July 20th, 1989, Serial No. 00984
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on silks last of the fathers but i'm not the least of them is the famous phrase for him his life is astonishing he was born in ten nine has a no-go for burgundy and family he's an illustrious
well they're not surgeons his mother was a little
as he and if you can do
since
he had quite a good a young education and quite a chap around town of at the age of twenty two he entered sito was extremely us to your house it was just fourteen years old it has just been founded by the great sick robert but it had such an austere life that there were no vocations it was
richly dying when he entered with thirty one companions and self this have survived i think this kind of indicates incredible power of these young people in one way or another that we call since too much as reserve into a city quadriceps beat themselves from something top by me but there is
as energy their the changes history so he he isn't the founder of the cistercians but he's the savior of the suspicions of then he sent out at the early early age is only twenty five to make another foundation he funds clairvaux it goes out to me many other foundations including a row
evolve it will be seen as we talk about the secrets the reddit such as and all these are gathered into one order that's ungoverned by one general chapters now this is with a little sketches about this is extremely firm has been a first time yeah like these swimming
always grew out that experience with just ordered
never invented a d model simply have a tiny this families out of considered as of she sends his with this is my family has its own space this app that picked up with choices from two blocks saw me spaghetti in southern italy and has been noticing
over recent trends they weren't linked it's about me winning
oh i don't even live in it is that this is the first type the routine order for the phone and immediately comes everything so surfing through the his contemporaries so maybe it's a girl risk
going out that i
yeah well you might want he wants is what i write this is the first i don't know if they seem to i was struggling
what this is individual house in the our nation's a sicko pounds per hour which on south
developed and then close immediately again here's a full order it's disposal and top this is our political force and spiritual force so when he was so he added the forces of crusades with of forgot to have a totals
for moment
so this is quite a different model from it is urban that it it's theory that this is not necessary
this is cistercian then the to me which is kind of integrates of that would make the internet
with you
i don't know predates a and media foundation was worth
be
group discussion reacting it
of including your by at one point they were actually doing houses independent from here in some kind of dependency
the place and certainly
ten surgery
oh goody might of of towers started just get worse reward have the bit of sit home
the it up
just yeah the end of
it had been founded fourteen years before so it was founded in yacht template
he anyway it's around that three and it's a powerful force whatever see tokens in groups
monasticism centralized for the first time power efficiency upon powerful team to the polls now then when you get your standard order the franciscans in the jesuits in the dominicans this is the and then the benedictines become a border of just in the last century with great price
sure from a deep of the the thirteenth of the benedictine confederation the order that we have the commandments come along and do something similar a bit after this will come out will be their foundations that depend on family but this with zito with his head opens yes one of the first then he discovers his writing
gift and eleven thousand and forty rights of the steps of humility pride quite delightful of there's the ladder of humility that leads up to heaven in the rule of synthetic so he says to write about that this is why don't know much about humility but i know a lot about pride and the same latter can go optical down so he writes about the degrees of
increasing pride but it's a classic
medieval tracked on the virtues and then he just very and he's not your typical monk as is often the case was a severe damien's this is our involved in church politics very much he is one of the co-founders he helps get established the an order of knights templar these are nights
did wanted to go off and fight the crusades and also defend pilgrims defend the sick etc this becomes a powerful powerful of political for sorts of he defends them so if you're a young into nonviolence he's not accept exactly your country since then he understood to the election of pope so bad and comes out on
one side he wins a big were there were a disciple at his room's the papacy eugene the third
well done can get intervenes in the election of bishops know this is very involved in condemning some of the emerging theologians of in a pretty ferocious re of abelard and others then almost approaches some character assassination if you read your stuff ferocious
letters instance it's not just i disagree with this thought were this approach to the trinity let's discuss it but he really goes after the dirt playing around with women in citizen was where you are employed that was the case with and instills it's not directly to the point of the origins of he preached the second crusade with great say
curtain whipped up lots of support for it but failed miserably so obviously as he was screaming also all these admirers and friends and allies he was also created enemies moved up critics and very much criticized for as a monk preaching a to say that ended up not as holiest with thought and tough
sookie of anguish is over that he dies
personal life and i think the kind of example of someone who's not at all a plaster saint and not just your with pieties but a real force in history with a real energy
