Sermon on St Bernard of Clairvaux

‘Love created us out of love to share Love itself’

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This term, we will be looking at saints that are linked with the college, and asking the simple question – from their lives, from their writings, from their teachings, what might help us as a college and as a community to live more fully today? Starting with one of the patron saints of the college, therefore, seems apt.

Initially, St Bernard seemed to me to be a really great saint to preach about. People like me, from the Catholic tradition of the Church of England and indeed Roman Catholics the world over, know of his writing even if they don’t know the author. The wonderful Marian antiphons, sung daily by monastic and religious communities around the world, are in large part derived from and influenced by his writing and preaching. This theme runs throughout his theology – it was greatly influenced by his love for and devotion to the Virgin Mary, with a view of her as the great mediator linking heaven and earth. He was a great mystic and a great writer, was given the great honour of doctor of the church, and throughout the past millennium has influenced to no small degree the direction, theology and ecclesiology of the church corporate, both Roman Catholic and protestant. Indeed, both traditions claim him for their own.

Bernard, too, was instrumental in reforming the monastic traditions of the time within the Cistercian order, founded to return Benedictine living to a more austere and primitive state. Rather confusingly, he managed to convince his entire family, married or not, to join the monastery or convent within a few years of his own profession, and once engaged in monastic work he went about it with righteous zeal, routing out what he saw as outrages and obscenities in monastic living, irritating big fat self-indulgent and perfectly content friars as he went. Writing about the glutinous nature of his colleagues, he said "The cooks prepare everything with such skill and cunning that the four or five dishes already consumed are no hindrance to what is to follow, and the appetite is not checked by satiety." Despite the great annoyance of his peers, his mission was fairly successful, with over one hundred Cistercian monasteries founded in his lifetime, and today’s monasteries owe him a great deal of thanks.

Part of the reason he did quite so well was his own personal sanctity, influenced in great part by the personal sanctity that he saw in his mother, whose death sparked his great religious conversion. His devotion to the Virgin Mary must, in some part, flow from his devotion to his own mother, and his absolute commitment to spiritual discipline and scholarship, together with personal holiness remains a key part of Cistercian life in the present day. His writings on deepening the spiritual life, amongst them a beautiful set of sermons on the Song of Songs, and experiencing God through mysticism was both revolutionary and exciting, and to this day hold sway in theological meditation on the life and real presence of Jesus. His wish to move on from a solely scholastic and rational understanding of God was fundamental to his writings, and much of this love of God was aided by his love for Mary and his belief that she would intercede, and mediate, for him to God.

His emphasis on personal holiness also extended to his views on the papacy, which influenced much of his later career – he believed that a pope must be holy in living as well as in words, a rather odd idea at the time, where popes were murdering, fornicating and generally having a gay old time. Perhaps in the life of the present pope, we see what holiness in life as well as words means, and St Bernard’s writings and teachings on this cannot be overestimated. Writing to Pope Eugenius, one of his disciples, he said "You have been entrusted with stewardship over the world, not given possession of it. … There is no poison more dangerous for you, no sword more deadly, than the passion to rule."

However, on greater digging, it turns out that St Bernard really wasn’t the nicest hermit wandering mediaeval Europe – indeed, at times, he was quite a nasty piece of work. He viciously, aggressively and indeed rather petulantly demanded a second crusade, and when this never happened, he flounced back off to a monastery to go and cradle his ego. St Bernard would almost certainly have been thrown out of the University of Cambridge Divinity Faculty over his views on freedom of expression – it was his way or the high way so far as he was concerned – and his public humiliation and sanctimonious doing down of other great ecclesiastical figures such as Abelard made him one of the most feared and indeed hated figures across Europe.

Bernard was born at a time of great schism and infighting within the church – not that dissimilar to today, perhaps. One of his major missions was the dispatching of the Antipope, a chap called Anacletus, who, depending who you read, had either seized the throne or had been rightly elected to it. Bernard, like the rest of the French ecclesiastical community, was less than impressed by Anacletus’s behaviour, and strove to return the papal throne to the incredulously named Innocent II, who had gone for a rather enforced holiday on the French Riviera. Bernard’s particular way of restoring the dignity and sanctity of the papal office was to roam around Europe, meeting with bloodthirsty king after bloodthirsty king, threatening, cajoling and bullying populations to support Innocent.

