(1090-1153) The “Doctor Mellifluus” (Latin title meaning “the teacher whose words flow like honey”) was born to French nobility. At 22, Bernard, his four brothers, and 25 friends joined a Benedictine monastery. Eventually, another brother and his father joined. He founded his own monastery, reformed the Cistercian order that branched from the Benedictines, helped end a schism, advised kings in France, preached in France, Germany, and Italy, helped organize the Second Crusade, and was spiritual advisor to Pope Eugene III, who had been one of his monks.

Bernard is considered the last of the Church Fathers. He is a Doctor of the Church known for his teaching on the love of the Divine and on prayer. His writing and example challenge and persuade readers to seek “through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God” (Step 11) in a dramatic way.

“Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return” (Saint Bernard of Clairvaux).

Reflection by Brad Farmer