to all kinds of studies on him since he is one of the first bridge persons between east and west against the news much of the greek mystical tradition origin gregory mississippi diagnosis and asked to the western ambrose accustomed greatly the great and crossover
all such breaches east and west in a articulating the horn monastic theology the kind of thing that i'm a or it is talking about in his class to use of bernard is a classic example of that something will look at again i think each one of us a called to be a theologian that is to reflect what i do with geez
jesus i don't understand him in the history of salvation would i do with only spirit what i do with eucharist what do i do with a trinity what's my concept of the human person what happened at the following zero fall try to put all that stuff together in some kind of way that really isn't just a head trip nurses the hope
person that's the challenge he brings together something of would sometimes called the optimism of eastern theology the whole image and likeness theology you've had the kind of concrete realism in history of the west
is scripture and if you read his writings of just a shame scripture to is characteristic of the patristic that's what it's called the last of the fathers and of a monastic
here's a page
oh twelve references to scripture on this one page it just flows they were reading it so continues hears about fourteen on this little page that kind of thing so this is a model for us to get so fully description up that it used our basic language
age
he says up it is the source of my life and my soul knows no other a great arm
bernard scholar yeoman set up the surest way to understand the heart of bernard is to approach him through the bible
ah so that's the way now would you do with the scriptures just got of memorize when tax and other colors what he does this have a whole was a fancy language called a hermeneutic that is of for way of interpreting it clearly not everything in scriptures in the same level of importance some of the texts about how to run so
slaughter calves to sacrifice them to wrong that's not the same level of support saying i pass on new would to you what i myself received that christ died and rose again for instance a text like that is decisive the other techs are just snow kind of fumbling leading up to
the moments and this is always realize we have lots of trivia that's a merchant stuff and then some key moments it might come quite as a surprise and might not seem to be that prepared by the stuff before but which somehow gathered all together have this is a what scripture is all about as word of god but how
you see it all in gathered
well his fundamental key to it is a we can call spousal matrimonial love he feels that's what it's all about
he writes scripture sings the praises of christ and his church the grace of sacred love and mysteries of that eternal marriage so that's what the whole of scripture is about whatever it seems to be about that's the way he's gonna gather together genesis and exodus and mechanical of course mostly adults
he wrote eighty six sermons just on the first two chapters of chemicals just dumped that was culminating moment of scripture as for many the father's the books aren't on all the same level of importance the father suggested that to start out as a young person reading out the proverbs then you go to war
i'm on the psalms but given and with a canticle which is this mystical texts from the union of god and the people of god that is to say the union of christ in his church
so who is christ for him the bridegroom what is scripture scripture is the story is love trust between bridegroom and bride the brightest the church that is the brightest each one of us and so that's what you'll read but there's a text from chemicals it's about christ it's about his church it's about us
so this is the classical patristic whether you've seen that before the piano and in scripture first of august christological even if a real world testing
if were reading about holes in some harsh price it's preparing for price how would that be jesus
now that but this is also salvation just to the gods prepared all trinity god his providential are determine pricing etc so that david my received christ to present as potentially leading up to justice a shakespeare will crash
play a significant person has been left to run
how it's a christological to pc article
about christ and his church says up my why
of the watch the augustus as orchard that's price and has it's about a to savage sort of us on world should go
and i listed i should work with are missing from his emerged to by of personal firearms about him
ah to settle like
she was causes great dimensions and seventy really the capital of biblical scholars massive it's probably a buffer between the man and woman but always spread by the red vice as not just that you might think of ministers
right of course they've existed in of all simple society which something i bet receive the larger context of yeah always covered
so even if it was impressive and unconscious scholars are saying that's their with regard to succeed and seventy six servings the lot of air between gardens people that is this god's concrete presence of schools christ between christ and church and its be for each more
devops and that's how we should live a so should we pray to god in one another and that's what the kingdom's holes with this so this is a rich of topological way of reading scripture that and you'll find coming up again and again and again as we hear the fathers of the vigils
and again it's again flourishing in the latest hermeneutical theory this is the way a super thought this is the way a john thought of this is the way we operate at the unconscious level and comes out in dreams and said jobs is typological the one thing really stands for something quite bigger than it
questions comments
yes
pammy eschatological that's about the kingdom the final time yeah
