Portal:Catholic Church/Patron Archive/August 20 2007

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–August 21, 1153) was a French abbot and the primary builder of the reforming Cistercian monastic order. "The voice of conscience, the dominating figure in the Catholic Church from 1125 to 1153", his authority helped to end the schism of 1130. Bernard was the main voice of conservatism during the intellectual revival of Western Europe called the Renaissance of the 12th century and the main opponent of rising scholastic theology. Devoted to promoting the veneration of the Virgin Mary, he was also the most influential advocate of the Second Crusade. He was canonized as a saint in 1174 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1830.

He was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, in France, into the noble class. His desire to enter a monastery was opposed by his relations, who sent him to study at Châtillon-sur-Seine in order to qualify him for high ecclesiastical preferment. Bernard's resolution to become a monk was not, however, shaken.

The little community of reformed Benedictines at Cîteaux, grew so rapidly that it was soon able to send out offshoots. One of these monasteries, Clairvaux, was founded in 1115, in a wild valley of a tributary of the Aube. There Bernard, a recent initiate, was appointed abbot.

Clairvaux became the chief monastery of the five branches into which the order was divided under the supreme direction of the abbot of Cîteaux. Though nominally subject to Cîteaux, Clairvaux soon became the most important Cistercian house, owing to the fame and influence of Bernard.

Before long the abbot, who had intended to devote his life to the work of his monastery, was drawn into the affairs of the outside world. When in 1124 Pope Honorius II was elected, Bernard was already reckoned among the greatest of French churchmen; he now shared in the most important ecclesiastical discussions, and papal legates sought his counsel.

Attributes: with the Virgin Mary, a beehive, dragon, quill, book, or dog

Patronage: farm and agriculture workers, Gibraltar, Queens' College, Cambridge

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