Does Society Need a St. Bernard?Written by Robert Bruce Baird
You all know big dogs that carry rum to save Swiss or alpine skiers caught in a storm or some other trouble. That is not St. Bernard I am contemplating but you might think this St. Bernard to be an even bigger dog once you get to know him.“The intellectual and institutional evolution of these reform movements during almost exactly one thousand years between Benedict of Nursia (who founded monastery of Monte Cassino in about 529) and Martin Luther (who entered monastery of Augustinian Hermits at Erfurt in 1505) is a story of inestimable importance for history of Europe and of world. (13) Over and over, it was primitive model of Christ as Monk, and of monk as imitator of model, that animated these reform movements. There is in some ways a depressing repetition of pattern, as each monastic reform in its turn protests against decline and stagnation in monasteries, sets up new administrative and disciplinary structures to reverse downward trend, prevails for a century or two, and then proves itself vulnerable to same tendencies of stagnation and decline. Benedict of Aniane in Carolingian period; Odo of Cluny and Cluniac reform movement a century or so later; about a century after that monastic reformation that began at Citeaux, which through powerful life and Christocentric thought of Saint Bernard spread Cistercian message throughout Europe; then friars of twelfth and thirteenth centuries in their new dedication to renewal; and, in reaction to Protestant Reformation and under inspiration of an intensified Christ-mysticism in sixteenth-century Spain, Society of Jesus.” (14)
| | This Small Place We Call HomeWritten by DD Phil
Things have really happened in times past. Consider Adam and Eve, our first parents. After God created them, he saw that they were good and perfect in his sight. And God made a garden for them live on. And left tree of knowledge of good and evil in midst of garden which he forbade them to eat. Who will question his authority? But I ponder these questions in my heart: Didn’t God know that Satan would come inside garden someday to deceive couple? Or didn’t God know that man would fall some day? But Satan “serpent” deceived them to eat forbidden fruit. And because they both ate, God drove them out of Garden of Eden—the place they called home. Man began to multiply, as God wanted it. But it grieved God that he created man, when he saw that man’s wickedness was great on earth and his thought was evil all time. And God decided to destroy earth with water. Only Noah found favor from God, because he was righteous. And after that, God blessed man to be fruitful and multiply. Was it for another destruction? Or so that man would not live to enjoy his days? I will not make mention of Sodom and Gomorrah—cities that God destroyed with fire. Because not even ten righteous men were found there. This small place we call home would still be destroyed. What earth has never experienced in time past would suddenly befall it. How terrible it will be on that day! And I don’t pray to experience it. That will be God’s final judgment on this world—a place we call home. A place where both young and old will go to have their shelter after day’s work. And our final resting place. Should we then call God, creator, a destroyer and a killer of man’s joy? He creates and destroys. What should we now call him? Name it!
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