add salt the key way of understanding what scripture is about your spouse or marks and then i think this is to all of us how do i put it together what is the key for me is a great recent book out by a young find biblical scholar called the elusive presence for him this is the key of all school
picture from genesis right to republish god is their present to his people but an elusive way in a way that i can't just grab and control and manipulate the way i can have pin that's it in the ghost of against all these texts wolves and handed out
so what you wanna do is again come up with your own hermeneutics your own way of interpreting scripture so it isn't just a series of kind of bizarre texts were coming out one current and another out of credit different current there's quite a bit of diversity there but somehow it needs to hang together for us as word of god
other comment
another favorite image of him for scripture up his banquet is food for us and that's what ceo is all about just as we have feed your body usually three times the beach so there should be this ongoing nourishment and that's why in a place like this we give quite a block of time for spiritual reading
but and up one of the things we might discuss when we get to those what are you reading what really is nourishing you really have what is etc
and then we have big chunks of scripture every day is that really being of nourishment so he writes the word of god is the bread of life and the food the soul therefore lead to descend into the very end trails of your soul that nourish your affections and actions this is the thing
him says is delightful image that up
to hear the word of god is like to dodge a huge banquet and then what is prayer afterwards prayer is a good healthy gulch as we let the gas as stuff come out so much it's a very a typically medieval to for but where the chump the honeycomb of the letter of scripture
so that we can draw from it all it's nourishment so spousal love and nourishment this is the basic grey he understand scripture and sometimes he puts them together he's basically a lyrical poet and die
here he's working with the the canticle imagery talking about christ christ's word emerged for him
a surprised is the spouse christ as the cedar of the flock these two images come together in mysterious ways my beloved is mine and i am hands and feet among the lilies refines his text mechanical that puts these two models together of feeding and both the bride is not unmindful
that he who feeds is also he makes his flock to feed that he who abides among the lilies was the same as he who reigns above the stars so the bridegroom that feeds the bride is a right there in the lilies but has also of the lord of heaven and earth it was when he began to feed is one
the flock the first became her beloved it was indeed the fact of his doing so it made him so dear to her of the spouse nourishes of the bride for use her lord in his lawfulness and beloved in this loneliness he reigns about the stars and love some of the ruins even of
for he is not and never and nowhere can he do otherwise than of this is a final kind of whatever god's doing it might seem out of anger it might seem out of wrath judgment it's always out of love because god kids never not love christ can never not love this is christ compulsion
crisis as patient lover and that's what scripture up this scripture is the last letter of the spouse to us and we've got to read it in that climate
but if someone who's not the beloved kind of intercepts the letter and reads it that's kind of of not top of that invasion of privacy so if we read scripture which just kind of a curiosity or with a kinda what's got laying on me now this isn't the proper place to be a to understand it the place is
to be in the mindset in the heart locations of up dried
so our love is the key it's amazing you the celibate monk and this is the case throughout the middle ages some the most patient of mystical literature is written by celibate monks
ah so that's basically what scripture is are
knows much of scripture he sometimes gets in trouble because he quoted from memory and he doesn't quite get it right and then he has to go back and apologize witness but himself up every word of it
so basically he'll take key texts of the new testament and for the auto smithing psychology etc and take these are decisive for interpreting the hold these are denied the peak moments that we've all the rest to go sir francis has obviously the johannine literature is going to be decisive for god is love
greater love has no one than this and lay down one's life so this is always going to the cross that we first love god but god loved us first that kind of for text than st paul first corinthians and we just heard of it sums up all the law etc than the canticle you just go crazy over the canticle so these are
his key books again you might ask yourself what am i keep books as could do it really suits me
student of mine a done
at sometimes sell more he did a thesis on burton's studying mertens writings in terms of what texts from scripture showed up more frequently less frequently fascinating and it was basically humanistic model primarily john the songs
and then
the synoptics and wisdom literature
but you might ask yourself what what text of scripture particularly of nourish me why because it's not all the same level if it's all the same level something's wrong
so on scripture is is brought a primary source and because it leads directly to the living figure of christ who is interpreted primarily as bridegroom was prepared from all eternity and then comes the decisive moment he says is coming was not that of someone who was absent
but as the manifestation of someone was always there but hidden this is classic patristic that is christ is there any hidden way in a abraham and moses in a david et cetera
so christ is the bridegroom is this just a fanciful way to approach christ christ is often called a rabbi in the new testament christ is christos them messiah christ is church christ his friend teacher all kinds of things go good show
