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| 88 Claremont Road Bernardsville, NJ 07924 908.766.0602 info@saintbernardsnj.org |
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A Brief History of the Parish
THE EPISCOPAL MISSION IN BERNARDSVILLE
A Gothic Revival building, designed by the famous New York architectural firm of Napoleon LeBrun, was finished by 1898 and within five years of its completion plans were laid for its expansion. Within the first 15 years of the life of the church a full cycle of Kempe windows from the prestigious Kempe Studio in England was designed and set in place. The Reverend Joseph Cooper Hall, who served as founding Rector, departed in 1899, leading to the call of the priest who would set Saint Bernard’s on the path to a truly impressive series of community ministries and its own independent parish status within the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.
THE CONOVER YEARS The early development of the Church of Saint Bernard, Bernardsville, is largely the story of its second Rector The Reverend Thomas Anderson Conover (1868-1943, Rector 1899-1939). The appointment of The Rev. Thomas A. Conover in the summer of 1899 proved fortuitous for the future of the nascent Episcopal church in Bernardsville. He showed himself to be not only a priest of considerable vision and pastoral foresight but also of indefatigable energy. At first he rejected the call from Saint Bernard’s Church. He reconsidered as it became clear that he could carry out his own personal sense of ministry while also serving in Bernardsville: the founding of a school. Within the parish he organized a Sunday School, Women’s Auxiliary (Women of Saint Bernard’s), Altar Guild, Parish Library, Boys’ Club, Men’s Club, Men’s Reading Room project, Mothers’ Meeting, Kindergarten, a parish nurse program (Somerset Hills VNA), a social work program, a boys’ boarding school in Gladstone (Saint Bernard’s School, now Gill St. Bernard School), a primary school, a sewing school, a summer vacation school, and more.
By way of pastoral care in times of crisis, he served the community through the years of The Great War (World War I), the Great Flu Epidemic, the Stock Market Crash of ’29, and the Great Depression. Parishioners baptized under his care and raised as children in the parish in those years still remember his impulsive charity: how he used to give away his salary to those in need and more than once gave away his own overcoat during the Depression of the 1930s. Perhaps the one demerit keeping him from sainthood is the fact that he was evidently a reckless driver, being a charter member of the first generation of automobile operators in America. As this became more widely known, some parishioners refused to get in a car with him. By way of changes in the life of the wider communion, 1928 saw the introduction of a new prayer book for the American church. The 1920s and 30s were also the heady years of the global ecumenical movement in which many Anglicans and Episcopalians took the lead. Conover served through these times. When Thomas Conover retired in 1939, after 40 years of service in the Somerset Hills, it was truly the end of an era. WORLD WAR II CHAPLAIN HAIGHT & FATHER BOSHER The Reverend John Malcolm Haight (Rector 1940-1948), himself the son of an Episcopal bishop, became the third Rector of Saint Bernard’s Church in 1940. Thomas Conover was doubtless a tough act to follow and not long after Haight arrived, instigated by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States entered the Second World War. Haight announced soon after the outbreak of war that he intended to serve as a military chaplain. Rather than lose his services altogether, the parish leadership decided to send him off with their blessing and hire an Acting Rector to serve in his place until such time as he returned. The Reverend Robert Semple Bosher (1942-1945) became the fourth Rector for several years, then stepped down upon his predecessor’s return. Like Haight, many parishioners served in the war effort, re-entering civilian life with, or soon after, the Rector-Chaplain. In 1948, just after Saint Bernard’s was granted the status of an independent parish within the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey, Haight departed Bernardsville again, this time to relocate permanently. As a recognized parish, Saint Bernard’s would henceforth have the right to elect Wardens and a Vestry, and to enjoy full representation at the annual Diocesan Convention, the body that governs the Diocese of New Jersey under the direction of its bishop.
