Days before the tumultuous presidential election of 1868, St. Bernard Parish descended into chaos. As African American men gained the right to vote, white Democrats of the parish feared losing their majority. Armed groups mobilized to suppress these recently emancipated voters in the hopes of regaining a way of life turned upside down by the Civil War and Reconstruction. Freedpeople were dragged from their homes and murdered in cold blood. Many fled to the cane fields to hide from their attackers. The reported number of those killed varies from 35 to 135. The tragedy was hidden, but implications reverberated throughout the South and lingered for generations. Author and historian Chris Dier reveals the horrifying true story behind the St. Bernard Parish Massacre.

Two lengthy letters from the abbot of Clairvaux illuminate the transition in theological method in the mid twelfth-century. In this letter to the bishop of Sens on the responsibilities of his office, Bernard articulates his monastic conviction that authority in the Church must be accompanied by contemplative virtues, especially a deeply ingrained humility. Pastors who do attend to their own spiritual health, he explains, are incapable of caring for others. In his letter of baptism, written to Hugh of Saint Victor, Bernard seeks to refute what he considered the doctrinal error of an unnamed scholar-likely Peter Abelard-and assails a theological method he deemed likely to mislead the faithful, because-as Emero Stiegman says in the Introduction-he considered all theological questions 'in the perspective of God's love'. These two letter-treatises (42 and 77) are not included in Bruno Scott James' English translation of The Letters of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

Saint Bernard was born in 1090 near Dijon, France. He joined the fifteen-year-old monastery of Cîteaux in 1113. In 1115 he became the founding abbot of Clairvaux Abbey, whence his name, Bernard of Clairvaux. Saint Bernard was a gifted and prolific writer of theological treatises, Scriptural commentaries, letters, and many sermons. The sermons in the collection published here, styled Sermones de diversis (Sermons about Various Topics), lack the specific point of departure that characterizes his other sermons. That is, whereas the sermons on the Song of Songs are a verse-by-verse commentary on that biblical book and his Sermons for the Year follow the liturgical calendar, this collection of sermons deals with his various pastoral concerns. Since Scripture is always Bernard’s point of departure and inspiration, the sermons often read like a Scripture study, but what comes through equally is the voice of an understanding spiritual father who is a masterful student of Scripture, biblical language, and the needs of his monks.