The Founders of Citeaux

January 26, 2025

In the larger horizon of the twelfth century, ‘reform and renewal’ was the overarching reality affecting the Church and its religious leaders (McGinn, The Growth of Mysticism, p.149).  The atmosphere of the 12th century was breathing forth ‘change’.  And within the larger spiritual field of God’s life, our three founders were conscious of the need for change and renewal. Where do dreams come from?  Where does the impulse to change come from?  Certainly, our three founders were abiding in this deeper ambience where the Spirit hovers ready to silently speak to the listening heart, to those who question and reflect on how to better live their vocation.  Just asking the question of what needs to change, along with the openness to change puts one at the margins of existence.  Pope Francis has written: “You have to go to the edges of existence if you want to see the world as it is…You have to make for the margins to find a new future” (Let Us Dream, p.11).  This is what our founders did.  The prophetic unfolds at the margins.  It is not easy to pull ourselves out of the mainstream of everyday life with all its activities…and yet we must head to the margins to hear the creative voice of the Spirit… Called to live at the periphery: monastic life at its core impels, leads one to the margins.  Living at the margins is part of the monastic, contemplative way.  The ‘new wine, fresh skins’ is seen, if only in glimpses, at the margin…there the creative ‘new’ begins to unfold and develop.  Dwelling at the margins helps us to see as God sees in all things.

As we read the early documents of our founders, we hear that they wanted more ‘solitude’.  Solitude and silence are partners.  We can assume that our founders’ longing for solitude and silence was because there was too much activity in their monastery of Molesme, not enough space for silence…and for silent prayer.    We can reflect on what is the importance of solitude and silence…What do these monastic values bring to the monastic vocation?  Solitude is not isolation; it offers an inner process for deepening one’s life of communion with God, a communion, which then overflows into all our relations. Solitude places us in the ambience of silence where prayer, contemplative prayer brings us into the encounter with the silent Presence of the Word made flesh. This living Word, ‘laced with silence’, now prays within us.  The Word of God is living and active (Heb 4:12)…It cuts through to the core where all falls away and prayer becomes simple, ‘only God’…And with thissilent encounter we are changed.  We hear in the gospels that Jesus often goes to a lonely, secluded place to pray (Lk 5:14).  This is contemplative prayer…abiding in silence and the silent Divine Word speaks…we are embraced, held by the Word, sustained by the life and hope it brings forth.  I believe this is what our founders sought out: solitude and silence which brought them to margins where the Spirit hovers, where Christ is waiting to lead, to guide, to breathe his Spirit of love.

The other elements we hear from the early documents is they wanted both a simpler life and a life of poverty.  The wanted “to be poor with the poor Christ”.  This is not literal poverty, it is more simplicity of life, the simpler things are the more we can see God’s hand at work in everything.  Simplicity brings us to the essence of our seeking.  In the Beatitudes Jesus says:“Blessed are the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven is theirs” (Mt 5:3).  What does poor in spirit mean to you?  To be poor in spirit opens spaces within the heart’s depths where this emptiness focuses our mind and heart on the ‘one thing necessary’.  “Set your hearts on the kingdom first and all else will be given you as well,” says Jesus (Mt 6:33). Becoming ‘poor in spirit’ empties us of so much ego noise, things I feel I need but do I really need them?   Our founders strove to live in the perspective of ‘only one thing is necessary’ and this posture creates a simple life focused on the essentials.  In Fully Human Fully Divine Fr. Michael Casey writes: “We follow Christ by refusing to live for ourselves, by withholding certain gratifications from ourselves, by living in the firm faith that unless the seed die it will never reach its full potential” (p.284).  In speaking of ‘renunciation’ he quotes these words of Bernard of Clairvaux: “‘Those who are fully loaded cannot run well; those who are empty and unoccupied make progress more quickly and more safely’” (p.290).  This was the spirit of our founders.

This same poverty and simplicity which begins interiorly, was reflected in their buildings: everything was spare, not a lot of adornment, still in its spareness a beauty emerged in their churches: the altar, the tabernacle, the statute or image of Our Lady, the Crucifix nothing more…and nothing more was needed…One has only to view the Cistercian churches of the 12th century to see their utter simplicity and beauty…These outer structures reflected the new orientation that “New Monastery” brought to the monastic world of the 12th century.  With such spareness and simplicity in their monastic orientation, as they followed closely the Rule of St. Benedict, one can see that contemplative prayer…prayer within the silent depths became their anchor.

The Cistercian movement as it unfolded gave birth to monastic theologians…mystical theologians: Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, Isaac of Stella, Aelred of Rievalux, Guerric of Igny, along with these women of the 13th century Beatrice of Nazareth and Gertrude the Great to name a few.  Their theology was not intellectual, it began from experience, the inner experience of God…Experience led, and understandingfollowed.  Several early Cistercians wrote ‘treatises de anima’, treatises of the soul, which in and of itself give us a view on what they placed at the center of their lives, the experience of God.

What are they saying to us today?  Return to the essentials…stay at the margins in order to see and to receive God’s inspiring or transforming Word.  Silence, solitude, ‘being poor with the poor Christ’, be lovers of God, self, and neighbor. And this they did….

Sr. Kathy DeVico, Abbess

Chapter Talk – Sts. Robert, Alberic & Stephen – January 26, 2025

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