IN THE POST-WAR ERA THE MAXWELL YEARS The post war years were prosperous ones for religion in America and the Episcopal Church flourished, along with most of the mainline denominations. Saint Bernard’s Church called The Reverend Edward Nelson Maxwell to lead the newly recognized parish through this era. He became its fifth Rector in 1949, to retire over two decades later in 1973, giving him the second longest tenure in the history of the church. Saint Bernard’s Church witnessed several significant changes in this period, including crisis and recovery. In the 1950s two fires ravaged the church building, the first a minor one in 1955. In 1957 a second more serious fire ripped through the sacristy, the organ casing, and parts of the nave. In a dramatic way, local firefighters were able to stop the blaze and save the building. Restoration efforts began immediately and Saint Bernard’s Church was rebuilt. Its service to the community and wider Church continued throughout the remainder of the Maxwell years. Toward the end of his ministry Maxwell pastored during a time of the emergence of greater roles for women in the life of the Church. In the late 1960s the Episcopal Church at large was responding to widespread changes in the society around it regarding the participation of women. Within the church women were granted the right to serve on Vestries and as delegates to its diocesan and national conventions. In 1971 Grace Rogers became the first woman to represent Saint Bernard’s Church at the New Jersey Diocesan Convention. Nationally, as well as locally, it marked the flowering of a decades-long movement that would soon result in the ordination of women to the diaconate and priesthood and to their consecration as bishops, culminating in the election of the first woman Presiding Bishop in 2006.
TOWARD THE NEXT CENTURY & BEYOND Change continued in the 1970s as Maxwell stepped away and The Reverend James Hughes Purdy (Rector 1973-1983) became the sixth Rector in 1973. As a young priest in his 20s, Purdy brought energy and a sense of vitality to his work. Throughout the 1970s the feminist movement continued to gain ground in the Episcopal Church. The ordination of the first women priests in the United States caused a storm of controversy and evoked various responses from church leaders. Purdy served through this time. In addition, the adoption of a new prayer book (1978-1979) created widespread tensions, followed by a new worship hymnal in 1982. Episcopalians who were raised to pray in the language of 1928 Prayer Book and the 1940 Hymnal were reluctant to depart from the time-honored ways. The worship of Saint Bernard’s, like many parishes, evolved through these challenges. Purdy resigned in 1983 and The Reverend Frederick Stephen Baldwin (Rector 1984-2005) became the eighth Rector. As the parish faced the approach of the new millennium, it continued to engage in social change. Baldwin was the first clergy to serve the parish as an openly gay man. In the summer of 2003 a much wider controversy rocked the Episcopal Church nationwide, as well as the Anglican World Communion, centered on the election in New Hampshire and consent by the National Church to the consecration of The Reverend Gene Robinson as Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop. The Episcopal Church continues to redefine itself in the light of these issues, as does American society at large. In the 1980s and 1990s the demographics of the parish shifted decisively. A widespread turn-over in membership and active leadership brought a new influx of professional and managerially skilled parishioners, many with young families. A significant proportion of these were raised in traditions other than the Episcopal, including both the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches. In terms of its congregational development in this period, Saint Bernard’s Parish became clearly representative of the “middle way”, the via media of the Anglican heritage. Reformed and catholic practice converged in a community of worship that now honors the liturgical and sacramental theology of the past, yet embraces the progressive and open-minded values of the present and future.
Baldwin resigned in 2005, after over 20 years of service, and The Reverend Dr. John Anthony Cerrato became Interim Rector (at first Priest-in-charge, then Interim). He is currently serving and will continue to serve the parish throughout the rebuild effort. Reconstruction contracts were signed in late 2005 and early 2006 to move the restoration work forward, and a capital campaign began in earnest in late 2006. An strong insurance claim was settled, thanks to the efforts of an independent adjuster.
On Maundy Thursday, March 20, 2008, Saint Bernard's reopened for public worship. A Good Friday service was offered on March 21. The first Sunday services were held on The Sunday of the Resurrection, Easter Day, March 23, 2008. Copies of St. Bernard’s Church Centennial History 1998 are available in the Parish Library in the Parish House. Saint Bernard's is also featured in Historic Churches of Somerset County New Jersey by Frank L. Greenagel. For more on the fire and the restoration effort, click on the prompt to the left Rebuild Saint Bernard’s.
