From Benedict XVI, on October. 21, 2009; General Audience:
I would now like to reflect on two key aspects of Bernard's rich
doctrine: they regard Jesus Christ and Mary Most Holy, his Mother. His
solicitude for the intimate and vital participation of the Christian in
the love of God in Jesus Christ does not offer new guidelines in the
scientific status of theology. But, in a more than decisive way, the
abbot of Clairvaux configures the theologian to the contemplative and
the mystic. Only Jesus -- insists Bernard in face of the complex
dialectical reasoning of his time -- only Jesus is "honey to the mouth,
song to the ear, joy to the heart (mel in ore, in aure melos, in corde
iubilum)." From here stems, in fact, the title attributed to him by
tradition of Doctor Mellifluus: his praise of Jesus Christ, in fact,
"runs like honey."
In the extenuating battles between nominalists and realists -- two
philosophical currents of the age -- the abbot of Clairvaux does not
tire of repeating that only one name counts, that of Jesus the Nazarene.
"Arid is all food of the soul," he confesses, "if it is not sprinkled
with this oil; insipid, if it is not seasoned with this salt. What is
written has no flavor for me, if I have not read Jesus." And he
concludes: "When you discuss or speak, nothing has flavor for me, if I
have not heard resound the name of Jesus" (Sermones in Cantica
Canticorum XV, 6: PL 183,847).
For Bernard, in fact, true knowledge of God consists in a personal,
profound experience of Jesus Christ and of his love. And this, dear
brothers and sisters, is true for every Christian: Faith is above all a
personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, and to experience his
closeness, his friendship, his love; only in this way does one learn to
know him ever more, and to love and follow him ever more. May this
happen to each one of us."
In another famous sermon on the Sunday Between the Octave of the
Assumption, the holy abbot describes in impassioned terms the intimate
participation of Mary in the redeeming sacrifice of the Son. "O holy
Mother," he exclaims, "truly a sword has pierced your soul! ... To such a
point the violence of pain has pierced your soul, that with reason we
can call you more than martyr, because your participation in the Passion
of the Son greatly exceeded in intensity the physical sufferings of
martyrdom" (14: PL 183, 437-438).
Bernard has no doubts: "per Mariam ad Iesum," through Mary we are
led to Jesus. He attests clearly to Mary's subordination to Jesus,
according to the principles of traditional Mariology. But the body of
the sermon also documents the privileged place of the Virgin in the
economy of salvation, in reference to the very singular participation of
the Mother (compassio) in the sacrifice of the Son. It is no accident
that, a century and a half after Bernard's death, Dante Alighieri, in
the last canto of the Divine Comedy, puts on the lips of the
"Mellifluous Doctor" the sublime prayer to Mary: "Virgin Mary, daughter
of your Son,/ humble and higher than a creature,/ fixed end of eternal
counsel, ..." (Paradiso 33, vv. 1ss.).
These reflections, characteristic of one in love with Jesus and
Mary as St. Bernard was, rightly inflame again today not only
theologians but all believers. At times an attempt is made to resolve
the fundamental questions on God, on man and on the world with the sole
force of reason. Instead, St. Bernard, solidly based on the Bible and on
the Fathers of the Church, reminds us that without a profound faith in
God, nourished by prayer and contemplation, by a profound relationship
with the Lord, our reflections on the divine mysteries risk becoming a
futile intellectual exercise, and lose their credibility. Theology takes
us back to the "science of the saints," to their intuitions of the
mysteries of the living God, to their wisdom, gift of the Holy Spirit,
which become the point of reference for theological thought.
Together with Bernard of Clairvaux, we too must recognize that man
seeks God better and finds him more easily "with prayer than with
discussion." In the end, the truest figure of the theologian and of
every evangelizer is that of the Apostle John, who leaned his head on
the heart of the Master.
I would like to conclude these reflections on St. Bernard with the
invocations to Mary that we read in one of his beautiful homilies. "In
danger, in anguish, in uncertainty," he says, "think of Mary, call on
Mary. May she never be far from your lips, from your heart; and thus you
will be able to obtain the help of her prayer, never forget the example
of her life. If you follow her, you cannot go astray; if you pray to
her, you cannot despair; if you think of her, you cannot be mistaken. If
she sustains you, you cannot fall; if she protects you, you have
nothing to fear; if she guides you, do not tire; if she is propitious to
you, you will reach the goal ..." (Hom. II super "Missus est," 17: PL
183, 70-71).
