Sermons of St. Bernard on Advent and Christmas : including the famous treatise on the incarnation called "Missus est"

1909·5.9 MB·English

by  Bernard, of Clairvaux, Saint, 1090 or 91-1153

JOHN M. KELLY LIBRARY
Donatedby
The Redemptorists of
the Toronto Province
fromthe Library Collection of
HolyRedeemerCollege, Windsor
University of
St. Michael s College, Toronto
SERMONS
BERNARD
OF
ST.
ON
ADVENT CHRISTMAS
?
INCLUDING THE FAMOUS TREATISE
ON THE INCARNATION CALLED
"MISSUS EST"
Compiled and translated at St. Mary s Convent^
from the Edition (1508), in black-letter^ of
St. Bernards Sermons and Letters
[CHIEFLY FOR CONVENTS]
WITH INTRODUCTION
BY THE
RIGHT REV. C. HEDLEY, O.S.B.
J.
BISHOP OF NEWPORT
R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD.
i, 2 & 4 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
MANCHESTER: 74BRIDGE ST. GLASGOW: 248 BUCHANAN ST.
BENZIGER BROS. \ NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO
1909
[All rights resented
H8LY REDEEME LIBRARY. WIJ$SOR
HENRICUS G. S. BOWDEN,
CENSOR DEPUTATUS.
Imprimatur.
EDM. CAN. SURMONT,
VICARIUS GENERALIS.
WESTMONASTERII,
die25OctobriS)1909.
CONTENTS
ADVENT
PAGE
I. SERMON ON ITS Six CIRCUMSTANCES I
II. SERMON ON THE WORDS TO ACHAZ, "ASK THEE
A ETC.
SIGN,"
II
ON THE MISSUS EST
" "
I. PRAISES OF THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 23
II. THE MISSION OF THE ANGEL - 33
III. COLLOQUY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND THE
ANGEL - 48
IV. THE ANNUNCIATION, AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN S
CONSENT 60
III
ON THE VIGIL OF OUR LORD S NATIVITY
I. ON THE JOY His BIRTH SHOULD INSPIRE - 75
II. ON THE MIRACULOUS NATURE OF THE NATIVITY 81
III. ON THE DISPOSITIONS REQUIRED IN THOSE WHO
CELEBRATE THE FEAST - - 89
iv CONTENTS
IV
ON OUR LORD S NATIVITY
PAGE
I. THE FOUNTAINS OF THE SAVIOUR - 101
II. THE THREE COMMINGLINGS - 108
III. ON THE PLACE, TIME, AND OTHER CIRCUM
STANCES - 115
IV. ON THE SHEPHERDS FINDING OUR LORD - 122
V. ON THE WORDS, " BLESSED BE THE GOD AND
FATHER," ETC. - . 126
V
ON THE CIRCUMCISION - - 135
VI
ON THE HOLY NAME AND OTHER SCRIP-
TURAL TITLES OF OUR LORD - - 141
VII
ON THE EPIPHANY
I. ON " THE GOODNESS AND KINDNESS OF OUR
SAVIOUR HATH APPEARED " - - 151
II. " GO FORTH, YE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM " 157
III. ON THE GIFTS OF THE WISE MEN - - 161
INTRODUCTION
IT is a pleasure towrite a fewwords of introduction
to an admirable translation of some interesting
" Sermons of St. Bernard " made by one of the
Community of St. Mary s, York. The sermons are
nineteen in number, and are all of them related to
the mysteries of Advent and Christmas. Of the
Dom
seven sermons, Z)0 Adventu Domini, printed in
Mabillon s edition of the saint s works, we have here
the first two. Then follow the four homilies on
the text Missus est, etc. This is the title that is
generally given to these famous sermons, but the
holy preacher himself intended them to be called
De laudibus Virginis Matris, as we read in his letter
to Peter the Deacon. Of the six discourses for the
Vigil of Christmas, the translator has selected the
first, the fourth, and the sixth. All the five sermons
on Christmas Day are given. The volume ends
with two on the Circumcision and three on the
Epiphany.
These sermons are fully and conscientiously trans
lated. A few omissions have been made chiefly,
it would seem, through sheer inability to present in
INTRODUCTION
vi
an acceptable modern version all the devout and
fanciful dealings of the holy Doctor with the text
of the Scripture. St. Bernard knew St. Augustine
well, and he had learnt this fashion of using Holy
Scripture from him. St. Bernard s mind and heart
were steeped in the Scriptures, and it comes natural
to one to whom the text is so living and real to treat
it as holding a lesson in every word and syllable. I
have used the word " but rather in the
fanciful,"
sense of imaginative fertility than of childish or
mere poetic dreaminess. The Holy Spirit, as all
Catholics believe,has a message forman in the Bible
beneath and besides the letter. In general, it is the
prerogative of the saints and doctors to discourse
and reveal this mystical sense. This is the reason
