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This purpose of this page is twofold: First, to provide a text, ancient or contemporary, that highlights a particular aspect of spirituality or the monastic charism, and; Second, to provide a rather complete reading list for further exploration of what gives life to the spirit as embodied by the monks of Mepkin. The texts offered here will change on a regular basis. The reading list will be updated periodically. We hope the readings on this page may prove life-giving for you as they have for us. Today’s text comes from a lesser-known letter of Saint Bernard, the great Cistercian Abbot of Clairvaux in the twelfth century. It was occasioned by the affiliation of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Jean-d’Aulps into the Cistercian Order, and the election of their abbot to be Bishop of Sitten. In it Bernard describes his basic understanding of what monastic life is all about. Here follows the text. Your good father and mine has been promoted, by the will of God, to a higher place. We must therefore do as the Prophet tells us when he says: ‘The sun has been lifted up, the moon stays in her place.’ The sun is he by whom your Alpine community was rendered glorious, even as the moon by the sun. But now that he has been lifted up, we who have ‘willingly chosen to lie forgotten in the house of God, so that we might dwell no more in the abode of sinners’ must keep our place. Our place is the bottom, is humility, is voluntary poverty, obedience, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Our place is under a master, under an Abbot, under a rule, under discipline. Our place is to cultivate silence, to exert ourselves in fasts, vigils, prayers, manual work and, above all, to keep that ‘more excellent way’ which is the way of charity; and furthermore to advance day by day in these things, and to persevere in them until the last day. I trust that this is what you are busily doing. There is one thing that you have done at which everyone marvels. It is that, although your lives were holy, you thought nothing of this but made it your business to share the holy lives of others that yours might become yet more holy. Thereby you have fulfilled what we read in the Gospel: ‘When you have done all these things that are commanded of you, say: We are unprofitable servants.’ You have proved yourselves truly humble by thus judging yourselves unprofitable servants. It is so rare that anyone leading a good life is ready to do this that when it happens everyone admires it. You were celebrated before, but this has made you more celebrated; your life was holy before, but this has made it even more holy. And wherever word of this your action has gone abroad, it has filled everything with the fragrance of its sweetness. In my opinion this virtue is to be preferred to long fasts and protracted vigils, in fact to every bodily exercise, as it is the ‘true godliness profitable to all things.’ The Cistercian multitude welcomed you with open arms, and the angels looked down upon you with smiling faces. Those holy spirits know very well that what pleases the omnipotent God more than anything is brotherly concord and unity, since the Prophet says: ‘It is good to be joined together’; and another says: ‘Gracious the sight and full of comfort, when brethren dwell together united’; and again: ‘When brother helps brother, theirs is the strength of a fortress.’ I have said that this deed of yours is redolent of humility. We are taught how acceptable this virtue is to the divine majesty by him who has said: ‘God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.’ And God shows how he is the master of this virtue when he says: ‘Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart.’ What can I say of my little flock at Clairvaux to whom you have joined yourselves? I cannot describe how great and special is the love with which they welcome you. No words can express the mutual charity which the Holy Spirit has marvelously inspired between us. It now remains for you, my brothers, to invoke the Holy Spirit and set about electing your father. If you wait until I come, the delay would be dangerous, for I fear it would be a long time before I were able to do so. But summon to you Godfrey, the Prior of Clairvaux and my dear brother, and with his advice or the advice of those he will send in his place, if he cannot come himself, as well as with the advice of your father Guerin, choose such a person as may be able to work for the honour of God and your salvation. FURTHER READING IN MONASTIC SPIRITUALITY The resources for this list are the bibliographies found in Abbot Francis Kline’s book, Lovers of the Place, and in Michael Downey’s Trappist: Living in the Land of Desire. Ancient Authors Apophthegmata Patrum The Desert Fathers. Trans. Helen Waddell. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1936. Athanasius Basil Benedict of Nursia Cassian Conferences. Trans. Colm Luibheid. Classics of Western Spirituality (CWS). New York: Paulist Press, 1985. Evagrius Ponticus The "Ad Monachos" of Evagrius Ponticus: Its Structure and a Select Commentary. Driscoll, Jeremy, OSB. Rome: Studia Anselmiana 104 (1991). The Mind’s Long Journey to the Holy Trinity: The Ad Monachos of Evagrius Ponticus. Trans. and intro. Jeremy Driscoll, OSB. