From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   April 17th - Stephen Harding   
      
   Stephen Harding, son of an English noble, consecrated himself very early to   
   the monastic life in the Abbey of Sherbonne in Dorsetshire. He was sent to   
   France and pursued a brilliant course in humanities, philosophy and   
   theology.   
      
   After a pilgrimage to Rome, he returned to France to the Abbey of Molesme,   
   under the direction of the Abbot St. Robert and Blessed Alberic.   
   Notwithstanding the influence of these saints, the monastery declined. The   
   two saints determined to leave the community and together with St. Stephen   
   and 18 other monks, they instituted a reformed new abbey in Cîteaux (Cister)   
   with the support of Duke Eudes of Bourgogne. This was the origin of the   
   famous Cistercians. On Alberic's death in 1110, St. Stephen was elected   
   Abbot of the monastery and wrote its statutes, which were approved by Pope   
   Paschal II.   
      
   During his term as Abbot, St. Stephen fought to maintain the strict   
   observance. Since the monastery received very few novices, he began to have   
   doubts that the new institution was pleasing to God. He prayed for   
   enlightenment and received a response that encouraged him and his small   
   community. From Bourgogne a noble youth arrived with 30 companions, asking   
   to be admitted to the abbey. This noble was the future St. Bernard. In 1115   
   St. Stephen built the abbey of Clairvaux, and installed St. Bernard as its   
   Abbot. From it 800 abbeys were born.   
      
   St. Stephen died in 1134, saying that he would appear before God as a   
   useless servant who had made poor use of the gifts God had given him.   
      
      
   Comments of the late Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira: (died 1995)   
      
   The life of St. Stephen shows us the various ways grace works regarding   
   religious orders. Each of them is gifted in its origins with the needed   
   graces to fulfill the mission it received from God. In general, in the first   
   phase, an order accomplishes its mission. This phase often coincides with   
   the heroic phase of the founder, grand accomplishments, and great saints.   
      
   At a certain moment, as is common with things human, the religious order   
   enters into a period of decline. Then either additional saints communicate a   
   new impulse to it, or it continues to slowly deteriorate. As it declines,   
   there is an option: either it closes or it gives birth to new branches. When   
   a new branch is formed, it shines with a brilliance that equals the splendor   
   of the order's first days. The trunk is invigorated by the new growth and   
   continues to live.   
      
   Why does God allow certain orders to die and others to have their existence   
   wonderfully prolonged by a glorious continuity?   
      
   To consider only one aspect of the matter, there are certain religious   
   orders that have a perennial role in the Catholic Church. They irradiate a   
   certain spirit that is indispensable to the Church. It is a perfume that God   
   wants His Church to have since it is a part of her very physiognomy. So God   
   conserves those religious orders that maintain these characteristics. Other   
   religious orders, however, which God judges as not indispensable to the   
   Church, decline and disappear.   
      
   Among the orders in the first category, none has so wonderful a continuity   
   as the Order of Carmel. According to a very respectable tradition, it was   
   founded by Elias the Prophet, that is to say, long before the birth of Our   
   Lord. It passed through trials and sufferings, brilliant successes and great   
   failures until the coming of St. John the Baptist, who would be a member of   
   this spiritual family and the greatest successor of Elias. Our Lord Himself   
   would have been close to those religious, who for a certain period would be   
   part of the movement of the Essenes.   
      
   Then, with the New Covenant and the dispersion of the Hebrew people, the   
   Order took the name it has today and remained at Mount Carmel until the   
   Muslim persecutions obliged it to flee to the West. In Europe it was at the   
   point of closure when Our Lady appeared to St. Simon Stock - who was the   
   General of the Order - and gave him the scapular devotion. With this, a   
   torrent of graces came to the Order.   
      
   Later, St. Teresa of Ávila and St. John of the Cross reformed a part of the   
   Carmelite Order. This branch of reform influenced the whole trunk, and it   
   continued to shine until it produced one of its most beautiful flowers,   
   which was St. Therese of Lisieux. Afterward, a phenomenon of general decay   
   set in until it experienced the tornado of bad consequences coming from   
   Moderism, which we know.   
      
   You see that Divine Providence wants to conserve the Order of Carmel.   
   According to private prophecies, this Order will never disappear. It will   
   continue - from one glory to another and one trial to another - until the   
   moment that its founder, Elias the Prophet, will return and be present in   
   the last days of History to fight against the Antichrist, who will kill   
   Elias. Then he will be resurrected, and see the return of Our Lord Jesus   
   Christ for the Final Judgment.   
      
   There is, therefore, a mystery of predilection of Our Lady for this   
   spiritual family. For this reason, it has greater longevity than other   
   orders.   
      
   One finds a similar action of Divine Providence with regard to the oldest   
   Western order, the Benedictine Order. St. Benedict is the Patriarch of the   
   Western monks. All of Western monasticism was born from him. He founded a   
   religious order that spread throughout Europe and worked the conversion of   
   the barbarians in one of the worst moments of the Church's History.   
      
   Paradoxically, the Church at this time was contaminated by the germs of   
   corruption of the pagan world that she had helped to destroy. On one hand,   
   the spirit of softness and sensuality of Paganism survived in many   
   ecclesiastics and lay faithful. On the other hand, the Church had to face   
   the barbarian invasions. For the most part, the barbarians were heretics;   
   they were partisans of Arianism. That is to say, the Church had enemies both   
   inside and outside.   
      
   In this crucial situation, the Benedictine monks entered the scenario and   
   worked for the conversion of the barbarians. The conversion of England,   
   Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Bohemia, Austria, and Hungary was   
   due in great part to the work of the Benedictine Order. Its monks worked in   
   a way that brought them much prestige.   
      
   What did they do? The modern missionary runs after the unfaithful and tries   
   to convert him. The Benedictine missionary did not do this. He would go to   
   an area without the Faith and found an abbey there. The abbey would begin   
   its monastic life of praying and chanting the Divine Office and, at the same   
   time, it would give alms to the poor, systematically work the lands, drain   
   the swamps, and civilize the land surrounding the abbey. Because of the good   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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