Saint Bernard
St. Bernard wrote this letter to the scholar Geoffrey Loroux, reproaching him for his lack of zeal in the cause of religion:: ...It is doubtless a glorious thing to be in a position to render service to God, but it is also a most dangerous thing to possess that power and not to use it. Now you certainly have all the qualifications necessary in a champion of the Church...Consequently, being a 'friend of the Bridegroom,' (John 3:29), you are bound to do all you can for His Bride in this her hour of need. Necessity is the only true test of friendship. What? Can you have the conscience to repose at ease while your mother, the Church, is being violently assaulted? There is a time for repose; heretofore he occupations that belong to holy leisure could be lawfully and freely indulged in. But now it is 'the time for doing, O Lord, for they have dissipated Thy law,' (Psalm 118: vs. 126). That beast of the Apocalypse, to whom has been given a mouth speaking blasphemy an power to wage war against the saints (Apoc. 13:5-7) has seated himself in the Chair of Peter, 'as a lion ready for his prey,' (Psalm 16:12). There is another beast sibilating beside you, 'as a lion's whelp dwelling in secret places,' (Psalm 16:12). The former is the more savage, but the latter the more cunning; and both 'have come together against the Lord and against His anointed,' (Psalm 2:2). But 'let us break their bond asunder and cast their yoke from us,' (Ibid., vs. 3).
...Why do you remain so inactive? How long will you slumber in false security by the side of a venomous serpent? I know well you are too much a lover of peace to abandon the cause of peace and unity; but this is not enough. You must devote yourself with all your power to the active defense of peace and to the humiliating and confounding of its foes. Do not begrudge the sacrifice of your leisure, which shall be compensated with no small addition to your glory...
The Church ordains that the preference should be given to him, who at the request of the people, with the consent and concurrence of the clergy, has first been placed by the cardinals in the Chair of Blessed Peter. Pierleoni (Anacletus II) proceeded to the second election without attempting to prove the invalidity of the first which, as not being self-evidently null, gave Innocent a presumptive right.
|
| Subscribe to One Holy Catholic Church |
| Visit this group |
