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Vatican City, Oct 21, 2009 / 10:44 am (CNA).-
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Pope Benedict XVI addressed almost 40,000 people on Wednesday about a figure known as the last of the Fathers of the Church, St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The Holy Father spoke to the gathered faithful about how St. Bernard's example should show them that true understanding of the Faith requires an intimate relationship with the Lord and profound faith.
Pope Benedict began his catechesis by describing the life of the celebrated French saint.
Born in 1090 in Fontaines, France to a "numerous and fairly well off family, Bernard studied grammar, rhetoric and dialectic. At 20 years-old he entered the monastery of Citeaux, which the Pope described as a more rigorous monastic foundation than the existing ones of the time.
In 1115 he was sent by St. Stephen Harding, third abbot of Citeaux, to found a new monastery at Clairvaux, where Bernard himself became abbot. At Clairvaux the saint "insisted on the importance of a sober and restrained lifestyle, in food, in clothing and in the structures of the monastery, at the same time encouraging support and assistance for the poor."
Together with his theological writings and homilies, including the celebrated Sermons on the Song of Songs, Bernard maintained a vast correspondence, developed warm friendships with his contemporaries, defended sound doctrine, and combated heresy and outbreaks of anti-Semitism. Benedict XVI recalled Bernards writings against the heresy of the Cathars who despised the material and the body and thus despised the Creator. This monk defended the Jews, so much so that a rabbi, Ephraim, addressed a stirring tribute to him.
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