[continued from previous message]   
      
   name was Bernard. He had been moved to give up the world, but being a   
   youth of keen affections he had no mind to enter the way of perfection   
   himself and leave his friends outside. One after another, he had   
   gained over his brothers, his uncle, and a number of his   
   acquaintances. This was the turning-point from henceforth there was no   
   lack of novices and no fear of starvation, for the new foundation was   
   drawing upon itself the attention and admiration of France. It was   
   also the culminating event in St. Stephen’s history: his personality   
   almost disappears in the two great tasks now before him--the training   
   of St. Bernard and the constitution of the Cistercian Order.   
      
   Increasing numbers soon necessitated a daughter house, and a   
   foundation was made at Pontigny. Two other houses, Morimond and then   
   Clairvaux, followed, and to the general surprise Stephen appointed   
   Bernard abbot of Clairvaux, although he was only 24. To bind these   
   monasteries to CÎteaux, Stephen instituted an annual general chapter   
   which the heads of the affiliated abbeys were bound to attend. In   
   1119, when 9 abbeys had sprung from Citeaux and Clairvaux, St. Stephen   
   drew up a body of statutes, the Charter of Charity, which both   
   organized the Cistercians as an order and regulated their mode of   
   life.   
      
   It was only when he was old and very nearly blind that St. Stephen   
   laid down his pastoral staff to prepare for the end. As he lay on his   
   death-bed, he heard some of the monks round him extolling him and   
   saying that he would be able to enter fearlessly into the presence of   
   God. Raising himself, he rebuked them, saying, “Indeed, I assure you   
   that I am going to God as trembling and as anxious as if I had never   
   done any good. For if there has been in me any good at all, and if any   
   fruit has been produced from my littleness, it was through the help of   
   the grace of God: and I fear greatly lest perhaps I have husbanded   
   that grace less jealously and less humbly than I ought to have done.”   
   These were his last words before he went to his reward. As well as by   
   the Cistercians, the feast of St. Stephen Harding is kept in the   
   dioceses of Westminster and (on March 28) Plymouth. He was canonized   
   in 1623.   
      
   Materials for the study of the early history of the Cistercian Order   
   are tolerably ample. We have the Exordium Parvum, the Exordium Magnum,   
   and the works of such chroniclers as William of Malmesbury and   
   Ordericus Vitalis, as well as a life of St. Robert of Molesmes….    
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Christ made my soul beautiful with the jewels of grace and virtue.    
   I belong to Him whom the angels serve.   
   -- Saint Agnes of Rome   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   "By your patience you will win your souls." [Luke 21: 19]   
      
   <><><>   
   Jesus, gentlest Savior,   
   God of might and power,   
   Thou Thyself art dwelling   
   In us at this hour.   
   Nature cannot hold Thee,   
   Heaven is all too strait   
   For Thine endless glory   
   And Thy royal state.   
   F. Faber: An Art of Thanksgiving. (19th cent.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)