St. Bernard's Lost Message To The First Crusaders

In 1200 AD, St. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote a letter to Hugh de Payens, first Grandmaster of the Knights Templar. Hugh had asked Bernard three times for a pep talk to inspire his knights and recruit support for their new order, warrior monks defending Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land. Bernard's response became the blueprint for combining interior virtue with exterior capability.Bernard wrote: "A new knighthood has appeared on earth. It ceaselessly wages a two-fold war both against flesh and blood and against a spiritual army of evil." These weren't just soldiers. They were monks who fought. "They lacked neither monastic meekness nor military might."In this video:-Why worldly knighthood leads to sin regardless of victory or defeat-How the Templars armed themselves "interiorly with faith and exteriorly with steel"-The discipline system: obedience, simplicity, no personal property, no idle words-Why they rejected entertainment, vanity, and decorated armor-How they were "gentler than lambs yet fiercer than lions"-The ancient standard for Christian masculinity: meekness AND strengthBernard dismantled the objection that Christian men should be passive: "If it is permitted to bear the sword, to whom may it be allowed more rightly than those whose hands hold Zion?" The Templars lived without distinction of persons, carried each other's burdens, despised vanity, wore their hair short, stayed dust-covered from battle. They weren't show ponies, they were war horses. Meekness is not weakness. Physical capability without Christian virtue is not virtue, it's just strength. Christ came as the lamb but also said "I came not to bring peace but a sword." The dichotomy exists in Him, so it should exist in us.My work: https://linktr.ee/tomas.monesFit for the Kingdom: https://fitforthekingdom.com.au