestige and personnel. A rivalry inevitably sprang up. Cluniacs, like Idung of Prüfening, felt drawn to the more austere cistercian way of life. Some Cistercians felt attracted to the less rigorous and liturgically richer life at Cluny. Each all too frequently felt obliged to justify his departure by commenting on the shortcomings of his former monastery. Gentle conciliatory spirits might call for charity from both White Monks and Blank and the leaders of the two great Orders might develop a deep personal friendship, but ink and acrimony continued spasmodically to flow until the Cistercians, lie their Cluniac brethren succumbed to being respectable, comfortable fixtures of the medieval landscape.

Gertrud the Great (1256–1302) entered the monastery of Helfta in eastern Germany as a child oblate. At the age of twenty-five she underwent a conversion that led to a series of visionary experiences. These centered on “the divine loving-kindness,” which she perceived as expressed through and symbolized by Christ’s divine Heart. Some of these experiences she recorded in Latin “with her own hand,” in what became Book 2 of The Herald of God’s Loving-Kindness. Books 1, 3, 4, and 5 were written down by another nun, a close confidant of the saint, now often known as “Sister N.” Book 4 records Gertrud’s many vivid spiritual experiences, which took place on various liturgical feasts when she was too sick to take part in the community’s worship. Foregrounding visions of the court of heaven and dialogues with Christ, the Virgin Mary, and other saints, they further develop devotional themes already present in the earlier books. Often profoundly indebted to the liturgy of Mass and office, they have been carefully arranged according to the ecclesiastical year by the medieval compiler.

Aelred of Rievaulx was an heir of Saxons living under Norman rule, a native speaker of English daily speaking French and Latin, a descendant of generations of married priests in an age when priests were forbidden to wed, an English monk in a French order, an abbot bred to service in the church but trained for service in the court. His sermons and treatises reflect Aelred the monk, the novice-master, and abbot. His historical works 'concerned with the political world of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England ' seek to explore the past as a guide for the present and assurance of the future. Drawing on the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, classical writers like Cicero, and medieval historians such as the Venerable Bede and Symeon of Durham, Aelred insisted on the importance of history for guiding human action, declaring that the meaning of the past can only be known in the present and that only at the end can one understand the beginning.In this volume are four of Aelred's seven historical works: Lament for David, King of the Scots (1153), The Genealogy of the Kings of the English (1153-1154), The Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor (1162-63), and The Battle of the Standard (1153-54).

Taking up Saint Bernard's unfinished sermon-commentary, Gilbert ruminates on verse 3:1-5:10 in forty-eight sermons, leaving the task to be finished by John of Ford.This volume contains sermons 1 through 15. To encounter a person who makes holiness attractive is an enviable experience. Such a person was Gilbert of Hoyland, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Swineshead in Lincolnshire, a friend of Aelred of Rievaulx, and the continuator of the sermons on the Song of Songs begun by Bernard of Clairvaux. When the great saint of Clairvaux died in 1153, his sermon commentary had reached only the first four verses of chapter three of the Canticle. Gilbert took up the task, but left the commentary unfinished at his death. It was brought to completion by another English abbot, John of Ford. Those who know and admire Bernard's eloquence and contemplative insight will enjoy making the acquaintance of his successors. While conscious of continuing Bernard's work and remaining true to his spirit, they infused their sermons with their own personalities and shared their own rich experiences of God. As Lawrence C. Braceland says in his introduction to this first English translation of Gilbert's work, 'Gilbert is an experience. He has found the Beloved.'