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| Bernard of Clairvaux |
When one thinks of the middle ages
of Christendom, many don’t think the word “revival”, at least I know before
this week I didn’t. My main landing
point for this portion of history was usually despair; I say despair because of
the many atrocities Christians perpetrated against the unbelieving world in the
name of God. This portion of history
included the crusades and in many ways those violent crimes have covered the
gem that was Spiritual renewal. To
describe this onset of Spiritual renewal, I will quote Glenn Myers from his
essay on the very topic. Glenn says:
“Although everyone in Christendom is technically a member of the church,
medieval Europe has been spiritually dry for hundreds of years. In such a state of affairs the first sparks
of revival spring up, and the spiritual climate starts to change rapidly as
devout men of God—mostly monks, priests and hermits—come out of seclusion and
begin to proclaim the gospel and call nominal Christians into a personal
relationship with Christ” (Myers, 2008, pg. 7) [Similar thought from Myers
in his book on pg. 28]
I
use such a long quote because I think there; Myers accurately and succinctly
describes the time of medieval renewal.
There was a sense of disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the church. Nominal Christianity ruled the day for many
but there was a growing hunger and a deeper desire for something
different. The people were primed and
ready for a revival and the message they needed was not the point of doing more for
God, but understanding that God loves them.
This
particular message struck home with many women during this time as we will see
soon. These women felt a deep connection
to Christ and literally gave their lives to being the “Bride of Christ”. This deep movement by many women in Europe
was another bright spot in the Medieval days for this strong wind of revival.
I
will dig deeper into these women and their revival a bit late into the essay,
let’s start with what the movement entailed.
There was a growing sense and desire to know God. Much of the knowing was through the
sacraments and very little emphasis on relationship was to be heard, until some
teachers began to come out of seclusion and speak on the deeper relationship
one can have with the Almighty God.
There are many of these teachers that came out of seclusion and began to
share the love of God and Personal relationship lessons of God of which the
largest and my personal favorite: Bernard of Clairvaux.
Much
of this renewal surrounded around the key of a personal, loving relationship
with Jesus and that a deeper connection to Him would allow us to know God
better, because he is God. Myers in his
essay called this “Bridal Spirituality”.
Dionysius believed “…that all people long to know God, for God has put
that longing in us” (Sittser, 2007, pg. 169).
It was this driving force of a deep, longing to know God more completely
that I believe caused much of the spiritual renewal we are talking about. From our lectures this week, I believe the tenants
of “Mysticism” are also the keys to the renewal. These were:
“1. Personalized faith- not just belonging
to Institutional Church, rather believers following Jesus. 2. Relationship with
God, not just receiving sacraments but rather seeking intimate love of the
Lord. 3. Direct experience of God in prayer…encountering God’s presence. 4.
Emphasis on love, 5. Prayer. 6. Supernatural experiences and 7. Goal: union
with God” (Spiritual Renewal Lecture #2, 2012).
To the end of union, Sittser
discusses this well in his book when he says: “Illumination leads to union with
God…A relationship implies communication, trust and love. It allows for genuine
intimacy between persons” (Sittser, 2007, pg. 176).
Bernard of Clairvaux landed on love
being this ultimate goal of union. The
message of having a personal relationship with a loving God was his cornerstone
message. We need the love of God Bernard
surmised. Sittser, when discussing Bernard states: “Bernard’s mysticism
pulsates with love—God’s love for us, our love for God. Bernard believed that, as fallen, helpless,
unworthy people, we need God’s love” (Sittser, 2007, pg. 179). This idea of love was a chief cornerstone of
the movement towards Spiritual renewal in Bernard’s day. Before this unleashing lesson of love
[“Bridal Spirituality” as Myers defines it from the life of the Beguines],
these “churched” folks were taught the importance of “doing” the sacraments and
this sacramental Christianity although healthy in ways quickly became unhealthy
in it’s attempt to “do” in order to please God.
The aspect of love and relationship rapidly moved to working for
salvation and thus changed the depth and reality of grace and salvation.
One can note within these ideals of
Bernard, the reformation language is beginning to develop; for soon there will
be a rebellion against misused powers and misguided descriptions of the “things
to be done in order to receive salvation”.
Bernard and other itinerant preachers spoke of relationship to the
loving God rather than doing things. The
refocused on the Scriptural understanding of who God says he is, rather than
man’s idea of who God is and what needs to happen in order to please this deity
in the sky.
