Benedictine Wisdom 
Instruction on the Rule by the great early thinkers of the Benedictine order.
Not Only for Monks: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Monastic Sermons
As a Cistercian abbot, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) had the responsibility of teaching monks through commentary on the Rule of Benedict and Scripture. In partially meeting this responsibility the founder of Clairvaux Abbey, and subsequently named Doctor of the Church, wrote more than 700 sermons in his life. Monastic Sermons, translated by Daniel Griggs… Read More ›
The Three Loves
Although there is an evident distinction between love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self, a marvelous bond nevertheless does exist among the three, so that each is found in all, and all in each. None of them can be possessed without all, and when one wavers they all diminish. Someone who does… Read More ›
Who will free me from this body of death?
Unhappy creature that I am, who will free me from this body of death by which I am weighed down and oppressed to the extent that, unless the Lord helps me, my soul would soon be living in hell! The soul struggling under this load laments saying: ‘Why have you set me against you, and… Read More ›
There is a great natural gift within us
Why should the soul not venture with confidence into the presence of him by whose image she sees herself honored, and in whose likeness she knows herself made glorious? Why should she fear a majesty when her very origin gives her ground for confidence? All she has to do is to take care to preserve… Read More ›
We are miserable as we think that happiness is something it is not
The blind perversity of our misery is lamentable indeed. Although we desire happiness ardently, not only do we not do those things by which we may obtain our desire but rather, with contrary disaffection, take steps to add to our misery. In my opinion, we would never do this, if a false image of happiness… Read More ›
Wait in silence for God’s salvation
If you ask me how to obtain the delights of contemplation, my immediate answer is by living in the wilderness and coming up from it. You know what scripture says: ‘The Lord God will make the wilderness of Sion like delights, and her desert like the garden of the Lord’. Stay in solitude and be… Read More ›
Our God is a loving community
This God is a single Being and a loving community, a Trinity of Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are names of goodness, names of gentleness, sweetness and love. Who is more gentle than the Father, who so great, kind and merciful? Who is dearer than Jesus Christ? Our savior… Read More ›
Under the hue of happiness we grasp at real unhappiness
The blind perversity of our misery is lamentable indeed. Although we desire happiness ardently, not only do we not do those things by which we may obtain our desire but rather, with contrary disaffection, take steps to add to our misery. In my opinion, we would never do this, if a false image of happiness… Read More ›
God cannot be regarded with indifference
So loving and generous a God cannot simply be regarded with indifference, or be a matter for dispassionate, rational speculation. The Cistercians, therefore, are far readier to speak to God than about God: Now, therefore, Lord, in complete faith I worship you. You who are God, the one Cause of all that is, the Wisdom… Read More ›
There is no sound flesh in us
We are as if we were not, likened to vanity and counted as nothing, supposing ourselves to be something when actually we are nothing. We enter this world wounded, walk here and then depart, wounded still. There is no sound flesh in us, from the sole of the foot to the top of the head…. Read More ›