Vigils Reading – St Bernard

THE SAME ETERNAL GOAL

A letter from Pope St John Paul II to the Cistercian Abbots General

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Our age is frequently called “the hour of the laity” due to the fact that it

highlights the efforts made to offer the laity within the Church those ministries

which correspond to their state in life. No less truly, we could also call the times

in which St Bernard lived such because while the Church was making efforts to

break her ties with feudal institutions, a movement of the laity was born which

undertook holy enterprises under the banner of the cross, and moreover, the

laity, already in the 12th century began to make its voice heard as much in

preaching the word of God as in poetry and in other disciplines. The religious

movement which launched the construction of magnificent churches could be

called the first European labor movement.

The Abbot of Clairvaux…very frequently had to abandon the silence of the

monastery in order to involve himself with the life of the laity, in order to have a

guiding hand in the unfolding of the events and above all in order to bring peace

between kings and princes, and between kings and cities. As it has been stated of

St Bernard in the “Vita Prima”, he taught the path of perfection and wisdom to

spiritual persons as one who was “cultured among the cultured” and “simple

among the simple”; he adapted himself to everyone in his desire to gain them for

Christ”.

To the clerics and the laity he pleaded that they unite into one body:

“Since the Lord has commanded us to ‘watch and pray that we may not fall

into temptation’, it is evident that without the common effort of the faithful

(laity) and the custodians (clerics), it is not possible to maintain the city with

security, nor the beloved (spouse), nor even a single sheep. Do you want to know

the difference that exists among them? They are one and the same thing.

In his opinion it is incumbent upon the laity in collaboration with the

clergy, to build the Church, a thing that they can accomplish above all by means

of exercising obedience and the works of charity, especially the corporal works

of mercy. In fact, addressing himself to the laity, he states: “Obey your bishop

and other authorities of the Church who counsel you on what you have to do.

Practice hospitality for many have pleased God by it… Welcome the Lord of the

angels in the pilgrims, feed him in the hungry, clothe him in the naked, visit him

in the sick, set free the captives.

Consequently, the Abbot of Clairvaux, although he dealt principally with

monastic life and considered it as a third order along with that of clerics and

laity, yet being a father of souls, he had the same esteem for the laity of the

Church; thus he was convinced that all of them, whatever be the order to which

they belong, tend toward the one and the same eternal goal.