Vigils Reading – Bl Guerric

A reading on

BLESSED GUERRIC OF IGNY

◊◊◊

It is difficult to know from a man’s writings what he was like to meet and

live with. Guerric regularly protests his own incapacity and even directs his

criticisms of contemporary monastic life against himself. This is, of course, the

kind of convention which is most frequent in introductory passages, and it is

difficult to believe that anyone would take it by itself as a guarantee of true

humility. What is more compelling is the restraint and balance of judgment

which appear on every page. One can hardly think that the sermons were

written by a man who had it in him to be unbalanced or aggressive. Certainly

they come from someone who grasped thoroughly the nature and purpose of the

monastic life, who surveyed and presumably himself traveled the way to union

with God.

There is a charming reflection of his humility in the story of the deathbed

repentance, as it is told in the Exordium Magnum.

The General Chapter had issued this decree: “On the lawfulness of

dictating new books. No abbot, monk or novice shall be allowed to compile new

books unless permission has been given for a particular case in the abbots’

General Chapter”. We have no evidence for the existence of this decree before a

collection of 1151, when most of Guerric’s sermons may have been committed to

writing; but it is likely that it was known earlier. Neighboring abbots, including

Bernard himself, by this time four years dead, must have known something of

Guerric’s literary activities, but no complaint had ever been made. The story

makes it clear that the abbot’s conscience had never been troubled about his

sermons before this time.

But he would not be satisfied until the brethren had brought his book of

sermons and burnt it. He was an old man and may perhaps have been too much

out of touch with things to know that there were other copies. In his dying

condition it is unlikely that he could see what was being burnt. Whatever exactly

happened – and of course the story may have been made up to excuse the

existence of his sermons for a later generation – we still have Guerric’s work.

“This was how God arranged things for our good. He would not have his Holy

Church, least of all the Cistercian Order, deprived of the grace which was to

come to it from such a wealth of learning”.