To be fair to St Bernard, he turned down some nice jobs along the way, not least the archbishopric of Milan, and generally his mission was successful – Innocent was restored to Rome, and poor old Anacletus died, as his biographers describe, ‘of grief and disappointment’. Bernard had cemented his reputation as a formidable theologian, which was rather different to the situation he found himself in a few years before.

Under the previous Pope, Bernard had been rather active in France setting up the Knights Templar and deposing the Bishop of Verdun, as you do. Word had gotten to Rome, and it turned out that the Pope wasn’t a great fan of some meddlesome monk causing havoc in France. The utterly forgettable Cardinal Harmeric, writing on behalf of the Pope, wrote to him stating ‘"It is not fitting that noisy and troublesome frogs should come out of their marshes to trouble the Holy See and the cardinals." Not content to be called a frog, St Bernard, in what must be his only recorded witty retort, responded: “Now illustrious Harmeric if you so wished, who would have been more capable of freeing me from the necessity of assisting at the council than yourself? Forbid those noisy troublesome frogs to come out of their holes, to leave their marshes . . . Then your friend will no longer be exposed to the accusations of pride and presumption.” It seems that this sassy retort shut up old Pope Honorarius II, and Bernard’s reputation began to grow.

Bernard’s reputation now, though, cannot escape the stain of the Second Crusade, and rightly so. No saint is perfect, and it is quite wrong to obfuscate rather than tackle some of the more difficult aspects of a saint’s life head odd. He was, characteristically, absolutely driven by what he perceived as righteous zeal, and quite frankly behaved like some church and political leaders of today, choosing to sow division, hatred and fear of the other in order to further what he saw as a greater political aim. I will return to that later, but suffice to say that his railing against Muslim peoples is not totally alien to the words of a certain Donald J Trump.

Bernard marched his way around Europe, apparently performing miracles at every step, and to his credit vehemently condemned the anti-Semitism that erupted amongst the religious fervor surrounding the call for crusade. His preaching, however, became ever more unpleasant, and at one stage he proclaimed “Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood. Hasten then to expiate your sins by victories over the Infidels, and let the deliverance of the holy places be the reward of your repentance.” Pretty vile stuff.

That the Holy Father Saint John Paul II unreservedly apologized for the crusades in the year 2000 is certainly a good thing, but that it took a millennium to do so shows quite how obstinate and arrogant the so-called Christian west has been through the centuries. Again and again we have seen religion used to justify warfare, and it seems that we, as a species, are able to ignore basic tenets of our faith traditions in order to achieve ultimately human desires. St Bernard is said to have given all his clothes to make crosses for the crusade, to kill and maim, to give others death, whilst the Saviour that he claimed to love and worship gave of his own life to give others life. Our ability to miss such obvious and glaring dissonances in our following a faith is quite terrifying.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the intellectual heavyweight George W Bush chose to describe the so-called ‘War on Terror’ as a crusade – an extraordinarily stupid, misjudged and plain wrong thing to say. As a society, and as a faith, we must actively grapple with, engage with and understand our past, and the effect that it had on others, and until we do so and move our discussions with people of other cultures and faiths towards our similarities rather than our differences, we have no hope of ever living peacefully, or indeed, perhaps of living at all. The current wave of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism that is sweeping Europe is both terrifying and, ultimately, reflects on the failure of education, basic history and societal norms in the West. If we want to move forwards, we should take the plank out of our own eye before reminding our brother of the speck in his. Praying for peace is all well and good, but we won’t achieve it if we don’t challenge political rhetoric that preys on the fear and hatred of others.

No history of a saint is quite complete without the more bizarre stories surrounding their lives, and there is no exception for St Bernard. He was, by all reports, a bit of an odd chap. It seems he suffered rather prolifically from what his biographers describe as ‘lustful desires’. They report him dunking himself in ice cold water and running away from prostitutes on occasion, and state: “here he began practicing lifelong ascetic disciplines (strict fasting, sleep deprivation, etc.), which severely impaired his health—he was plagued by anemia, migraines, gastritis, hypertension, and an atrophied sense of taste his whole life.” Seems a bit much, to me.

