PROPER 19, YEAR A

September 13, 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R.I.

 

 

Genesis 50:15-21

Psalm 103:1-13

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

 

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” So our Lord teaches us to pray. God’s forgiveness of our sins through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is at the heart of the Christian Gospel. 

 

But forgiving those who’ve hurt, wronged, injured, or offended us is one of the most challenging demands of our faith – and one of the most controversial. Do we really expect victims of child abuse, rape, or violent crime to forgive their tormentors? Do we really expect survivors of the concentration camps to forgive their captors?

 

Those are enormously difficult questions to which I don’t pretend to have easy answers. But two points: 

First, we can answer the question of forgiveness only for ourselves, not for others.

Second, such questions typically arise only in a Christian context. Only after we’ve heard the Christian Gospel do we begin to feel the tension between its message of forgiveness and our human instinct for retribution.

 

Typically, Scripture offers answers to such questions not through detailed, step-by-step instructions for achieving forgiveness, but through stories. As we hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the biblical stories, they gradually shape our minds, imaginations, and wills. They don’t offer easy answers to hard questions so much as help us see the questions themselves in new ways.

 

The story of Joseph in today’s reading from Genesis is a case in point. Joseph and his eleven brothers are Jacob's sons and ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. Many years earlier, Joseph’s brothers attacked him in a fit of jealous rage, stripped him of his beautiful robe, and sold him to a caravan of traders who took him to Egypt to sell him as a slave. 

 

But instead of remaining a slave, through a series of adventures featuring his unique ability to interpret dreams, Joseph has risen to become the chief minister of Pharaoh’s household: the most powerful official in the land. In this capacity, he’s stockpiled grain reserves in preparation for the famine he knows is coming, again thanks to his ability to interpret dreams. When the famine does strike, his brothers come down to Egypt to buy grain. After a series of encounters in which he recognizes them but they don’t recognize him, he finally reveals himself, telling them that God sent him ahead of them into Egypt to preserve all their lives.  

 

As today’s reading from Genesis begins, Joseph’s brothers are terrified that, now that their father Jacob has died, Joseph will finally take his revenge on them. So they offer to be his slaves if only he’ll spare their lives. But instead, he reassures them: “Fear not, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you intended evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive …” 

 

Notice that Joseph doesn’t try to exonerate his brothers or excuse their crime. He tells it like it is: “you intended evil against me.” His brothers stand condemned. But Joseph discerns a deeper wisdom at work. If he were to exact retribution by killing or enslaving his brothers, he’d be putting himself in the place of God, to whom alone vengeance belongs. He’d also be contradicting the will of God, who allowed him to be sold into slavery in the first place to save all their lives. So, just as God has been merciful to Joseph, so now Joseph is merciful to his brothers.

 

The story Jesus tells in today’s Gospel, the parable of the unforgiving servant, stands in a kind of inverse parallel to the story of Joseph and his brothers. A king releases a servant from a huge debt the servant could never pay by himself. But the same servant then refuses to forgive an infinitesimally smaller debt owed to him by another servant. When the king hears of it, he’s outraged: “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you besought me. Should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?” 

 

The analogy is that God has forgiven us at the infinite cost of his Son’s suffering and death on the cross for our sins, so he expects us to forgive one another, even though it costs us far less. To become forgiving people, we begin by acknowledging how much God has forgiven us. 

 

As today’s Psalm puts it: “[The Lord] has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.” And again, Saint Paul, in today’s reading from his Letter to the Romans, says: “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? … For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”

 

However, it's crucial to understand what forgiveness is and what it isn’t. When someone has hurt us, forgiveness doesn’t mean saying, “Oh, that’s all right, it doesn’t matter.” It’s not all right, and it does matter. If it were truly all right, there’d be nothing to forgive. 

 

Forgiveness doesn’t mean excusing the wrong or pretending it didn’t happen. Instead, it means overcoming our instinct to strike back and letting go of our desire for vengeance and retribution.

