Saint from Middle Ages found answers to life with prayer, pope says

Vatican City: October 21, 2009, (PCTV Newsdesk)

The life and writings of a 12th-century abbot remind Christians that questions about the meaning of life and God cannot be answered without prayer and contemplation, Pope Benedict XVI said. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who led the important Cistercian monastery in Clairvaux, France, from 1115 until his death in 1153, put the love of God and Jesus Christ at the center of his numerous writings, the pope said at his weekly general audience Oct. 21. His example is important today because "sometimes we try to resolve fundamental questions about God and man with rationality alone," the pope said to the faithful gathered in a sunny, windy St. Peter's Square. "St. Bernard reminds us that, without deep faith in God that is strengthened by prayer, contemplation and an intimate relationship with the Lord, our reflections on the divine mysteries risk becoming merely intellectual exercises and lose their credibility," Pope Benedict said. St. Bernard is venerated as a doctor of the church, a group of saints whose writings have been of particular importance in Catholic theology or spirituality.