I will pause here before I continue
on and note how in our own day we’ve succumbed to a lost understanding of the
father’s love for us and in this losing, we’ve begun to go the way of the
medieval church and fall into a spirituality of doing, rituals and
moralism. Kendra Dean in her book Almost Christian sheds light onto a sad
reality of young people’s ideals of spirituality. She (and many others) label this Moralistic
Therapeutic Deism (MTD). When one breaks this down she says we see that young
people (16-30) today think if they are morally good they are spiritually good. Also, God is not as personal to them so much
on a daily basis, but he is there to simply make them feel good about
themselves, their actions and their decisions.
God likes them to act good and when they act good God makes them feel
good.
This epidemic of MTD has so struck
the hearts and minds of our people today that the teachers (the older
generation) of this spirituality don’t even recognize a problem. They have “good kids” so they assume their
kids “get it” while in reality they don’t at all. I bring this simple current cultural issue
into light because I truthfully believe that we are simply repeating
“sacramental Christianity” all over again but with different criteria. Bernard of Clairvaux would be shouting just
as loud to this generation about God’s love as he did then, yet we as a
majority of believers fail to see that anything is broken. Julian of Norwhich would be preaching his
lesson on prayer all over again as well.
Julian saw in his day that the people were not a praying people. They relied on the clergy to do the act of “spirituality”
while they showed up, took the sacraments, fulfilled certain “criteria” and
walked back home feeling good about themselves and inoculated to a true, deep
spirituality or relationship with Jesus.
Does that not sound familiar? Look at churches today, filled with the
same type of mentality. The church in
Europe never foresaw the soon demise and decline of the church in their area
because they lacked the discernment to see it! America is so close to the same
type of folly. We have to wake up. Sittser says of Julian: “Through the
discipline of prayer. God himself,
Julian argued, prompts us to pray.
Prayer is simply the human response to the prior call of God, which we
hear in Jesus Christ” (Sittser, 2007, pg. 182).
In medieval Europe one brave group
of women started seeing this turn away from their bride and they reacted
strongly. These women were the Beguines.
“The Beguines were part of a massive
evangelical awakening in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that spawned a
series of revivals across Europe and led to the establishment of a variety of
new orders, not least of which was that of St. Francis” (Myers, 2011, pg.
27). These women were in love with their
groom: Jesus and desired to set their lives apart of live for him. They communed together, served the poor and
worked together all while delving into the Scriptures together to grow as
loving brides of Jesus. Some sold all
they had and gave it to the poor as they moved into the commune, others kept
enough to live comfortably but all of them began with an inner repentance and a
renunciation of worldly ways, especially wealth (Myers, 2011, pg. 30).
The faith of these women was utterly
awe inspiring and their radical faith caused many to seek a richer, deeper
relationship with God.
Another radical person of faith who
was sold out to the idea of giving all for Christ was a young man named Francis
of Assisi. He distributed his fathers
wealth to the poor, lived and dressed like a hermit, all for the sake of
Christ. Shelley says of him: “…he
wandered the countryside with a few followers, begging from the rich, giving to
the poor, and preaching the joys of ‘apostolic poverty’” (Shelley, 2008, pg.
212). Francis was a dynamic figure in
the spiritual renewal of Europe during his time period. Sittser says of him: “His impact was
sensational. People could not get enough
of him” (Sittser, 2007, pg. 197). He
taught something deep, rich and worthy of giving everything up for when he
spoke of the cause of Christ. He began
to gather a few more men here and there and soon became an order of the cloth
known as the Franciscans. Dominic,
another fellow on the scene of revival had a similar view, yet not as radical
as the vision Francis put forth. Dominic
too started a gathering now known as the Dominicans.
Other big names were peering into
the limelight for the revolution. People
like Thomas Aquinas who was himself of the order of Dominic, he was a Dominican
monk; his work: “Summa Theologica” was a work to make distinctions between
philosophy and theology, reason and revelation and showing that there is no
contradiction between the two. These
ideas helped frame a deeper understanding of culture and church.
Many more people came during this
time preaching love, relationship and a deeper understanding of the Christian
faith than had previously been touted, sadly there simply isn’t enough room to
digress further. Let me conclude by
stating that I pray for a renewal similar to the one we just studied. I feel it deeply necessary to recapture the
love of the Father and fade out the dependence upon moralism and a God who
“makes us feel good and happy” all the time.
References
Shelley,
Bruce L. (2008). Church History in Plain Language, 3rd Edition. Thomas
Nelson Publishing, Nashville, TN.
Sittser, Gerald L. (2007). Water from a Deep Well: Christian
Spirituality from Early Martyrs to Modern Missionaries. InterVarsity Press,
Downers Grove, IL.
Myers, Glenn E. (2011). Seeking
Spiritual Intimacy: Journeying Deeper with Medieval Women of Faith. InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. 2001 Wheaton: Standard
Bible Society.
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