SS Robert, Alberic, and Stephen

THE JOURNEY TO THE WILDERNESS OF CITEAUX
From the “Exordium Magnum” of Conrad of Eberbach 6
◊◊◊

In the year of the Incarnation of the Lord 1098, Dom Robert, the abbot of
the Abbey of Molesme…and with him went those brothers whose hearts God had
touched, set out from Molesme, making the same choice as their father Saint
Benedict, to tire themselves out in working for God rather than settling down in a
comfortable way of life. They hurried eagerly to that place which by the grace of
God had been offered them beforehand as suitable to their endeavor, that is, to the
wilderness called Citeaux. Situated in the diocese of Chalon, it was at that time a
place but seldom approached by human beings because of the woods and dense
briars and inhabited only by wild beasts.

The men of God arrived at this place of horror and vast solitude; and thought
it quite suitable for the sort of religious observance which they had long had in
mind and for which they had come, all the more so when they realized that the
density of woods and briars would make the monastery remote and cut off, quite
forgotten by and inaccessible to the world. So by the will of the bishop of Chalon
and the consent of the person to whom the place belonged, they began to build
there… on 21 March, that is, on the solemnity of the birth [to eternal life] of Saint
Benedict, which was also Palm Sunday and therefore celebrated with double joy,
to the rejoicing of angels and the casting down of demons…By a happy omen, those
who had decided to arrange the ordering of their life and the guidelines for divine
services according to the form prescribed in the Rule began this undertaking on
the birthday of the very person who had, through the life-giving Spirit, given the
saving law to many.

…Just as at the beginning of grace, when Christ our Lord and Savior was
born, the world, while it knew him not, received a pledge of new redemption, of
ancient reconciliation, of eternal happiness, so too in these last days, when charity
is cold and iniquity everywhere abounds, the almighty and merciful Lord planted
the seed of that same grace in the wilderness of Citeaux. Watered by the rain of
the Holy Spirit, it gathered an incredibly plentiful harvest of spiritual riches,
growing and developing into a great tree so surpassingly beautiful and fruitful that
people of various nations, tribes, and tongues delighted to rest in its shade and
satisfy themselves with its fruits. Yet although this fruit makes bitter the stomach
of carnal desire by the work of repentance, it is as sweet as honey in the mouth of
the developing conscience.

6 Conrad of Eberbach. The Great Beginnning of Citeaux: A Narrative of the Beginning
of the Cistercian Order: The Exordium Magnum of Conrad of Eberbach. CF 72. Trans.
Benedicta Ward, SLG, and Paul Savage. Collegeville, MN: Cistercian Publications, 2012.
75-78.