‘If one member glories…’: Community Between the Living and the Saintly Dead in Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons for the Feast of All Saints

Bathed in the bliss of eternity, the dead commune with the living. So Bernard proclaims in his five Sermons for the Feast of All Saints. For Bernard, commonality of experience establishes a sense of community between the happy dead and those who labor on pilgrimage. Our common experience of suffering and of sinfulness fuels our confidence in the saints and engenders sympathy for us in them. Furthermore, desire for God is common to the living and the dead; desire transports the longing soul to heaven to share—however partially—in the experience of saved souls, which is boundless desire for God.