eppard lamb of god of is the new testament theme and how centralism a bridegroom
wouldn't remember a bright it
right
the parable and what are they waiting for their waiting for the bridegroom to come and when he comes the wise so that's it uses language that jesus that immediately
that's right so this is he's here explicitly say i am the bridegroom and the disciples of the bride
other texts
i'm turn the baptist once talks about himself as the friend of the bridegroom
and then up jesus tells the parable of a keen who prepares a great banquet for is a marriage feast for his son and your people don't want to come kind of thing so up regularly the historical jesus uses himself this image
ah then of course so what to see paul to here
that's right
that's right
that's right so the church the spouse he the apostle is printing presenting the spouse of to the bridegroom's so that spaces where is jesus is very first signed a miracle in the gospel chart
that's what the wedding feast came with some kind of mysterious archetype of were to told about now that the kingdom is breaking into history i'm so it is and if you go them all testament something like will say i miss team it comes up know cigarettes are not to mention mechanical but a so it's a powerful image so
think what you'd do with it
and it's a lovely way to interpret in every aspect of the mystery of tries to get the cross is his pledge of the bridegroom even unto death and this wild glove before his stuff
that's why there's a lovely passage where do you do with the resurrection where he takes all this a canticle imagery of the return of spring that his return of life and he applies it with the bridegroom is coming back just brush passage which i think it's correct the signs of
the resurrection or like this year's flowers blossoming in a new summer under the power of grace their fruit will come forth in the end at the future general resurrection would last forever
as it is written winter is over the rain as past and gone flowers appear in our online showing summer has come back with him change deaths coldness in the spring of a new life saying behold i make all things new here is weaving in and out of the old testament the new his flesh was sown in death
rose again in the resurrection by his fragrance the dry grass turns green again in the field of the valley what was cold groups warm again in what was dead comes back to like critical of creation spirituality here but in a lush way sorts with bob with resurrection by the freshness of these flowers and fruits and the
thirty of the field giving off the sweetest of since father himself as he delighted in son sun was redoing all things though so he might say behold the odor of my son is that of a rich field in which the lorries is placed yes a full field of whose phones we have always seemed so he just leaves his and then he gets to a to
personal i am spouse your spouse the spouse enjoys greater familiarity by the fact that when she feels inclined she may gather flowers and fruit in this field and screw them over the depths of her conscience so that the couch of a heart will give off a sweet odor it for the spouse as he enters so furiously to you
rising it as the individual christian and the heart to became becomes the kind of a bridal chamber if we wish to have christ for our bridegroom who must keep our hearts fortified by the testimony of our faith and mercy of human die for us how of him rose for the day so i think to splendid steps pure poetry
it's not a kind of scholastic syllogism is about the resurrection but i'm just a song i think it's the way to track the resurrection so you might change when you do with this image so little bizarre because bernard is a pretty much show guy you know they're preaching the presidio symptoms but here is thinking of himself as a bride
right we do that
well with a medieval to there isn't this problem of kind of a gender model and i've gotta be mayo and
but there's this kind of capacity to be in touch within with this receptive
kind of feminine dimension that is very important to contented life
questions comments
no
to get away that right looked like how smart
brought heard it
well exactly opposite of what you're saying but i know christ figure
myself
different people do different things and that certainly a gentleman up bruno it's very strong on a spouse or to wisdom that's a feminine figure in the old testament
and we'll see we've already seen a christ his mother and christ and so you kind of fun loving presence wisdom figure and chick that gathers so you can do lots of things not everyone easily gets into this kind of the some to
this is ideal for guns and sisters and we'll see them with a or it was coming up next very different models a similar in so many ways by different for him crisis deep of have a friend and so his basic interpretive model for all of scripture isn't spousal love that friendship love and there you don't get me
kitchen so that that is a real issue
with a common sense
this is a real rich theme and see what what you personally do with it and it can kill argued that this is
what god is doing from all eternity is trying to of web israel in this again come specific so something that the eucharist is a marriage banquet and top
but the virtues are living out our faithfulness to cry start right improvements but in this filled a whole of christian i'm a up a patient and dried you can see how it could inspire thirty one our relatives and aliens to enter with him etc it's it's not just a dry abstract stuff
and we'll see also this theory of the human person
each one of us implicitly has an anthropology that's how do we understand that human person
a he starts with a classic genesis message about who we are there's a who the hell am i kind of thing were created by god in god's image likeness this is foundational for the fathers and the equal rights if we're in god's image and likeness something like yearning after demonisation told union got next
