Saint Bernard of Clairvaux lived in times of great ferment and division. Heresies were proliferating; the Holy See was threatened by schism; inveterate evils destroyed public morals;  Christian princes provoked each another to endless and sanguinary combats. Into these troublous times God sent Bernard. A man of astonishing holiness and charisma, dissolute and unruly kings, princes, and devils trembled before him; popes and bishops sought his counsel; heretics could not withstand his wisdom; multitudes thronged to hear his sermons, where obstinate hearts melted like wax and  were set afire with love for Jesus. The astounding profusion of miracles with which God graced St. Bernard’s words and deeds  are too numerous to recount.

“There is, perhaps, in the annals of the Church no more remarkable instance of the power of an individual over the men of his age than in St. Bernard. And whence came this wondrous power of dealing with affairs and with men? [From] a mind profoundly immersed in God, and from a will of which the fervor and singleness of aim were supernatural.” ~  From the Preface.