 

Forgiveness doesn’t mean a violent criminal should escape serious prison time. It doesn’t mean a chief financial officer who’s embezzled company funds should keep either his job or the money. It doesn’t mean a battered wife should continue living with an abusive husband. It doesn’t mean the Church should move priests who’ve molested children from parish to parish and cover up their crimes. In each of these situations, decisive steps are necessary to protect the innocent and safeguard the community.

 

In tough situations like these, forgiveness means something much harder: refusing to be ruled by hatred, malice, vindictiveness, and the desire for revenge, which can all too easily consume us and poison our attitudes and behavior. It also means refusing to let our identities be defined by our suffering and victimization. 

 

When others hurt, injure, or offend us—which in this life they inevitably will—our choice is where to take our cues in responding. In the Genesis reading, Joseph would be perfectly justified in responding in kind to his brothers’ crime. But instead of taking his cue from his brothers, he takes his cue from God and shows mercy. In the Gospel parable, however, the servant fails to take his cue from the king who’s just forgiven him, and so fails to forgive his fellow servant.

 

To become a forgiving people, we need to learn to see the other person from God’s point of view. Easier said than done! It requires enormous perseverance, patience, and prayer. But most of all, it requires telling, retelling, and immersing ourselves in the biblical stories of forgiveness and reconciliation. Then, by God’s grace, we can begin to know the wonderful freedom and joy found in forgiving others as God has forgiven us.

NATIVITY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Friday, September 11, 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

(Tr. from September 8)

 

 

The feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is one of three birthdays celebrated in the Church calendar. The other two are the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist on June 29th and the Nativity of our Lord on December 25th. 

 

Most saints are commemorated instead on the anniversaries of their deaths, their birthdays into heaven. But in some cases, the Bible presents the births of great figures – such as Samuel and Samson – as instances of God sending individuals into the world who will decisively advance his plan of salvation. The telltale sign is typically that the birth occurs to parents considered barren; the more miraculous the birth, the more important and illustrious the individual is destined to become. 

 

Although not recorded in Scripture, the tradition concerning the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary fits this pattern exactly. Our earliest source on Mary’s conception and birth is the apocryphal Protevangelium of James, which dates to the second century. 

 

According to this account, Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, remained childless into old age. Joachim was a wealthy and pious descendant of David, but when he went to sacrifice in the Temple, the high priest rejected his offering because of his wife’s barrenness, which he interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure and punishment. Joachim then withdrew into the desert for forty days of fasting and prayer, during which Anne lamented that she’d become not only childless but also a widow.

 

Angels then appeared to both at the same time and promised them a child. Joachim returned to Jerusalem, and Anne ran up and embraced him at the city gate—a favorite subject of Eastern iconographers. In art, that embrace suggests their further union behind closed doors! Mary was born nine months later. The Church of St. Anne in Jerusalem stands on the spot where, according to tradition, Anne and Joachim lived and where Mary was born.

 

When Mary was three years old, her parents brought her to the Temple to present her to the Lord, an event commemorated in the Church’s calendar on November 21st. According to another legend, Mary grew up in a community of consecrated virgins in the Temple precincts until her betrothal to Joseph the Carpenter.

 

This commemoration of the Nativity of Mary dates back to at least the Sixth Century in the Christian East. The Eastern Church begins its Church Year on September 1st, so it seemed appropriate to follow that with the birth of the Mother of God. The chosen date, September 8th, further determined the date of the Immaculate Conception, nine months earlier, on December 8th. The Church of Rome adopted the feast in the seventh century, and it became widespread in the West in the ninth century.

 

Today’s feast celebrates Mary herself and her righteous parents, Joachim and Ann. Above all, it celebrates God’s gracious action in preparing the way for the Savior by first sending the Virgin of Nazareth, conceived without any stain of Original Sin, to be his mother. It all happened according to God’s plan, for which we rightly give thanks today.

 

PROPER 18, YEAR A

Sunday 6 September 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R.I.

