XX.

DEATH OF STEPHEN.

 

Since the admission of St. Bernard into Citeaux, the life of Stephen has been that of his order. History only speaks of him occasionally as a monastic legislator, or as the founder of some new convent. The lord abbot of Citeaux appears sometimes amongst the signatures attached to a council, or to some document which the labour of the Benedictines has brought from the chartulary of a convent. It is well that it should be so, for the great order of Citeaux was Stephen's structure, and on that his noble work his claims to the veneration of the faithful rest. We now, however, come to a part where he is put forward exclusively; his long and laborious life is now drawing to a close. It comes suddenly upon the reader of the Cistercian Annalist, and takes him by surprise to find that the chapter to which Peter the Venerable's letter was addressed was the last held by Stephen. No data are given in his history to ascertain his age; so that his years go on silently, numbered by those of Citeaux, and it seems strange that all at once, when his order is in the height of prosperity, his life, which was the moving principle of the whole, should come to an end. Yet so it is even with the greatest saints; man goeth to his labour until the evening, and then leaves it unfinished, and goes home to rest in the grave. At the chapter of 1133, the year after the privilege was granted to the Cistercians by Innocent, when, says the Exordium, "our blessed father, Stephen, had stoutly administered the office committed to him, according to the true rule of humility given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ, when he was worn out with old age, and his eyes were blind, so that he could not see, he laid aside his pastoral charge, wishing to think in peace on God, and on himself through the sweet taste of holy contemplation."

This is the first word that is said of Stephen's old age, and up to this time we might have fancied him as vigorous as ever, with his eyesight clear, and his faculties unimpaired. But although his eyes had failed, and his body was in darkness, yet the vision of his soul was as bright as ever; he was still to the last the Cistercian contemplative, who had fled to the forest, and to the desert, to dwell with God alone.

Before, however, his soul was freed from its earthly tabernacle, Stephen had still a trial to undergo; God willed that his saint should die with his arms in his hands. The electors to whose task it fell to choose a successor, on Stephen's resignation, pitched upon a man who was utterly unworthy to succeed him. Wido, abbot of Three Fountains, had by some means deceived men into an opinion of his sanctity, and though, as the Exordium calls him, he was but a whited sepulchre, the abbots pitched upon him to govern the abbey and the whole order. Stephen knew what sort of a man he was; it is even said, that God specially revealed to him the wickedness of this new abbot. By that wonderful inward vision which God sometimes grants his saints, he could see his successor receiving the profession of the monks, though his outward eye was blind; when lo! God showed him the evil spirit entering in at his mouth, as he sat on high amidst the brethren, coming one by one to do him reverence. Stephen, however, remained still; he felt sure that God would not abandon the rising order, and he did not choose to take upon him again a government which he had just laid down, by interfering with the free choice of the monks.

St. Bernard was absent in Italy, and therefore he could not apply to him; in full trust therefore upon God, he waited till the de­signs of Providence should manifest themselves. With this dreadful secret on his mind he held his peace. He had not long to wait, for "scarcely had one month passed away, when by the revelation of the Lord his uncleanness was laid bare, and this bastard plant which the heavenly Father had not planted was rooted out of Paradise." What was the sin of Wido is not known, and his name does not even occur in the common cata­logue of Cistercian abbots; the brethren seem to have tried to sink his memory in oblivion. He was succeeded by Rainaldus, a monk of Clairvaux, and a man in whose hands Stephen rejoiced to leave his order. His work was now done upon earth, and his strength was fast sinking; he did not live many months after Rainaldus was elected.

It is not known whether his illness was short or lingering, but the Exordium gives the following account of the death-bed of the man of God. "As the time approached when the old man lying on his bed, was, after his labors were over, to be brought into the joy of the Lord, and from the lowest room of poverty, which he had chosen in the world, according to the counsel of our Savior, was about to mount up to the banquet of the Father of the family on high, there met together, besides others, certain brethren, abbots of his order, to accompany, by their most dutiful services and prayers, their faithful friend and most lowly Father, thus on his way to his home.

And when he was in his last agony and was near death, the brethren began to talk together, and to call him blessed: being a man of such merit, they said that he could go securely to God, who had in his time brought so much fruit to the Church of God. He heard this, and gathering together his breath as he could, said with a half-reproachful voice, “What is it that ye are saying? Verily, I say to you, that I am going to God as trembling and anxious as if I had never done any good. For if there has been any good in me, and if any fruit has come forth through my littleness, it was through the help of the grace of God, and I fear and tremble much, lest perchance I have kept that grace less worthily and less humbly than I ought”.

Beneath this shield of the perfect lowliness which sounded on his lips, and grew deep in his heart, he put off the old man, and putting aside in his might all the most wicked darts of the enemy, fiery and sulphurous though they were, he passed with ease the airy region of storms, and mounted up and was crowned at the gate of Paradise.

It was on the 28th of March, 1134, that Stephen quitted this weary life to join St. Robert and St. Alberic, whom he had so long survived. The 17th of April, on which his name occurs in the Martyrology, and which was his festival, was probably the day of his canonization. His day is not now remembered amongst us; many will not even have heard of his name, and those who have heard of him, may possibly be surprised to find that he was an Englishman. His eyes were probably never gladdened with a sight of the green fields of merry England, ever since he quitted his monastery of Sherborne to study at Paris. Yet his country may be proud to own this great saint. He was the spiritual father of St. Bernard, and was, it may be said, the principal founder of the Order of Cistercians. Before he died he had founded twenty monasteries of the line of Citeaux; the number of houses of the whole order was upwards of ninety.

 

THE  END.