William of Saint Thierry II: God in Man

Extract

William's literary personality conveys the impression of a sensitive and rather depressive man, who was very much the perfectionist. He seems to have been tortured by the fact that it was not possible for him, as the abbot of a Benedictine monastery, to achieve precisely what he was looking for in the religious life. When he met Saint Bernard, however, and saw what the Cistercian reform was like, he felt he had found his place at last. Bernard tried to persuade him not to change. William was doing the Lord's work, after all, he wasn't getting any younger, and change was always a risky business. William listened for a time, but eventually he felt he had to make up his mind for himself. He has left an account of his worry in the eleventh of the Meditativae Orationes, and again in the ‘Nature and Dignity of Love', where he laments that the sons he loves are a perpetual source of anxiety. ‘There is still a long climb ahead of us before we reach the top of God's holy mountain . . . Surely an old man is entitled to a little consideration when he no longer has the strength to carry his burden ?'

The theme of the Meditativae Orationes is a search for the face of God. William is looking for various things, but all together they amount to something like a convincing vision, a view as nearly possible perfect of the reality of God.