 

Matthew 18:15-20

 

The international relations scholar Kenneth W. Thompson once remarked that to understand the dynamics of conflict among nations and peoples, one need only spend a month in a typical parish choir. In addition to being an accomplished political scientist, Thompson was a Christian thinker of considerable depth, and I suspect he spoke from experience. (I hasten to add that I’m not talking about our own wonderful choir here at Sts. Matthew & Mark, who all seem to get along extraordinarily well!)

 

In any case, life in the Church – not just the choir but every part of the parish – does not always reflect the harmony, peace, and love to which we know we’re called as Christians. Today’s Gospel explicitly acknowledges this hard reality. Jesus is under no illusions. Short of Heaven itself, conflicts will occur even among members of the same congregation. Moreover, for much of the Church’s history, the people with whom one worshiped on Sunday were also one’s family, friends, and neighbors: the people among whom one lived and worked, bought and sold, and socialized and played throughout the rest of the week. So conflict within the parish could be divisive and disruptive to the entire community.

 

To avoid such division, our Lord gives clear, practical directions for what to do when another Church member hurts, offends, or wrongs us. These instructions consist of three steps.

 

First, “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one.”

 

In other words, the person with the grievance needs to take the initiative to resolve the problem. Yet how often is this not what happens! We suffer an insult or injury and, instead of taking the matter up with the perpetrator, we start sulking, feeling sorry for ourselves, and nursing a grudge. Or, worse still, we complain to everyone but the person who’s offended us. On some occasions in the past, I’ve inadvertently upset someone, only to discover weeks, months, or even years later that the person told everyone about it except me! Nothing stirs up division and dissension in a community more than people grumbling and complaining behind one another’s backs. But our Lord’s words are clear: If someone offends you, first take it up with that person: directly and privately. You might reach a mutual understanding and achieve reconciliation without stirring up trouble or making the situation worse.

 

Sometimes this direct approach works; sometimes it doesn’t. So the second step: “If you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”

 

The biblical background is that the Old Testament repeatedly requires that no one be condemned for wrongdoing except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. One witness alone is insufficient without corroboration. The New Testament carries this principle into the life of the Church, as when Saint Paul writes in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, “Any charge must be sustained by the evidence of two or three witnesses” (13:1). 

 

As an aside, every so often a parishioner will come to me with an accusation against another parishioner: so-and-so said this and did that! Almost always, my instinctive response is that I really can’t do anything about it unless and until I’ve heard from at least both sides. Otherwise, it’s an uncorroborated allegation, and I can’t begin to get to the bottom of what’s really going on.

 

So, our Lord is saying that if we can’t resolve our differences one-on-one, then bring one or two others into the conversation. There’s always the possibility that these third parties might help us see something we can’t see on our own and mediate between the two points of view. 

 

But if this process of mediation fails and our witnesses agree that we’ve been wronged, step three is to “tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.” 

 

The early Christians took the command to “tell it to the church” literally. When members of the congregation had personal complaints against one another, they would stand up in church on Sunday morning to air their grievances. The whole congregation would listen and try to mediate, arbitrate, or render a judgment. The Eucharist could not proceed until one of two things happened: either both parties were reconciled and exchanged the kiss of peace—or else the guilty party, if unrepentant, was expelled from the assembly.

 

Needless to say, this procedure caused more problems than it solved, and was soon abandoned. But it survives in symbolic form in one place in our liturgy: the Passing of the Peace! Having just been reconciled with God in the Confession and Absolution, we express our reconciliation with one another, and with all our brothers and sisters in Christ, before we dare approach the Lord’s Table.

 

But what can it mean in today’s world to “Tell it to the church”? The understanding that eventually gained acceptance was that telling it to the church could be accomplished just as well by telling the church’s authorized representatives, namely the clergy.

