Remembering St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Monastic reformer and adviser to popes

Every year on Aug. 20, the Catholic Church honors St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the 12th-century monk who helped to build up the Cistercian order — some of whom are known today as the Trappists.

Bernard is considered the last of the Church Fathers in the Western tradition.

He was born during the year 1090 near the French town of Dijon. His father, Tescelin, and his mother, Aleth, belonged to the highest class of nobility in the region and had six other children. Bernard, their third child, received an especially good education in response to a local man’s prophecy that he was destined for great things.

After his mother’s death, Bernard began to consider a life of solitude and prayer. At Citeaux, near Dijon, a group of monks had gathered in 1098 with the intention of returning to St. Benedict’s original rule of monasticism from the sixth century. Bernard, together with 30 other noblemen of Dijon, sought to join this monastery around the year 1113.

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