Above the coat of arms on the façade of the monastery there is a niche that shelters the images of the Virgin and Saint Bernard at her feet, almost life-size, in the scene of the lactation.
“Lactatio Bernardi or lactation of St. Bernard are the names by which in hagiography and art historiography a scene from the life of this saint and his iconography, closely linked to the Virgo lactans (Virgin of the Milk), are known.
The anecdote is first recorded in one of the exempla of Ci nous dit ( 1313-1330, an anonymous work by a mendicant friar): when the bishop of Chalon visited Cîteaux, Bernard, then a young monk, was commissioned by the abbot to preach. Fearing to disappoint them, he began to pray before an image of the Virgin until he fell asleep. In a dream the Virgin appeared to him, who gave him the gift of eloquence by putting milk from her own breast in his mouth. It also appears in the Cancionero de Úbeda (1588). A similar miracle is reflected earlier in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: the resurrection of a Cistercian monk after receiving in his mouth milk from the Virgin herself.”
The Virgin Mary is the supreme worship of the Catholic Church since she was the mother of Jesus.
Saint Bernard, "known as Bernard of Clairvaux(in French: Bernard de Clairvaux), was a French Cistercian monk, abbot of the abbey of Clairvaux.
With him, the Cistercian Order expanded throughout Europe and occupied the forefront of religious influence. He participated in the main doctrinal conflicts of his time and was involved in the important affairs of the Church. In the schism of Anacletus II he mobilized to defend the one who was declared the true pope, he opposed the rationalist Abelard and was the passionate preacher of the second Crusade.
Bernard of Clairvaux, initial B in a manuscript of the Golden Legend (Keble MS 49, fol 162r).
He is an essential personality in the history of the Catholic Church and the most notable of his century. He exerted a great influence on the political and religious life of Europe."
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