 

In other words, if another member of the parish hurts or wrongs you so badly that it threatens to destroy the relationship, then first, take the matter up with that person directly. If that doesn’t work, try getting one or two friends to mediate. If that doesn’t work, bring the matter to your priest. I say this not because we priests relish the thought of meddling in our parishioners’ disputes—we don’t, believe me! Yet discord among the members wounds the whole Body. So, we clergy have a legitimate interest in promoting forgiveness and reconciliation among the members of our flock. One of the gifts priests receive at ordination is the ministry of reconciliation. Frankly, when people in the parish are at odds with one another, it is the clergy’s business.

 

Even within the Body of Christ, conflicts and disputes are inevitable. We’re all still sinners, after all, and we’ve all got a long way to go before God is finished with us. What makes life in the Church distinctive, however, is not the absence of conflict, but rather the ability to achieve forgiveness and reconciliation when conflicts arise, as they inevitably will. 

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives practical directions for working through conflicts toward forgiveness and reconciliation. The point is to do everything we possibly can to be at peace. The goal is not to cast anyone out, but rather to keep everyone within the fold. On the cross, Christ shows us his love by forgiving us and reconciling us to God. And it’s precisely in mutual forgiveness and reconciliation that we show that same love to one another and the world.

SAINT BARTHOLOMEW

Friday, August 29, 2026 (tr. from Aug. 24)

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Saint Bartholomew appears in the lists of the Twelve Apostles in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and again in the Acts of the Apostles. Tradition also identifies him with Nathanael, who appears in the first chapter of John’s Gospel.

 

There, Philip finds Nathanael and tells him: “We have found him of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Philip replies, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” As Nathanael approaches, Jesus says, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” The well-known dialogue follows, in which Nathanael confesses Jesus to be the Son of God and King of Israel, and Jesus promises that Nathanael will see “heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”

 

The identification of Bartholomew with Nathanael rests on Bartholomew’s name appearing immediately after Philip’s in the Gospel lists of the Twelve, whereas John never mentions Bartholomew. If the identification is accurate, Nathanael would have been his first name, and Bartholomew—meaning “Son of Tolmai”—would have been his last name. 

 

Beyond that, the New Testament is silent about Bartholomew. Eusebius of Caesarea, writing in the fourth century, and Saint Jerome, in the early fifth century, record the tradition that Bartholomew traveled to India, where he left a copy of Saint Matthew’s Gospel. This possibility is not as far-fetched as it might seem, since there was substantial trade in those days between the eastern Roman Empire and the west coast of India via sea routes down the Red Sea, through the Gulf of Aden, and across the Arabian Sea.

 

Another tradition holds that after visiting India, Bartholomew went to Armenia with his fellow Apostle, Saint Jude. There, he converted the king of Armenia to Christianity. He then suffered martyrdom, being flayed alive and beheaded on the orders of the king’s brother. In the thirteenth century, Saint Bartholomew’s Monastery was built on the traditional site of his martyrdom in what is now southeastern Turkey, near the border with Iran. The monastery was abandoned in 1915 during the Armenian genocide and now stands in ruins. The Armenian Apostolic Church considers Jude and Bartholomew its founders and patron saints.

 

What are claimed to be the principal relics of Bartholomew—bones and a large piece of his skin—are kept in the San Bartolomeo Basilica in Benevento, in south-central Italy.

 

The Basilica of San Bartolomeo in Rome stands on the site of the former temple of Asclepius, the Roman god of medicine. For this reason, during the Middle Ages, hospitals in European cities were often named after Saint Bartholomew. One notable example is Saint Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, founded in 1123, which is attached to the parish Church of Saint Bartholomew the Great, the only medieval church in the City of London to survive both the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz. An architectural gem, it’s not to be missed on any visit to London.

 

In art, Bartholomew’s symbol is a tanner’s knife, the instrument of his death. Some gruesome artistic depictions show him holding his flayed skin aloft. He’s considered the patron saint of tanners and dermatologists, and is invoked by those suffering from skin diseases. 

