It's the Feast of
St. Bernard,
3rd Class, with the color of
White. In this episode: the meditation: "Renouncing Our Own Interests", today's news from the Church: "Unjustly Condemned: Respond With Charity", a preview of the Sermon: "The Letter Kills, The Spirit Gives Life", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
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Sources Used Today:
- "Renouncing Our Own Interests" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
- "Unjustly Condemned: Respond With Charity" (FSSPX.news)
- "The Letter Kills, The Spirit Gives Life" (SSPX Sermons)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was a monk who wanted a quiet life of prayer and somehow ended up advising popes, preaching crusades, settling Church disputes, and becoming one of the most influential men in Europe.
He was born in Burgundy, France, in 1090 into a noble family. After the death of his mother, Bernard began seriously considering religious life and eventually decided to enter the new Cistercian monastery at Cîteaux.
He didn't go alone.
Bernard was apparently so persuasive that when he announced his decision, about thirty relatives and friends went with him. Brothers, cousins, and companions all followed. Family gatherings must have gotten noticeably smaller.
The monastery suddenly had the opposite problem most monasteries have: too many vocations at once.
A few years later, Bernard was sent out to establish a new monastery in a remote valley. The place became known as Clairvaux, the "Valley of Light," and Bernard would spend the rest of his life associated with it.
He loved the simplicity of monastic life, but Europe refused to leave him alone.
Kings asked his advice. Bishops sought his help. Popes called upon him to settle disputes. When rival claimants threatened to divide the Church, Bernard traveled throughout Europe persuading rulers and bishops to support the legitimate pope. One of his own former monks eventually became Pope Eugene III, which created the unusual situation of a pope receiving spiritual advice from his former abbot.
Bernard could be forceful and controversial, particularly in his preaching of the Second Crusade. When that expedition ended disastrously, he carried much of the public disappointment himself.
But the Bernard who appears in his spiritual writings feels surprisingly different.
He wrote with extraordinary tenderness about Christ and especially about the Blessed Virgin Mary. Medieval devotion to Our Lady owes a great deal to him. The famous prayer Memorare has long been associated with Bernard, although historians do not believe he actually composed the familiar text. He did, however, preach beautiful sermons about Mary as the "Star of the Sea," urging Christians caught in temptation or sorrow to look toward her as sailors look toward a guiding star.
There's another charming tradition about him. While praying before a statue of Our Lady, Bernard is said to have greeted her with the words, "Hail, Mary." The statue responded, "Hail, Bernard." True or legendary, it captures the affection medieval Catholics associated with his Marian devotion.
Bernard died in 1153. The abbey he built at Clairvaux was later largely destroyed and, remarkably, part of the site became a prison after the French Revolution.
Yet Bernard's words survived everything.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, preaching Doctor and devoted son of Our Lady, pray for us.
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The SSPX Podcast is produced by Angelus Press, which has as its mission the fortification of traditional Catholics so that they can defend the Faith, and reaching out to those who have not yet found Tradition.
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The main goal of the Society of Saint Pius X is to preserve the Catholic Faith in its fullness and purity, to teach its truths, and to diffuse its virtues, especially through the Roman Catholic priesthood.
Authentic spiritual life, the sacraments, and the traditional liturgy are its primary means of bringing this life of grace to souls.
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