Saturday, August 20, 2022
Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot, and Doctor of the Church
           (click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Are you telling me the truth?
I heard a sound like the roaring of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.
Friday night at the Movies! Anybody remember sitting at home and watching a movie with the family on Friday or Saturday or Sunday night? Easter Sunday night at the Movies! Dad hurried to milk the cows (as if those cows knew what the word “hurry” meant), and then we ate leftovers from Easter dinner in front of the TV and watched Charlton Heston deepen his voice even more, hold up his rod in front of black clouds, lightning and a rising Red Sea, and in a flash the sea parted and amazed Israelites scurried down the bank into the dry path away from the Egyptian chariots.
I fell prone as the glory of the Lord entered the temple, but spirit lifted me up and brought me to the inner court. And I saw that the temple was filled with the glory of the Lord.
God was on our side. Now we watch Father Brown, the good pastor-priest-detective created by G. K. Chesterton. On BBC TV (and Hoopla), he solves 10 seasons of cases with the help of his sidekick Mrs. McCarthy and other friends. God is on their side too.
What I love about Father Brown is his unremitting determination to offer forgiveness and redemption to the bad guys and the bad girls. He gets the villain alone and confronts them with the crime. “God will forgive you, and your life will never be the same.” Sometimes his offer is accepted. Always the sinner is silent, looking into Father Brown’s eyes.
“Are you telling me the truth?” The priest’s insistence begins to break through everything else in their minds. It becomes the most important thing, the One Thing. And we believe what he says ourselves. “Your life will never be the same.”
I will hear what God proclaims; the Lord, for he proclaims peace. Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him, glory dwelling in our land.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was also a famous master persuader, carrier of God’s powerful love and grace. Forty of his family members followed him to the monastery. Decades later, successfully drumming up support for the Second Crusade in a large field at Vezelay, “his voice rang out across the meadow like a celestial organ:”
“O ye who listen to me! Hasten to appease the anger of heaven, but no longer implore its goodness by vain complaints. Clothe yourselves in sackcloth, but also cover yourselves with your impenetrable bucklers. The din of arms, the danger, the labors, the fatigues of war, are the penances that God now imposes upon you. Hasten then to expiate your sins by victories over the Infidels, and let the deliverance of the holy places be the reward of your repentance.”
As in the olden scene, the cry “Deus vult! Deus vult! (God wills it!)” rolled over the fields, and was echoed by the voice of the orator: “Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with blood.”
This poetic and rousing speech recruited droves of volunteers, but it was not matched by success in the field. The Second Crusaders were soundly defeated, victims of their selfishness and pride. Bernard himself was embarrassed and angry, and he died not long after the Crusade ended.
Still his sermons on the Song of Solomon, his thoughts and writing about the love of God, and his insistence on personal, intimate friendship with Jesus rather than a scholastic, intellectual relationship have made him a spiritual hero to many, including Thomas Merton, a fellow Cistercian monk.
Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss. Truth shall spring out of the earth, and justice shall down from heaven.
(Ezekiel 43, Psalm 85, Matthew 23)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
