Today we keep the memoria of St Bernard of Clairvaux, the last of the Fathers of the Church. Everyone knows his story: how, as a young man, he took his father, brothers and a total of thirty companions to Citeaux and saved the monastery from dying out; how he became not only a great teacher and preacher but a major influence on Pope Eugene III and the political events of his day; a founder of 163 daughter-houses and doughty champion of the nascent Cistercian reform; and less happily, a preacher of the Crusades and bitter opponent of Abelard. We admire his ardour and his eloquence. Who has ever written more tenderly of Mary, the Mother of God, or at greater length on a single sentence from the Song of Songs?! But it is not this side of Bernard that I wish to draw attention to today. Francisco Ribalta's painting of Christ embracing St Bernard reminds us of something else, that hidden life of prayer on which all St Bernard's activity was based and which is the raison d'être of monastic life. Unless we, too, are women of prayer, of deep, persevering prayer, all our activity is worthless. Prayer is the measure of our fidelity to our vocation. Let us join our Cistercian friends in saying, "St Bernard, pray for us."