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1993. Gregory the Great The Life and Miracles of St. Benedict: Book Two of the Dialogues. Trans. Odo J. Zimmerman and Benedict Avery. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1949. The Life of Saint Benedict. Trans. Hilary Costello and Eoin de Bhaldraithe. Commentary by Adalbert de Vogüé. Petersham, MA: St. Bede Publications, 1993. Pastoral Care. Trans. and annotated Henry Davis, SJ. Ancient Christian Writers (ACW) John Climacus Origen Pachomius Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. II: Pachomian Chronicles and Rules. Trans. Armand Veilleux, OCSO. Cistercian Studies 46. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1981. Pachomian Koinonia. Vol. III: Instructions, Letters, and Other Writings of St. Pachomius and His Disciples. Trans. Armand Veilleux, OCSO. Cistercian Studies 47. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982. Cistercian Authors Aelred of Rievaulx Spiritual Friendship. Trans. Mary Eugenia Laker, SSND. Cistercian Fathers Series 5. Washington, DC: Cistercian Publications, 1974. Bernard of Clairvaux On Precept and Dispensation. (Treatises I) Trans. Conrad Greenia, OCSO. Cistercian Fathers Series 1. Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970. On the Song of Songs I. (Sermons 1-20) Trans. Kilian Walsh, OCSO. Cistercian Fathers Series 4. Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971. On the Song of Songs II. (Sermons 21-46) Trans. Kilian Walsh, OCSO. Cistercian Fathers Series 7. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976. On the Song of Songs III. (Sermons 47-66) Trans. Kilian Walsh, OCSO, and Irene M. Edmonds. Cistercian Fathers Series 31. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1979. On the Song of Songs IV. (Sermons 67-86) Trans. Irene M. Edmonds. Cistercian Fathers Series 40. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980. The Steps of Humility and Pride. Trans. M. Ambrose Conway, OCSO. Cistercian Fathers Series 13A. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1989. Guerric of Igny The Liturgical Sermons: Vol. II. Trans. Hilary Costello, OCSO, and John Morson, OCSO. Cistercian Fathers Series 32. Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1971. William of St. Thierry Contemporary Authors Bouyer, Louis. The Cistercian Heritage. Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1958. Burrows, Ruth. Guidelines for Mystical Prayer. London: Sheed and Ward, 1976. Butler, Cuthbert, OSB. Western Mysticism. New York: Dutton, 1923. Casey, Michael, OCSO. Athirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermon on the Song of Songs. Cistercian Studies 77. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1988. __. Sacred Reading: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina. Liguori, MO: Triumph Books, 1996. __. Toward God: The Ancient Wisdom of Western Prayer. Liguori, MO: Triumph Books, 1995. Chitty, Derwas, J. The Desert a City: Introduction to Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966. De Vogüé, Aldalbert, OSB. The Rule of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary. Cistercian Studies 54. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1983. __. Reading Saint Benedict. Cistercian Studies 151. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1994. Downey, Michael. Trappist: Living in the Land of Desire. Photographs by Michael Mauney. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1997. Gilson, Etienne. The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard. Cistercian Studies 120. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990. Hausherr, Iréneé, SJ. Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East. Trans. Anselm Hufstader, OSB. Cistercian Studies Series 53. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982. Kelty, Matthew, OCSO. Aspects of the Monastic Calling. Abbey of Gethsemani, 1975. Kline, Francis, OCSO. Lovers of the Place: Monasticism Loose in the Church. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1997. Knowles, David. Christian Monasticism. World University Library. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969. Leclercq, Jean, OSB. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Spirit. Cistercian Studies 16. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1976. __. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture. Trans. Catharine Misrahi. New York: Fordham University Press, 1961. Lekai, Louis. The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1977. Louf, André, OCSO. Teach Us to Pray: Learning a Little about God. Trans. Hubert Hoskins. Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1975. __. The Cistercian Way. Trans. Nivard Kinsella, OCSO. Cistercian Studies 76. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1989. Marmion, Columba, OSB. Christ, the Ideal of the Monk. St Louis: Herder, 1929. __. Christ, the Ideal of the Priest. St. Louis: Herder, 1952. __. Christ, the Life of the Soul. St. Louis: Herder, 1925. __. The English Letters. Baltimore, MD: Helicon, 1962. McGinn, Bernard. The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the 12th Century. New York: Crossroad, 1994. Merton, Thomas. The Monastic Journey. Ed. Patrick Hart. Cistercian Studies 133. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992. [Much of Merton’s vast output is still in print and readily available. All of it is recommended.] |
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