The identity of the Cistercian movement is forged in the interface between the ideal and the concrete, the poetic and the pragmatic. Its protagonists are tested and purified by tensions that result.
I have spoken of Bernard’s high ideals, of his liking for working out a course of action in his mind, then following it a little ruthlessly. Riding a high horse came naturally to him. This fierce, intransigent aspect never left him. But it was sweetened over time. Of this process we must now speak. It turned the idealist into a realist.
The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said that ‘the real’ is what we butt against. The range of Bernard’s endeavours in Realpolitik made for a great deal of butting. But he became a realist not merely in the sense of accepting things as they are. He learnt above all that the deepest reality of all human affairs is a cry for mercy.
The more he recognised this cry in human hearts, in bitter tears, in worldly conflicts, in madcap campaigns against decency and truth, and in the whisper of the trees of the forest, the more he was conscious of God’s gracious response. He heard it in the holy name of Jesus, which became
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