Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary

by Bernard of Clairvaux

The young abbot meditates on the singular role of the virgin mother of Christ 'to satisfy my own devotion', and in doing so bequeathes his own love of Mary and of Scripture to his Order and to the Church.

Genres: Religion, Theology, Spirituality, Catholic, Christianity

98 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

born 1090

Piety and mysticism of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux as widely known instrumental French monastic reformer and political figure condemned Peter Abélard and rallied support for the second Crusade.

This doctor of the Church, an abbot, primarily built the Cistercian order. After the death of mother, Bernard sought admission into the Cistercian order in 1112. Three years later, people sent Bernard found a new house, named Claire Vallée, "of Clairvaux," on 25 June 1115. Bernard preached that the Virgin Mary interceded in an immediate faith.

In 1128, Bernard assisted at the council of Troyes and traced the outlines of the rule of the Knights Templar, who quickly the ideal of Christian nobility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard...

Reviews

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernard’s Star of the Sea writing is truly beautiful.

[Jeremy Manuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mary is a very interesting figure from the Bible. It seems that she is either lifted up a bit too high or almost ignored completely. St. Bernard seems to fall into the former camp, not only does he write this little collection of homilies to Mary, but the content tends toward making more of Mary than I think is really warranted.

Now, I'm not Catholic, so some of the views within the Catholic church about Mary I don't subscribe to and that paints my view toward this work. So this means I would probably disagree with Bernard's view of Mary remaining a Virgin, even after the birth of Jesus. Not that he spells this out explicitly, but he continually refers to her as the Virgin Mary or just the Virgin, which indicates that this is part of her identity not just what she happened to be at the time of Christ's conception through the Holy Spirit.

Bernard also tends to spiritualize everything a bit much. Mary is almost not human, she doesn't doubt nor is she afraid in the least when the angel appears. To me this robs the story of Mary more than it does add to it. Mary is a human being just like you and me, she was chosen and used by God in an extraordinary way, but Bernard's treatment doesn't really portray Mary this way and I think it misses out.

Now admittedly, Bernard's praise of Mary is something that Protestants like myself could use a bit more of. Her humility and willingness to be put into a tough situation by God is praiseworthy. However, I can't help but feel that Bernard makes Mary more than human and thus hard to relate to. He even kind of over spiritualizes Joseph's response, Joseph was going to divorce Mary not because he thought her unfaithful, but because of his inability to accept such a miracle. Bernard just escapes too much from how normal human reactions would be.

Overall, I found that I somewhat enjoyed Bernard's focus on Mary and recognition of her humility and willingness to be used by God. However, I found that Bernard's tendency to make the account a bit too spiritual detracted from the praise of Mary in some ways. Mary was a human girl who was used by God in a powerful way. She was humble and an example to us all, but we don't need to remove the human aspects of life from the account to praise her. She is worthy of praise because at the intersection of everyday human life and the miraculous she was willing to follow God and set forth on what most likely would have been a more difficult path.