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Everything Bernard of Clairvaux was involved in—promoting the monastic life, preaching crusades, condemning heretics, advising popes, intervening with kings—sounds so fully “medieval” that it seems strange that Protestant pastors of the Reformation era would respond favorably to this zealous 12th century Catholic monk. The reason lies mostly in Bernard’s emphasis on the Bible. From the time of his entrance into the monastic life around 1113 until his death 40 years later, Bernard spent more than half of each waking day reading, singing, and meditating on Holy Scripture.

Holy Scripture was the focal point of Bernard’s life. This was not unique to him; he shared this practice with thousands of other devout monks. Bernard belonged to the Cistercians, an order of reformed Benedictine monks dedicated to the restoration of the ancient discipline in complete solitude and isolation. Their lives were devoted to prayer, and they assembled in choir eight times each day. Their days began long before sunrise.

For Benedictines prayer meant, and still means, the saying or chanting of Scripture, especially the Psalms. Some biblical verses and stanzas were chanted every day of their lives. But at the very least all 150 Psalms were recited aloud once a week, in a recurring pattern that shaped their whole inner life.

The Psalms, though the heart of Benedictine prayer, only marked the beginning. All medieval churchmen learned to read (which means, learned to read Latin) by way of the Bible. The language of Scripture was therefore imprinted upon their earliest memories, and they could hardly express themselves apart from the language of Scripture. Everything they wrote, from treatises and sermons to letters and poems, echoed the Bible at every turn, much as the language of the King James Bible influenced subsequent English literature.

Beyond the cycle of prayers and psalms, Cistercian monks said or attended mass each morning. This meant that the readings assigned to each day of the year by the church, one from the Old Testament, one from the Gospels, and one from the Epistles, would likewise become second nature to them.

Monks assembled in the refectory for their main meal around noon. They sat in silence while one monk read to them, often from a devotional book or a saint’s life. Sometimes Scripture was read here too, but in any case Scripture was quoted, paraphrased, and echoed all through the chosen devotional texts. What time remained to monks between mass, meals, and the cycle of prayer, they were expected to spend in work and meditation.

Work also proceeded in silence, whether in fields, gardens, or workshops. In an age when books were generally rare, expensive, and cumbersome, these people developed a keen and large capacity for memorization. What monks heard and sang continuously in public worship, they pondered all through the day in their hearts. Scriptural phrases and images sank into the innermost recesses of their lives, and accompanied them in their everyday thoughts.

Cistercians monks were encouraged to spend part of each day in private reading and meditation. This inevitably involved reflection on Scripture. They might read a book of the Bible on their own—Bernard was specially noted for reading the whole Book through from beginning to end repeatedly—or they might make their way slowly through some Bible commentary or devotional work by a Father of the Church.

Finally, before retiring in the evening, the monks followed a course of nighttime readings. Here whole books of the Bible were read in sequence, Isaiah at Advent, Jeremiah at Lent, and so forth. Again, there was almost no part of the day when a conscientious Cistercian monk was not reading, singing, or reflecting on Holy Scripture.

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