On Consideration: De Consideratione ad Eugenium Papam: 1

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153), first abbot of Clairvaux and the most compelling voice of his age, was named by later ages the Mellifluous Doctor for the sweetness of his teaching. On Consideration is the last and most personal of his works, written in five books during his final years to Pope Eugenius III, a Cistercian who had once been his own monk at Clairvaux.It is a father's counsel to a son buried under the business of the Apostolic See. Amid the ceaseless press of causes, appeals, and petitioners, Bernard pleads with the Pope not to lose himself, but to reserve time for consideration, that is, for the recollected gaze of the mind: a gaze that begins with oneself, and rises through the things below and around us to the contemplation of God. Along the way he weighs the nature of the papal office, the reform of the Roman court, the meaning of the "two swords," and the ascent of the soul to God, in pages that have been read and pondered by popes and contemplatives ever since.This Heritage Edition presents the complete treatise, in the author's own five books, in a clear public-domain English translation.