St. Bernard
Patron Saint of Cistercians and Beekeepers
St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a French abbot during the early twelfth century. St. Bernard joined the monastic community of Citeaux when he was twenty and became abbot at twenty-four at a monastery in the valley of Wormwoods, which St. Bernard renamed the valley of Clairvaux. St. Bernard is known for serving as an advisor to popes, as a preacher of the Second Crusade, and as a Scripture scholar and theologian. St. Bernard also reformed Benedictine monasticism which led to the formation of the Cistercian order.