sense because where the image likeness of god if we're just called to be respectable christians who up a are taxis and to church and see this is a kind of an implicit anthropology of many christians caught his way up there were way down here but we can be good kind of the respectable of this is totally different from what he sketch
you
so we're image and likeness of god as all the fathers will agree but in white consists are being image you so are obviously there's all kinds of stuff in that human person and something through the room somethings are higher something's get us away from are being image and symptoms gets fired
august and for instance that were image likeness precisely in our mind this is the highest faculty with our mind we can no divine word we can know god we can contemplate god
our patients are the lore get us messed up to of drag us down and so we become less and less image likeness of god as we can all caught up in or anger fear sex all that know that isn't god whose pure a passionless our troops
so that's one way to go with there's a whole important current eastern and western mysticism gets the wisdom going current
yeah
a passions
he's been there
really
yeah
instead
very hard
i thought
so what their your spelling out an anthropology prints in some like accustomed would very much dispute but many contemporary theologians absolutely with so this is where we come up with different anthropologists and it's good to reflect his are moments of anger or of sadness or these good there's a whole trista current that was grabbed successively
influenced by the stoics it's a know god of scripture might say that god wasn't really angry and then he became reconciled country change the he's a perfect change listeners are a collaborative
whether you are now the fathers would say that's in his humanity because we go deeper into his divinities there's this change listeners patient means precisely change their can't change it god
i think
i was a
but go at
but yeah
as
those are employee
abby know any anymore
no
remote or louis
oh right buyer
yeah present raised up
that payment was really like those okay but the basic question christ again is man and you guys the things god never died
jesus dies god never was born in god is eternal changeless miss according to a certain theology it's very influenced by the greeks so this has been hotly debated today so you're taking a position that many theologians take to be somehow we have to be able to say that a god there is joy
there is we say there's anchored got to it's all the way through scriptures but up but again there's a strong current and it was most of the fathers who would be horrified by this there is no emotion or patient at whatever level in god because that inevitably means paasio which means to be moved the god is in its
colonel fullness of nine moved mover
whatever i think i think there's one text it's simply says jesus was angry but it's very rare even apparently the synoptics of but i think of but chris same what they describe him doing in the temple i think you could describe to see or whatever but there is one text somewhere in the new testament to describe
jesus as angry
what do we do with that was this am kind of a door got to ends with know
he looked up and do it
ah right your reading the other side of back
i'm not asking to are those who saved
five passion to god over your itunes create got our run its best
no sign of them now this is just an on anthropomorphism say say that the green cup
philosopher who said if horses the own choice but gods they would have the shapes characteristics of big horses could think so we project up there a god with sometimes any agree sometimes joyful was at the burton who says we say god is angry but we're saying is we behaved in a way that if god were human like us
god would be a agree how god is god's self is just a total mystery but somehow it's appropriate to talk about god's anger because it's the only way we can conceive of god really been related to the horrendous things if i'm they're beating a poor little baby god can just be indifferent to that
so but it's a big issue intubated today an estimated one and have some of those it depends how mature into the old new testament models and how much you are into more a classic theology models that are influenced by aristotle and plato
is it
yeah
already
or something
yeah
here
that's right and at what again consist this image and likeness that's the question were wrestling with no mechanicus put a bit this up sublime somewhat he thought to get beyond these kind of palms of memes the mind that most eternal truth
now we'll see that i'm bernard why this is interesting he takes an entirely different track this again invites us to come up with how do i understand you would person when am i most my god
yeah
okay
yeah
right
well
no but you can see here we're told by jesus would talk about christology how to do with theology of cries and we're talking about theology what about in god more time at us what about units and it all wants to fit together and so this kind of this is where someone like bernard i
really challenges us to go wrestle with stuff and put together our own christology ah
the lg ecclesiology where the church committee an anthropology so we'll come back next time and will unexplored how he spelt out whereas the image and likeness in us
i think we won't have a class next week because bundy i think we're having isn't the case when do you were having to lectures on friendship is a monday this tuesday in any case it some time next week that makes actually pretty i'd invite you all go to that it's i'm monastic for
friendship and key category by great scholar of our time on that it is just produce this huge book i'm a topic that's a further every to do so that will take the place of this than the week after god willing to come back to and bernard