{"id":142562,"date":"2024-08-20T05:00:34","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T09:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/st-bernard-2\/"},"modified":"2024-08-20T05:00:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T09:00:34","slug":"st-bernard-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/st-bernard-2\/","title":{"rendered":"St Bernard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dear Ernie,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You underestimate the power of love. \u00a0Let me say it again: you are UNDERESTIMATING the power of Christian love! \u00a0The world is made of societies, societies are made of communities, communities are made of people, and people do good or evil depending on the direction their heart is turned: inwards, towards themselves; or outwards, towards God and their neighbor. \u00a0Original sin made the \u201cinwards\u201d direction the default position of every human heart. So if you want to change the world \u2013 which, it seems, you really do, for that I commend you, because it shows that your heart has already overcome its natural selfish bent \u2013 if you want to change the world, really change it, you have to change human hearts, because that will have a ripple effect from the inside out, transforming communities, societies, and eventually, the whole world. \u00a0Now comes the million dollar question: what is the only way to turn people\u2019s hearts out of their selfish, default position? The answer is simple: love them. Only by showing them the love of Christ in the way you think about them and treat them will they be wooed out of the comfortable interior isolation of egoism. It\u2019s what the Bible teaches, it\u2019s what history teaches, it\u2019s what literature teaches, and it\u2019s what today\u2019s saint embodied as well as any saint.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">St Bernard was called the \u201cHoney-sweet Doctor\u201d of the Church, because he was always gushing forth beautiful speeches and sermons about the love of God. \u00a0It was a love he had come to know, and that was the real source of his prodigious career \u2013 and it really was prodigious. He founded the famous monastery at Clairvaux, which in turn fathered 68 other Cistercian monasteries. \u00a0He gave spiritual (and political) guidance to Popes and Emperors, Kings and Barons, Abbots and saints. He resolved wars and schisms by the force of his wisdom and tact. He defended Catholic scholarship against secularism (the infamous rationalist Peter Abelard was his contemporary), rallied all of Europe in an effort to defend fellow Christians in the Holy Land (under the banner of the doomed \u201dSecond Crusade\u201d), and left a wake of miracles in his path as he trekked back and forth across the continent in defense of God\u2019s honor. \u00a0True, all he really wanted was to retire from the world and devote himself to prayer and solitude, but he willingly embraced the cross God fashioned for him \u2013 much to the world\u2019s benefit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">His most remarkable deed, to my mind, was his first. \u00a0And that\u2019s what, I hope, will convince you once and for all that you must never underestimate the power of love. \u00a0Bernard was of noble birth, and he showed extraordinary social and intellectual talent and skill from a very young age. \u00a0By the time he finished his education (he was 22), all that the luxurious world of the Middle Ages (for nobles, anyway) had to offer was within his grasp. \u00a0But he felt God calling him to forsake it all for a higher Kingdom. He struggled at first, but asked the Lord for strength and clarity, and he received both. \u00a0And then came the amazing thing. Instead of just marching off on his own to join the newly reformed monastic community at Citeaux, he started talking to friends and family members about his decision. \u00a0He spoke so powerfully about the merits of putting one\u2019s life wholly at God\u2019s service that he convinced one after another of them to accompany him. By the time he set out, he had gathered about him 31 young noblemen. \u00a0They all showed up together on Citaeux\u2019s doorstep to offer themselves for the Lord\u2019s service, much to the surprised delight of the Abbot, St Stephen Harding, who had not received a new novice for several years. Nothing like it has ever occurred in the history of the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What had achieved such a feat? \u00a0Love. Pure love. Christ\u2019s love, which had set St Bernard\u2019s heart on fire with love, which in turn inflamed the others\u2019 hearts. \u00a0So if you really want to change the world, let yourself be totally incinerated by the consuming love of Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your loving uncle, Eddy<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Ernie, You underestimate the power of love. \u00a0Let me say it again: you are UNDERESTIMATING the power of Christian love! \u00a0The world is made of societies, societies are made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>St Bernard - Regnum Christi<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/st-bernard-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"St Bernard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dear Ernie, You underestimate the power of love. \u00a0Let me say it again: you are UNDERESTIMATING the power of Christian love! 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John Bartunek, LC","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/622fd36594e05daecbf3cb6f50d7151c3066ae3991815fa200dc7c1865bc6a7e?s=96&d=blank&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/622fd36594e05daecbf3cb6f50d7151c3066ae3991815fa200dc7c1865bc6a7e?s=96&d=blank&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/622fd36594e05daecbf3cb6f50d7151c3066ae3991815fa200dc7c1865bc6a7e?s=96&d=blank&r=g","caption":"Fr. John Bartunek, LC"},"description":"Fr. John Bartunek, LC, S.Th.D, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college, he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and baseball coach. He then spent a year as a professional actor in Chicago before entering the religious Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ in 1993. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 2003 and earned his doctorate in moral theology in 2010. He provided spiritual support on the set of Mel Gibson\u2019s\u00a0The Passion of the Christ\u00a0while researching the 2005 Catholic best seller,\u00a0Inside the Passion, the only authorized, behind-the-scenes explanation of the film. Fr. John has contributed news commentary regarding religious issues on NBC, CNN, Fox, and the BBC. He also served as the English-language press liaison for the Vatican\u2019s 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist. His most widely known books are The Better Part: A Christ-Centered Resource for Personal Prayer and 60 Days to Becoming a Missionary Disciple. His most recent book is\u00a0Spiritual But Not Religious: The Search for Meaning in a Material World. Fr. John resides in Atlanta and serves as Territorial Vicar for the Legionaries of Christ. See all books, Regnum Christi Essays, Retreat Guides, posts, and online classes from Fr. John Bartunek, LC.","url":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/author\/jbartunek\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142562"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.regnumchristi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=142562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}