He was given the title of Mellifluous Doctor by Pope Pius XII which means the honeymouthed or honeytongued, in reference to the tender sweet love that St Bernard taught about the love of God, as well as his teaching that the Holy Name of Jesus is like honey in our mouth. It can also be said that it references how just as a bee collects pollen to make honey, so too St Bernard mined the sources of scripture and produced spiritual honey in his commentaries, especially on the Song of Songs.
St Bernard joined the Benedictine monastery Citeaux, along with 30 other fellow nobleman. This monastery had recently been established and was seeking to live out the Rule of St Benedict in a simpler and more austere way than what most other monasteries at the time were. Due to an increase in vocations, this monastery soon needed to make another foundation after another. Within a few years there were 4 daughter monasteries all connected to the mother house of Citeaux. This was the beginnings of the Cistercian Order and Reform within the Church.
Before then, all monasteries were independent of eachother and often amassed large wealth through lands, property, endowments from nobility and had their own servants working the property while the monks could pray. But the Cistercians sought to live more simply and austere lives, working the fields themselves and taking serious the motto of St Benedict Ora et Labora - pray and work. The search for austerity even influenced their architecture and how they built their churches and monasteries, with an emphasis on stone and light. So the windows would be elongated so as to draw the mind upwards to God, and the interior design too would naturally bring the eyes and the mind to looking upwards. This developed into what we now know as the Gothic style of architecture.
From Citeaux, St Bernard was sent to make a foundation at Clairvaux. This is where we get his name from and what his association is to the place. As one of the 4 original foundation daughter houses of Cîteaux, they were all to live the same lifestyle and horarium no matter what monastery they were in. Smaller houses under the authority of a motherhouse and supervision of the Abbot General was one of the defining feature of the Cistercians. We can see now that this model is common to all religious orders and institutes of consecrated life in the Church. However this was not the case in original monasticism, originally all monasteries were independent from eachother and self governing, which meant that there was no consistency in religious observance from monastery to monastery.
As the Abbot of Clairvaux and one of the founders of the Cistercian Reform, it was his duty and responsibility to support and form his fellow monks in the “school of the Lord’s service”, preferring nothing to the love of Christ as the Rule of St Benedict teaches. He did this through sermons, letter writing and commentary on scripture. As a monk his life of prayer was always based on the Work of God (Divine Office), work, and Lectio Divina. His writings are permeated by quotes from scripture and verses, only someone intimately aware with the Bible could do this. Lectio Divina is a type of prayer where you read scripture, meditate on it, ruminate on the words and meaning, listening to what the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, and then contemplating this in your heart and resting in God.
St Bernard is most famous for his commentary on the Song of Songs. Other famous saints who have written commentaries on this book are Pope St Gregory the Great and St Teresa of Avila. Although this book is a love song, it has always been interpreted mystically as the Divine Romance between God the Bridegroom and his Bride the Church. But it can also been seen as an intimate dialogue between God and the soul. This is the basis for Nuptial Mysticism where many saints have reflected on what it means to have union with God, how does it happen, what the purpose of prayer is and especially for consecrated religious to redirect their desires to God who is the only one who can fulfill the love of their heart. This union with God is also later on called Mystical Marriage in the Carmelite tradition under St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila.
Communal prayer as a monk, and personal prayer in scripture and from the heart is what sustained St Bernard. The personal intimate love of Christ for us and our response to that love is the foundation of St Bernard’s spirituality. Although we rightly fear God out of reverence for his Holiness and Righteousness, but we need to move beyond that and love God willingly and wholeheartedly. When we understand the goodness of God and his love given to us in Jesus, then we move from fear of God to loving him and embracing him. Then we progress to loving God for the sake of himself, because God is Love. The more we love God we think of him continually and dwell in him, and he dwells in us through our love, transforming it into his own love in the Trinity. This relational understanding of the Trinity and our participation in it comes from St Augustine’s trinitarian theology of Lover, Beloved and the Love outpoured between them - Father (Lover), Son (Beloved) and Holy Spirit (reciprocated Love of both). St Bernard builds on this and calls the Holy Spirit as the intimacy between the Father and the Son, and so he is also the very “Kiss of God”. In our prayer life and in contemplation, we will come to know and experience this intimate kiss of God as we grow in love. Through the mystery incarnation we are called to participate and share in the mutual eternal outpouring of love that is the Holy Trinity.
This tender romantic style of theology became the basis for St Bernard’s devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. He sees the Holy Name as sweet honey on the tongue, and a divine sweetness that should fill us up - it is our Light, our Food and our Medicine.
As with all proper theology and devotion, understanding the humanity of Christ leads to admiration, respect and loving devotion to his Mother Mary. Influenced by the feudalism of his time and the culture of knighthood - St Bernard saw Our Lady as someone to be honoured out of duty and served in love. She is a helper in the spiritual life always bringing us to Jesus and helping us. So St Bernard saw Mary as a powerful Advocate who has been given the role to dispense graces to us and to help us as Queen in the Kingdom of her Son. Mary is the model and example of contemplative life, and also our loving Mother always doing whatever she can to support us, help us and guide us to her son Jesus. This is beautifully portrayed in the Memorare prayer that is attributed to St Bernard and he popularised it.
The Cistercians and their specific characteristic of Marian spirituality as monks dressed in white (previously Benedictines traditionally wore monastic black) dedicated to her, had the custom of always naming their monasteries after Mary, including daily prayers and commemorations to her in the liturgy, and devoted to her as their Queen and model. It is from the Cistercians that the famous hymn Salve Regina comes from and their custom of singing it daily in common. This influenced the Dominicans and Carmelites, and eventually became common practice throughout the Church to sing this after Night Prayer. The Cistercians, Dominicans and Carmelites all have the custom in common to chant this in a solemn tone different to what most of us are used to when we sing it.
May St Bernard always help us to love Jesus as he deserves to be loved, freely and wholeheartedly, so that the thought of him and his name on our lips is as sweet as honey. May our Blessed Mother Mary give us all the graces we need to grow in love so that we may unite and confirm our will to God, and together with her at the Annunciation - pronounce our Fiat with hers, as all creation held their breath an anticipation of her response.
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