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Out of Pride and Into Humility: A Lenten Meditation on a Teaching by St. Bernard of Clairvaux By: Msgr. Charles PopeIn yesterday’s post, we considered the twelve steps of pride set forth by St. Bernard of Clairvaux. In escalating ways, the twelve steps draw us to an increasingly mountainous and enslaving pride.St. Bernard also enumerates the twelve steps to deeper humility (I am using the list from Vultus Dei HERE)  and it is these that we consider in today’s post. As with yesterday’s post, the list by St. Bernard is shown in red, but the commentary on each step is shown in...

How Does Pride Accumulate in Our Life? A Reflection on a Teaching by St. Bernard of Clairvaux By: Msgr. Charles PopeSo you think the idea of the “Twelve Steps” is new? Well, if you think you’ve got a new idea, go back and see how the Greeks put it, or in this case how the Medieval Latins put it. St. Bernard of Clairvaux identified twelve steps up the mountain of pride in his work Steps of Humility and Pride.In today’s post, we focus on the Twelve Steps of Pride. Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the Twelve Steps of Humility (from St. Benedict’s rule). ...

There are just times when a saint speaks and one is stunned by the insight, the piercing analysis, like a surgeon’s scalpel dividing diseased from healthy tissue. Such is the case with a quote I read recently from St. Bernard that Ralph Martin references in his Book “The Fulfillment of all desires.”In this quote Bernard analyzes the descent into the increasing darkness of sin experienced by those who do not turn back, who refuse to hear the call to repent. And not individuals only, but, I would argue, cultures too.St. Bernard’s quote is long enough that I can only make...

On St. Bernard of Clairvaux "Faith Is Above All a Personal, Intimate Encounter With Jesus" VATICAN CITY, OCT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Benedict XVI's address today during the general audience in St. Peter's Square. * * * Dear brothers and sisters, Today I would like to speak about St. Bernard of Clairvaux, called "the last father" of the Church, because in the 12th century he renewed once again and rendered present the great theology of the Fathers. We do not know details about the years of his boyhood. We know, nevertheless, that he was born in...