In addition, he had a number of rather odd miracles associated with him. He decided that the best way to rid a church of a whole host of flies was in excommunicate them – difficult to really understand his thinking here, but perhaps it’s better not to dig too deeply into that. He also was known to bring speech back to those who were struck dumb, though seemingly only to enable them to confess their sins before they died. But most oddly of all is the Marian lactation, which did exactly what it says on the tin.

Depending on which legend you read, it seems that he had a vision of the blessed virgin Mary whilst she was breastfeeding Jesus, and, whilst our Lord took a break from his nutritious breakfast, Our Lady decided to squirt some extra milk into Bernard’s mouth or eye, the former to give him wisdom, and the latter to cure an eye infection. I can’t vouch for the validity of that for a treatment, though I fear that my patients in general practice might get the GMC involved if I suggested it today. None-the-less, the legend survived into the baroque period, and there are several paintings that survive to this day showing the strange event taking place. It’s got to be up there with the weirder of the saintly legends.

So what can we take from the life of such a complicated saint that might be of any use to us here in Cambridge, a thousand years later? I think there are several things.

Principally amongst them is Bernard’s approach to scripture and to understanding God. In the past few decades there has been a depressing move to a form of facile and embarrassing, and quite frankly unhistorical and ultimately un-Biblical, anti-intellectualism and literalism that has percolated through the church like a form of bad coffee. In fact, to extend the coffee imagery further, it is like instant coffee has taken over the theological life of many so-called ‘big figures’ in the Church of England, with beans and grounds cast asunder. Everything must now have easy answers, and those answers must be written in the Bible, as though the Bible is a book of facts and figures which can be leafed through and selected for each occasion. Whilst Bernard might have shown some rather irritating self-confidence, he understood the basic tenets of scriptural understanding, and indeed realized, like many before and after him, in Christianity and just as importantly in other faith traditions, that at the heart of God, at the heart of the incarnation, at the heart of the scriptures, is mystery. Dwelling in this mystery, either by use of lectio divina or indeed by wondering on the nature, mercy, love and presence of God and his holy mother, as he does in his sermons on the Song of Songs, where he erotically talks of God kissing him on the mouth, was something that Bernard actively promoted and is something we could learn from today, and perhaps in ways that Bernard never expected.

For mysticism, and careful pondering and praying with and over the Holy Scriptures, is not solely the domain of Christian thought. Indeed, rather ironically, the Muslims that St Bernard was rallying troops against were already far ahead of the Christian tradition in this way, and in many ways continue to be so today, despite what the Daily Mail wants us to believe. In addition, much Jewish thought has delved into the deep mystery of God and seen the scriptures for what they are – a tool, a gift, a method for entering into the extraordinary mystery of God, and, so far as Christians are concerned, his Christ. And let’s not restrict this solely to monotheism.

I’m not going to get into the thorny issue of whether Jesus’s proclamation in St John as ‘way, truth and life’ refers to merit in other religious traditions, but, if nothing else, St Bernard’s tradition of mysticism and living in God must be one way of helping us to talk with, and not at, people of other religions. Bernard himself says that ‘Love created us out of love to share Love itself’. Thinking on, and trying to act that out, rather than the constant talk of ‘Islamification of Britain’ by out so-called Christian leaders, should be the way that Christians actually engage with the world and with our neighbour. That the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, writes in the Daily Mail about his fear of the loss of Christian Britain, or John Sentamu, currently Archbishop of York, decries migration, quite frankly shames the church.

Indeed, this very evening, Bishop Rod Thomas, appointed as bishop to the conservative evangelical faction in the church of England to ensure they still have a strong leader who can violently oppose gays and women in leadership, is being licensed in Cambridge – an event that has been very carefully kept beneath the radar to the rest of us supposedly in the same church. That’s not the kind of leadership we need – we need vision and love, not division and fear. Bishop Rod talks of the ‘crisis’ caused by appointing gay clergy – what nonsense. The crisis is that the world is slowly tearing itself apart, children are dying of preventable diseases, refugees are being refused safe passage, babies are drowning in the Mediterranean, quote foreign people are being beaten up in the streets, black people are being shot simply for being black, women are still a persecuted majority, people are dying in Haiti and nobody cares. Those are the crises facing the world, not what people do in bed. ‘Love created us out of love to share Love itself’.

