Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) did not create a sermon collection solely in order to comment on the liturgical solemnities of the Christian year. He had a definite but very complex concept of the messages which he wanted his collection to convey: that the Word which once became incarnate in the historic Jesus is continuously present in the written words that speak of him–the word of the Gospels and also the words of preachers and writers; that the Word wants to be re-incarnate in the reader by means of the words being read. So it is that the sermons successively evoke the inner conversion of a human person who opens himself to the Word/words, external conversion in submission to the obedience of community life, and finally the personal recognition of the true nature of the divine Word. 

Translated by: Irene Edmonds, Wendy Beckett, Conrad Greenia