 

PROPER 16, YEAR A

Sunday 23 August 2026

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Isaiah 51:1-6

Romans 12:1-8

Matthew 16:13-20

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus and his disciples have just arrived in the region of Caesarea Philippi. This town lay in the far north of Galilee, near Mount Hermon, in the area now known as the Golan Heights. Its most prominent landmark was a shrine to the god Pan (and I’ll say more about that shortly). Four years ago, Elizabeth and I had the privilege of visiting the site of Caesarea Philippi on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

 

Here, Our Lord asks his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Jesus often refers to himself as the Son of Man, a phrase that simply means “human being.”) The initial answers are intriguing. “Some say John the Baptist; but others Elijah; and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 

 

Let’s look at those answers. By this time, John the Baptist was already dead. Yet Matthew’s Gospel reports that on first hearing about Jesus, King Herod said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist, who has been raised from the dead; this is why these powers are at work in him.” So, the rumor that Jesus was John the Baptist returned from the dead was already circulating in high places.

 

As for Elijah, many Jews believed that Elijah would return as a messenger sent to prepare the way for the Messiah. A verse in the Book of Malachi proclaims, “Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.”

 

And as for Jeremiah, or one of the prophets, many Jews were waiting for a figure called “the Prophet.” This expectation came from Moses’ parting words to the Israelites: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you—him shall you heed.”

 

So: John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets: all good guesses as to Jesus’ identity, but all falling short of the truth. So Jesus asks the disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” Speaking up on behalf of the rest, Simon Peter replies, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.”

 

The Hebrew word Messiah means “Anointed One.” And it translates into Greek as Christos, or Christ. So, contrary to what I thought when I was a kid, “Christ” is not our Lord’s surname, but his title. “Jesus Christ” means “Jesus the Messiah,” or “Jesus the Anointed One.”

 

Peter has given the right answer. Jesus congratulates him: “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” 

 

The lesson here is that none of us can come to true knowledge of who Jesus is by our own unaided human abilities. Only God can reveal that knowledge to us. As Saint Paul exhorts us in today’s reading from Romans: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds ....”

 

Then Jesus continues: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”  Here Jesus is indulging in an amusing bit of wordplay. In Greek—the language of Matthew’s Gospel—the name Peter, Petros, is similar to the word for rock, petra. And in Aramaic, the language that Jesus was probably speaking, both the name Peter and the word “rock” are the same: kepha.

 

And “the gates of Hades” shall not prevail against the Church that Jesus will build on this rock. To understand what’s going on here, we need to return to the temple of the Greek god Pan at Caesarea Philippi. An especially lecherous deity, Pan had the head, torso, and arms of a man but the legs, hindquarters, and horns of a goat. His worshippers engaged in orgiastic rituals involving lewd practices best left unmentioned.

 

At present-day Caesarea Philippi, the temple’s ruins stand on a rocky outcropping overlooking where the town was. Directly behind the temples rises a one-hundred-foot cliff, at the bottom of which opens out the yawning mouth of a cave. Pagan worshipers believed that this cave was a gate to the underworld, Hades, the place of departed spirits, and also the place where the god Pan went during the winter (presumably to stay warm).

 

With a little imagination, we can picture Jesus and the disciples arriving in Caesarea Philippi, and seeing this rocky hillside with its temple and its cave believed to be a gate to the underworld. Over and against such temples built on physical rocks, Jesus declares that Peter and, by extension, the other apostles are the rock on which he will build his Church—in Greek, his ecclesia, or assembly—against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail.

 

This image calls to mind a city under siege, which a besieging army storms by battering down the city gates. Even so, the gates of hell will not withstand the preaching of the Gospel. An ancient Christian tradition depicts Christ himself as breaking down the gates of hell when he descends to the dead in the interval between his crucifixion and resurrection.

 

Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah exhorts us: “Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” We need to hold fast to the assurance that in Holy Baptism, we’ve been made members of a Church built on a rock—the rock of the sure foundation of confession of faith in Christ Jesus and proclamation of the good news of his kingdom.

 

So far as I’m aware, today’s Gospel is the only place in the New Testament that shows Jesus and his disciples in the immediate vicinity of pagan shrines and temples. Such centers of idolatrous worship and debauched rituals must have been deeply offensive to their Jewish sensibilities.

