A letter from Bernard of Clairvaux

Translated letter:

If your son seems to have transgressed towards you, we are sorry, and we grieve no less the action of the son than the injury to the mother; but yet it is excusable in a growing/immature son. For that is a crime of youth, which he committed, and the age which tends to such excuses him.  Do you not know that the senses and thoughts of a man are prone to evil from adolescence?  I am confident that he will change for the better, from the merits and alms of his father.  Therefore it is imperative that you pray and vow more and more to God for him, since, although he has shown himself less filial towards you than he ought, yet a mother should not and cannot abandon the maternal affection in her guts.  For can a mother ever forget the son of her womb?  And if she could forget, he [Isa.49:15] says, I would not forget you.  Let us pray and weep before the lord that God by his pity make a youth of such character an imitator of paternal probity, which we do not doubt.  He should be treated with the spirit of lenience and gentle treatment, for thus he will be better provoked to good works than if he were exasperated by irritations and scoldings.  In such a way, we are sure that your heart and ours can rejoice equally from a swift and happy change in him.  Do I not desire daily that he be better with all my guts?  I would that I might find him [acting] towards all as I have found him towards me.  For what have I ever wanted that he did not do?  May the lord reward him.  But for you, as you have often asked, I have often admonished [him] and shall admonish as appropriate.

Original letter:

SI quando in vos filius vester visus est excessisse, doluimus, et dolemus non mi­nus excessum filii quam matris iniuriam; quod tamen et ipsum excusabile est in adolescente filio. Nempe delicta iuventutis, ipsa, quae commisit, excusat aetas proclivior. An nescitis quia proni sunt sensus hominis et cogitationes in malum ab adolescentia? Confidendum mutatum iri in melius, patris meritis et eleemosynis. Propterea insistendum magis magisque, votis et precibus ad Deum pro eo, quia, etsi ille minus interdum quam debuit se filialem exhibuit, mater tamen pro suis visceribus maternum deserere non debet, sed nec valet affectum. Numquid potest mater oblivisci filii uteri sui? Et si illa, inquit, oblita fuerit, Ego tamen non obliviscar tui. Oremus et ploremus coram domino, Ut Deus tantae indolis iuvenem, probitatis paternae imitatorem, quod non diffidimus, sua faciat pietate. Agendum cum eo in spiritu lenitatis blandisque obsequiis, quia sic melius ad bona opera provocabitur quam si irritationibus et increpationibus exasperetur. Ita sane de eius cita laetaque mutatione posse laetificari confidimus cor vestrum et nostrum pariter. Quidni ego totis cupiam visceribus quotidie seipso fieri meliorem? Utinam qualem inveni in me, talem semper in omnes inveni.  Quid enim, quantum ad nos, umquam volui, et non fecit?  Retribuat illi Dominus.  Ceterum pro vobis, sicut saepe petistis, saepe, prout oportuit, et monui, et monebo.

Historical context:

Bernard consoles the countess for her son’s unspecified crime, excusing it by his age and, in the hope of improvement, counsels her to be lenient towards him.

Printed source:

Sancti Bernardi Opera, ed. J. LeClercq and H. Rochais (Rome: Eds. Cisterciennes, 1979), ep.300.

Date: