JOHN M. KELLY LIBRARY Donatedby The Redemptorists of the Toronto Province fromthe Library Collection of HolyRedeemerCollege, Windsor University of St. Michael s College, Toronto SERMONS BERNARD OF ST. ON ADVENT CHRISTMAS ? INCLUDING THE FAMOUS TREATISE ON THE INCARNATION CALLED "MISSUS EST" Compiled and translated at St. Mary s Convent^ from the Edition (1508), in black-letter^ of St. Bernards Sermons and Letters [CHIEFLY FOR CONVENTS] WITH INTRODUCTION BY THE RIGHT REV. C. HEDLEY, O.S.B. J. BISHOP OF NEWPORT R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD. i, 2 & 4 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON MANCHESTER: 74BRIDGE ST. GLASGOW: 248 BUCHANAN ST. BENZIGER BROS. \ NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO 1909 [All rights resented H8LY REDEEME LIBRARY. WIJ$SOR HENRICUS G. S. BOWDEN, CENSOR DEPUTATUS. Imprimatur. EDM. CAN. SURMONT, VICARIUS GENERALIS. WESTMONASTERII, die25OctobriS)1909. CONTENTS ADVENT PAGE I. SERMON ON ITS Six CIRCUMSTANCES I II. SERMON ON THE WORDS TO ACHAZ, "ASK THEE A ETC. SIGN," II ON THE MISSUS EST " " I. PRAISES OF THE VIRGIN-MOTHER 23 II. THE MISSION OF THE ANGEL - 33 III. COLLOQUY OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND THE ANGEL - 48 IV. THE ANNUNCIATION, AND THE BLESSED VIRGIN S CONSENT 60 III ON THE VIGIL OF OUR LORD S NATIVITY I. ON THE JOY His BIRTH SHOULD INSPIRE - 75 II. ON THE MIRACULOUS NATURE OF THE NATIVITY 81 III. ON THE DISPOSITIONS REQUIRED IN THOSE WHO CELEBRATE THE FEAST - - 89 iv CONTENTS IV ON OUR LORD S NATIVITY PAGE I. THE FOUNTAINS OF THE SAVIOUR - 101 II. THE THREE COMMINGLINGS - 108 III. ON THE PLACE, TIME, AND OTHER CIRCUM STANCES - 115 IV. ON THE SHEPHERDS FINDING OUR LORD - 122 V. ON THE WORDS, " BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER," ETC. - . 126 V ON THE CIRCUMCISION - - 135 VI ON THE HOLY NAME AND OTHER SCRIP- TURAL TITLES OF OUR LORD - - 141 VII ON THE EPIPHANY I. ON " THE GOODNESS AND KINDNESS OF OUR SAVIOUR HATH APPEARED " - - 151 II. " GO FORTH, YE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM " 157 III. ON THE GIFTS OF THE WISE MEN - - 161 INTRODUCTION IT is a pleasure towrite a fewwords of introduction to an admirable translation of some interesting " Sermons of St. Bernard " made by one of the Community of St. Mary s, York. The sermons are nineteen in number, and are all of them related to the mysteries of Advent and Christmas. Of the Dom seven sermons, Z)0 Adventu Domini, printed in Mabillon s edition of the saint s works, we have here the first two. Then follow the four homilies on the text Missus est, etc. This is the title that is generally given to these famous sermons, but the holy preacher himself intended them to be called De laudibus Virginis Matris, as we read in his letter to Peter the Deacon. Of the six discourses for the Vigil of Christmas, the translator has selected the first, the fourth, and the sixth. All the five sermons on Christmas Day are given. The volume ends with two on the Circumcision and three on the Epiphany. These sermons are fully and conscientiously trans lated. A few omissions have been made chiefly, it would seem, through sheer inability to present in INTRODUCTION vi an acceptable modern version all the devout and fanciful dealings of the holy Doctor with the text of the Scripture. St. Bernard knew St. Augustine well, and he had learnt this fashion of using Holy Scripture from him. St. Bernard s mind and heart were steeped in the Scriptures, and it comes natural to one to whom the text is so living and real to treat it as holding a lesson in every word and syllable. I have used the word " but rather in the fanciful," sense of imaginative fertility than of childish or mere poetic dreaminess. The Holy Spirit, as all Catholics believe,has a message forman in the Bible beneath and besides the letter. In general, it is the prerogative of the saints and doctors to discourse and reveal this mystical sense. This is the reason why the commentaries of holy men are so precious. For the exposition of a St. Augustine, a St. Gregory, or a St. Bernard