 

Yet perhaps it’s especially appropriate that it’s here, of all places, that Peter confesses Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of the Living God; and that Jesus in turn names Peter as the Rock upon whom he’ll build the Church. Already they’re the advance guard of a movement that will sweep away false belief and false worship by the power of God’s Word and God’s Holy Spirit. 

 

The Roman historian Plutarch relates an incident that took place during the time of Tiberias—whose reign as Emperor largely overlapped the life of Jesus. A sailor on board a ship sailing from Greece to Italy heard a supernatural voice calling over the waters, “The Great God Pan is dead.”

 

Early Christian writers interpreted this mysterious proclamation of Pan’s death as an announcement of Christ’s birth. But I like to imagine that it coincided instead with this exchange between Jesus and Peter at Caesarea Philippi: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God;” and “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

Friday, August 21, 2026

(tr. from August 20)

Sts. Matthew & Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

St. Bernard was born into a noble family in northeastern France in 1090. Although he had promising prospects as a secular scholar, at age 22 he entered the Abbey of Citeaux, just south of Dijon. At the time, the abbey was at the forefront of the Cistercian Reform, which sought to return Benedictine monasteries to their original simplicity and austerity.

 

In 1115, the Abbot sent Bernard to found a new monastery at a place called the Valley of Wormwood, which had been a hideout for robbers. There, he became well known for his sermons and spiritual writings; the monastery he founded became known as Clairvaux – the bright valleys. Soon, Clairvaux housed several hundred monks and began founding new monasteries elsewhere. Bernard had a direct hand in 65 such foundations.

 

Bernard also became an active participant in the complex ecclesiastical politics of the day. He openly criticized and rebuked bishops whose lives he considered too luxurious and worldly. He exchanged sharp letters with Peter the Venerable, the Archabbot of Cluny, the principal Benedictine abbey of the day, criticizing Peter’s lifestyle and that of his monks. 

 

Bernard gained significant influence when one of his spiritual protégés became Pope Eugene III in 1145. At the Pope’s command, Bernard traveled through France and Germany in 1147, preaching the Second Crusade, with spectacular results as entire towns and villages were emptied of men who joined the armies heading to Jerusalem. However, when the Crusaders began massacring Jews in the Rhineland, Bernard intervened with forceful denunciations and effectively stopped the violence. Subsequently, Bernard was widely blamed for the Second Crusade’s failure.

 

Bernard is known for his fierce opposition to the philosopher-theologian Peter Abelard, whom he regarded as too rationalistic and insufficiently attentive to the mystery of faith. Bernard’s approach emphasized traditional authority and emotive devotion instead. Later generations of medieval theologians would reconcile the two approaches.

 

While the Cistercian monastic life was stark and austere, Bernard’s spiritual writing was rich and vivid. It has been said that Bernard brought emotion into Christian spirituality—particularly by cultivating the love of God through reflection on Christ’s sacred humanity as presented in the Gospel narratives. 

 

This kind of relationship with the human Jesus was new to Christian spirituality, which had previously focused on more abstract levels of divine truth. Thus, Bernard was one of the pioneers of what’s known as the via positiva, an approach later adopted and developed by spiritual teachers such as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Ignatius of Loyola.

 

Bernard is well known for his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His greatest works include his treatise On Loving God and his Sermons on the Song of Songs, both of which remain spiritual classics today.

 

Bernard died at Clairvaux on August 20, 1153. Pope Alexander III canonized him in 1174, and Pope Pius VII bestowed upon him the title of Doctor of the Church in 1830. He is sometimes known as the Mellifluous Doctor.

 

Bernard’s relics were interred at Clairvaux alongside those of his friend, St. Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh. During the French Revolution, the Cistercian community at Clairvaux – by then reduced to 26 monks – was disbanded, and the buildings became state property. The relics of Bernard and Malachy were moved to the cathedral at Troyes, where they remain today.