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The development of the Cistercian Order in the twelfth century came as a product of a number of eleventh-century reforms. These reforms affected all strata of society, and they impacted the way in which medieval European Christians viewed themselves, their social, political, and theological structures, the world around them, and their relationship to the Christian narrative of salvation history and eschatology. The early Cistercians built their “new monastery” (novum monasterium) upon an apostolic foundation of austerity and poverty, informed by a “return” to the Rule of Benedict as the program for their daily ritual and liturgical lives. These Cistercians centered their monastic “way of life” (conversatio) around the pursuit of ascent into God, seeking to become “citizens among the saints and members of the household of God.” The language of twelfth-century Cistercian ascension theology drew from a number of scriptural motifs for its expression. For example, Bernard of Clairvaux described his monastery as the “heavenly Jerusalem” and his monks as “Jerusalemites”; Aelred of Rievaulx spoke of “living stones,” building up the Temple of Jerusalem and rising up as sacred incense; and Helinand of Froidmont exhorted his monks to climb the mountain with Christ and to raise up within themselves a Temple of “living stones,” becoming bearers of Christ like Mary, his holy mother. In the case of these and other Cistercian exegetes, the goal remained the same: by interpreting Christian scripture and tradition, Cistercian theologians sought to transform the monastery into a sacred space, bridging the gap between the human world and the realm of God, so that they, and their brethren, might ascend “as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.”
The Work of Fr. Raymond Flanagan, OCSO, Author of Historical Novels, Devotional Books, and Pamphlets
(2021)
Father Mary Raymond Flanagan (1903–1990), a monk of Gethsemani Abbey, was the widely- read author of dozens of books and pamphlets particularly popular in the 1940s, 1950s, and early 1960s. Numbering in the dozens, his publications were characterized by a hard-hitting, vigorous Catholic piety that accentuated American family values, fidelity to Catholic traditions, the beauty of religious vocations, anti-Communism, and the athletic asceticism he associated with the first Cistercians. His works lost their appeal to a wide audience during the cultural shift of the late 1960s and later, but several of his writings have been reissued in recent years.
This essay includes a short biography and a bibliography of Flanagan's books and pamphlets.
Although he was a major figure in the early development of the Cistercian movement, liturgical veneration for St. Stephen Harding (†1134) seldom took place in the Middle Ages. Legends rarely discuss him. But in the Early Modern Period, he was "discovered" and credited more and more with being the sole author of the Carta Caritatis, although there were certainly other authors. This article shows how Stephen's personality was assessed differently from one era to the next.