Skip to main content
There's a Saint for That! Search

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Feast 08-20 · Canonized 1174

Patron of

About

Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon, France, to a noble family. At twenty-two he entered the Cistercian abbey of Cîteaux, bringing with him some thirty relatives and friends, and three years later was sent to found the abbey of Clairvaux, which he led as abbot for the rest of his life.

Bernard became the most influential churchman of his age, a reformer of monastic life, a counselor of popes and kings, and a preacher of the Second Crusade. His writings on the love of God and his sermons on the Song of Songs shaped Western mysticism for centuries.

He died in 1153 and was canonized in 1174. He is venerated as a Doctor of the Church and is invoked by contemplatives and those seeking deeper prayer.

contemplatives, contemplative life, contemplative, contemplative prayer, contemplative orders, meditation, prayerful life, religious life, contemplative religious, contemplative spirituality, inner life, beekeepers, bees, beekeeping, honey, apiary, hives, honey bees, bee keeper, bee keeping, apiarists, honeybees

Suggested prayer

O God, who drew Bernard into the cloister with thirty companions and taught the world through him to love You, grant through his intercession that contemplatives and beekeepers may taste Your sweetness and lead others to You. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sources

Other saints to pray to

For contemplatives

For beekeepers