We live in terrifying times, and if the real wisdom of the church has ever been needed, it is needed now. This evening’s readings are apt – Fr Harling asked whether I wanted anything in particular and I thought we should stick to the lectionary. The first reading is from the extraordinarily vitriolic and, to be quite frank, rather unpleasant Nehemiah, who spends much of his time talking about building a wall. Rather apt, is it not? In Nehemiah’s case, it was not the Mexican people who are expected to pay for it, but none-the-less it was built to ‘make all the nations afraid’.

Not only do we have Trump’s despicable campaign in the US demonizing everyone who is not a white male with its ridiculous wall, but we have just started to build our own in Calais. Humans never learn, and the Bible is great evidence of that. God doesn’t sanction this building of walls and building of division, and we can see that when he sends his son to make all division cease, as prince of peace. Immigration and mixing with, rather than differentiating ourselves from, others is not only a good thing in terms of human flourishing, economic development and world peace, but it also must help us understand God more clearly. God is not separate to the world – we are of Him and from Him – so learning more about and learning to love all of His people is a divine imperative. And how much more might we learn about him by listening to and speaking with others. Not to do so is simply to increase our own spiritual poverty, whilst, in many cases, increasing the material poverty of others.

Across the world we are building walls to sow division, fear and hatred. In our own country, we have just cut ourselves off from the rest of the continent, with politicians now telling us it’s all about the immigrants. Peterhouse has three times more bottles of wine in its cellar than the UK will take refugees over five years. We have failed, and have failed badly. We are retreating into ourselves, just like the people did in Nehemiah’s time, and our politicians are encouraging us, not giving us an alternative, with scapegoats aplenty. In many parishes in the Church of England this weekend, it is harvest festival, and whilst that festival is important, seeing the mountains of food in wealthy church chancels whilst at the same time seeing Christian people refusing to give practical and openhearted help to refugees is a sorry state of affairs.

We might give charitably and we might feel we are doing our bit, but as Christians, we cannot stand idly by whilst the world preaches hate. St Bernard, for all his faults, preached a faith of holy living and spoke out against greed and self-interest. We must listen to him today, and we must do the same. We must turn to despots like Trump, to those amongst our own political leaders who emphasise our differences, and refuse to accept their narrative. I have no time for those who say religion and politics should not mix – it misses the entire point of religion. Trump, and those like him, is a disgrace, his views an outrage, his rhetoric a catastrophe. We must stand up and be counted.

The second reading is a wonderful antidote to the unpleasantness that Nehemiah spouts – because God gives us the revelation of Jesus as Messiah to show us how to heal Earth’s wrongs. Jesus speaks of sending the Advocate, the Spirit, the very spirit that St Bernard harnesses and talks of in his own writings. He is clear: ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you’. We, as Christians, must ‘go and bear fruit’. ‘If the world hates’ us, then it has hated him before, and as he tells us in St Matthew’s Gospel, he is represented on earth by the poor, the destitute, the prisoners, the despised, the fatherless, the widow, the refugee. The world, in 2016, looks very much like it hates them, and thus Jesus Christ, and Jesus tells us: ‘You are to testify’. ‘No one has greater love than this, that he lays down his life for his friends’. We have a new battle to fight, but it is not to take up arms and hate – it is to change lives by living out the message of the Saviour.

I’d like to finish with words of St Bernard, which might be our prayer as we turn to face, and to change, this troubled world of ours:

O hope of every contrite heart,
O joy of all the meek,
To those who fall, how kind Thou art!
How good to those who seek!

When once Thou visitest the heart,
Then truth begins to shine,
Then earthly vanities depart,
Then kindles love divine.

O most sweet Jesus, hear the sighs
Which unto Thee we send;
To Thee our inmost spirit cries;
To Thee our prayers ascend.

Abide with us, and let Thy light
Shine, Lord, on every heart;
Dispel the darkness of our night;
And joy to all impart.

Amen