Blessed Humbeline sister of st Bernard 12 Feb.

Blessed Humbeline. February 12 Menology: Bl Humbeline St Bernard's only sister.  Married to a nobleman, Guy de Marcy, she enjoyed the life of a noble lady in the world, but a visit to her brothers at Clairvaux brought about a great change in her.  She began to lead a life of piety, and two years later entered the Benedictine convent of Jully.  In 1130 she became superior.  She died on August 21, probably 1141, in the presence of Bernard, Andrew and Nivard.  MBS, p. 52      A Reading about Blessed Humbeline. Humbeline was the only sister of St Bernard. She was born the year after him and they were always very close to each other. Like Bernard she was naturally well-endowed. When her brothers and father joined Citeaux in 1113, she came into a good part of their estates. And she married Guy de Marcy, a rich nobleman of the house of Lorraine. In the happiness of the first years of her marriage Humbeline was very popular among the nobility of Burgundy. She gave herself to the fascinating intellectual and social fashions of her century -the age of 'courtly love'; this was the clever and entertaining society in which women were beginning to play an important part. One day she decided to visit her brothers at Citeaux. At first St Bernard refused to see her, when he saw the rich splendour of her cavalcade and the vanity of her life. As she guessed what it was that had upset him, she sent word that she would do as he said if he came out to see her. After speaking with Bernard she left the monastery chastened. From then on she turned away from the pursuit of empty pleasures and sought her happiness in the things of God. She spent much time looking after the poor, the sick and the needy. After several years Humbeline began to think of the cloister. Eventually, with her husband's consent, she entered the Benedictine convent near Troyes. Humbeline's life in the convent was characterized by great generosity. And, in a Iife of unusual fasting and other physical austerities, she continued to live in the spirit of her conversion. When the abbess, who was her sister-in-law, left to found another convent near Dijon, Humbeline was appointed in her place. The convent very soon began to flourish under Humbeline's leadership and, within two or three years, twelve new foundations were made. One of these, the convent of Tart, later became the first house of Cistercian nuns. As Humbeline approached her death her brothers were called to her bedside. And as she lay dying she spoke of the love that existed between all the members of her family and which had helped to sanctify them all. We see here the fundamental sanity of the early Cistercians whose holiness consisted not in crushing and exterminating natural affection but in elevating and sublimating it. What they renounced was the selfishness in that affection. They gave their whole nature, with all of its powers and gifts, to God .and thev served him in those among whom he had placed them. It is no wonder then that Humbeline died with the words of the psalmist on her lips: 'I rejoiced in the things that were said to me: we shall go into the house of the Lord.' This recalls the words of the Canticle: 'Draw me, and we shall run after you ... '. When God takes someone to himself he never draws that one person alone. With the individuals who die God draws all those who have been bound to them with special ties of love in this world; they wi II be united with them in a particularly intimate way in the next. Adapted from Modern Biographical Sketches of Cist. Blesseds and Saints. Gethsemanl, 1954, Book IV, pp. 52-56, and Butler's Lives of the Saints, August, p 265.