17.— On the Incarnation.
St. Bernard, St. Athanasius, Pere Louis de Grenada, and St. Jerome.
"Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel." — Isaias vii. 14.
[St. Bernard was one of the most influential ecclesiastics of the Middle Ages, He was born at Fontaines, in Burgundy, A.D. 1091. In the year 11 13, he became a monk at Citeaux, and at the early age of twenty-four, was elected Abbot of Clairvaux. At that time Clairvaux was a savage desert, but St. Bernard made it teem with fertility. He wished that his monks, while serving God, should also be useful to man, and he prescribed that each of them in his turn, and according to his capacity, should attend to manual labour and study.
St Bernard was called the honeyed teacher, and his writings were styled a stream from Paradise.
He died in the year 1153, and was canonised by Alexander III. A.D. 1174.]
I HAVE often thought of, and meditated on, the holy eagerness of the patriarchs who so sighed for the coming of the Messiah; and I felt confused, and was, moreover, so penetrated with grief, that I could scarcely refrain from weeping, so much was I ashamed to see the tepidity and indifference of these unhappy days.
For who amongst us is filled with so much joy in the fulfilment of this mystery, as did the saints of the Old Testament, at the promises which so called forth their longing desires?