why the commentaries of holy men are so precious.
For the exposition of a St. Augustine, a St. Gregory,
or a St. Bernard is the expression of the interior
illumination of a favoured soul, and it would be rash
to doubt that such comments are, in a general sense,
guided and by the Author of the
""inspired"
Scripture Himself. If, then, the translator of these
sermons has found some passages too " quaint " to
be reproduced, still, there is a sufficient number left
to make it useful to remind thereaderthat he is here
listening to one of the princes of the contemplative
life, and that he should rather try to follow the idea
than to criticize. No one can read St. Bernard
with any profit or satisfaction who does not heartily
accept him as a mystical expert in Holy Scripture.
In one or two places considerable liberty has been
taken with the text of the sermons. We are in
formed, in r egard to the sermon on the Circumcision
INTRODUCTION
vii
(p. 135), that this sermon has been combined with
one on the same subject in the saint s commentary
on theCanticle of Canticles. As the earlier discourse
touches on the Holy Name, and as it is not, perhaps,
one of St. Bernard s most striking utterances, itwas
a temptation not to be resisted to have recourse to
the well-known Fifteenth Sermon on the Canticles,
and to attach to the first the famous passages in
which the Holy Name is compared to Lux, Cibus, et
Medicina. This truly Bernardine outburst presents
great difficulties to the translator, if the spirit and
rhythm of the original are to be reproduced. It will
be seen that the present translation is notunworthy
of the original. I may, however, be permitted to
say that, in the thrilling passage where the miracle
wrought by the Holy Name on the cripple at the
Gate of the Temple is described, I miss the tanquam
fulgur egrediens the comparison of Peter s utter
ance of that Name to a flash of lightning. The fine
oratorical point which ends that passage the
healing of one cripple contrastedwith the illumina
tion of multitudes of blind is left out. This kind
of shortcoming rarely occurs in these pages, and is
only an example of the excessive difficulty of
rendering the exact rhetorical turn of a very vivid
Latin into corresponding English.
St. Bernard s sermons were all delivered in the
Chapter-house at Clairvaux. There can be no doubt
that they were spoken in Latin, as we have them
now. If the lay-brothers were present, they had to
be content at the moment with picking up what
they could,but we learn that at other times these
discourses were repeated to the lay-brethren in
INTRODUCTION
viii
French, or in the Romance tongue which was the
precursor of modern French. We have a specimen
of translation which must be almost contemporary,
and possibly by St. Bernard himself, in a Paris
manuscript quoted by Mabillon. Theversionshows
that even an illiterate may have caught much of
the sense of the spoken Latin. For example, in the
sermon for Advent, the passage beginning, " Fugite
superbiam, fratres mei, quseso, multum fugite,"
begins in Romance, " Por Deu, chier Friere, fuyez
orgoil, et forment lo fuyez." St. Bernard s Latin
style was much admired by the Humanists, such as
Henry of Valois and Erasmus. The latter very
acute critic says he was a born preacher, spirited,
pleasing, and moving. We must remember that up
to his twentieth year he had an excellent training
in scholarship and divinity at Chatillon. His
reading in both sacred and profane literature must
have been very wide. He is well acquainted with
theology, as one can see, for example, in hissermons
on the Canticles, especially in Sermons 80 and
81, where he discourses on the image of God in
the Word and in the soul of man, and on the
simplicity of God, with a penetration not unworthy
of St. Anselm. His knowledge of the Canon Law
is shown in his most able treatise, addressed to
Eugenius III., the fine book ^De Consideratione.
It is true he never considered himself a student.
He said that he learnt more from the " oaks and
beeches " of the Cistercian solitude than from
books or masters. What he thus learnt was the
most preciouspartof what he has left us. But still,
great Popes, like Alexander III. and Irmocent III.,