is the expression of the interior illumination of a favoured soul, and it would be rash to doubt that such comments are, in a general sense, guided and by the Author of the ""inspired" Scripture Himself. If, then, the translator of these sermons has found some passages too " quaint " to be reproduced, still, there is a sufficient number left to make it useful to remind thereaderthat he is here listening to one of the princes of the contemplative life, and that he should rather try to follow the idea than to criticize. No one can read St. Bernard with any profit or satisfaction who does not heartily accept him as a mystical expert in Holy Scripture. In one or two places considerable liberty has been taken with the text of the sermons. We are in formed, in r egard to the sermon on the Circumcision INTRODUCTION vii (p. 135), that this sermon has been combined with one on the same subject in the saint s commentary on theCanticle of Canticles. As the earlier discourse touches on the Holy Name, and as it is not, perhaps, one of St. Bernard s most striking utterances, itwas a temptation not to be resisted to have recourse to the well-known Fifteenth Sermon on the Canticles, and to attach to the first the famous passages in which the Holy Name is compared to Lux, Cibus, et Medicina. This truly Bernardine outburst presents great difficulties to the translator, if the spirit and rhythm of the original are to be reproduced. It will be seen that the present translation is notunworthy of the original. I may, however, be permitted to say that, in the thrilling passage where the miracle wrought by the Holy Name on the cripple at the Gate of the Temple is described, I miss the tanquam fulgur egrediens the comparison of Peter s utter ance of that Name to a flash of lightning. The fine oratorical point which ends that passage the healing of one cripple contrastedwith the illumina tion of multitudes of blind is left out. This kind of shortcoming rarely occurs in these pages, and is only an example of the excessive difficulty of rendering the exact rhetorical turn of a very vivid Latin into corresponding English. St. Bernard s sermons were all delivered in the Chapter-house at Clairvaux. There can be no doubt that they were spoken in Latin, as we have them now. If the lay-brothers were present, they had to be content at the moment with picking up what they could,but we learn that at other times these discourses were repeated to the lay-brethren in INTRODUCTION viii French, or in the Romance tongue which was the precursor of modern French. We have a specimen of translation which must be almost contemporary, and possibly by St. Bernard himself, in a Paris manuscript quoted by Mabillon. Theversionshows that even an illiterate may have caught much of the sense of the spoken Latin. For example, in the sermon for Advent, the passage beginning, " Fugite superbiam, fratres mei, quseso, multum fugite," begins in Romance, " Por Deu, chier Friere, fuyez orgoil, et forment lo fuyez." St. Bernard s Latin style was much admired by the Humanists, such as Henry of Valois and Erasmus. The latter very acute critic says he was a born preacher, spirited, pleasing, and moving. We must remember that up to his twentieth year he had an excellent training in scholarship and divinity at Chatillon. His reading in both sacred and profane literature must have been very wide. He is well acquainted with theology, as one can see, for example, in hissermons on the Canticles, especially in Sermons 80 and 81, where he discourses on the image of God in the Word and in the soul of man, and on the simplicity of God, with a penetration not unworthy of St. Anselm. His knowledge of the Canon Law is shown in his most able treatise, addressed to Eugenius III., the fine book ^De Consideratione. It is true he never considered himself a student. He said that he learnt more from the " oaks and beeches " of the Cistercian solitude than from books or masters. What he thus learnt was the most preciouspartof what he has left us. But still, great Popes, like Alexander III. and Irmocent III.,