TIME LINE OF EVENTS
THE RECTORS OF SAINT BERNARD’S CHURCH Joseph Cooper Hall 1896-98
ABOUT OUR PATRON SAINT Saint Bernard’s has been the name of our parish since the consecration of the church building in the late 1890s. Early architectural drawings reveal that we might have become a patronage of Saint Mark the Evangelist, using the name of the older Episcopal mission in Basking Ridge (1850s). This plan was changed, however, and the title was adopted that matched the wider community. So Bernardsville itself seems to have swayed the new church in the direction of the great saint of France whose influence on western Christianity has been so profound. Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090-1153) Saint Bernard was born in Burgundy, France, in or about the year 1090. His family was of the lower nobility and he received an effective education, especially evident in his later career as a writer and as a successful political negotiator.
We know little of his youthful biography, with the exception of the familial outlines. His early childhood seems to have been uneventful. He had five brothers and at least one sister. He showed a mild-mannered talent for self-expression. There are indications that by adolescence, Bernard was engaged in relatively harmless forms of idle living and was not averse to a good party. His mother Aleth died when he was 17 and it is not unlikely that her passing had a considerable influence on his “conversion” to a monastic spirituality. In his early 20s he decided upon the life of prayer and set about to join the newly founded Cistercian monastery at Citeaux, not far from his birthplace in Burgundy. The Cistercian brotherhood was a movement of reform within the monastic communities of Europe that sought to embrace a more faithful observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict (d. c. 540), who was and is considered the father of western monasticism. It is telling of Bernard’s personality that his vocational decision was not to produce merely a singular result. His personal influence upon his immediate family and friends was such that he arrived at the door of Citeaux with about 30 companions, brothers and friends who had determined to join him in the religious life. At the same time, historians have described him as “timid and retiring”. As such, he seems to have possessed a gentle charm and a quiet charisma that worked wonders upon those whom he encountered. It is also telling that Bernard chose to join the smallest, poorest and most recently founded house of prayer in a fledgling order. Many far greater monasteries were prominent throughout France at the time and would have gladly received so well prepared a novice.
Within a few years, at the age of 25, Bernard was sent by his superior Stephen Harding to become master of the Cistercian house at Clairvaux in Champagne. He and about a dozen companions took up residence there, and he was henceforth to be known as Bernard of Clairvaux. In the years after 1115, Bernard blossomed as a monastic leader, preacher, writer, spiritual guide, and political counselor. From his mid-20s until his death in 1153, he exerted an influence on the spiritual, ecclesiastical and political life of Europe like few others of his generation. As one scholar has put it: “Europe was his parish.” Committed to the life of prayer and to the stricter observance of the Benedictine Rule, Bernard was grounded in the contemplative life. Yet he was also a person of indefatigable drive and was passionately committed to involvement in the wider issues of his day, especially those of church politics, including its related national and international outcomes. He seemed continually to seek and constantly to find a balance between the interior life of prayer, reflection and writing, on the one hand, and the outward life of preaching, teaching, travel and political work, on the other, in a deep spirituality of amor dei, the love of God. This biblical and theological Bernard was a reconciler of conflicts and moved with ease among the bishops, princes and popes of his age. He once described himself as “a sort of modern chimera, neither a clergy person nor a lay person.” He viewed his monastic brothers and sisters as “warriors of peace,” devoted as they were to the life of prayer, to the ideal of evangelical poverty, and to charitable works of mercy. He also championed political causes out of loyalty to those he knew and respected and from whom he sensed a commitment to the principles for which they stood. A protégé of his at Clairvaux eventually rose to the office of Pope, Eugenius III. Others became cardinals, bishops, missioners and saints. Bernard showed a marked antipathy to theologians whom he perceived as hurtful to the wider Church and to the cause of reform, particularly the famous Abelard. He nurtured little sympathy for the monasteries of Cluny, the houses of a rival reformist movement. In all these cases, and others, he became outspoken. His greatest political blunder was to preach the Second Crusade (post 1145), proposing a new ideal of militant intervention in the affairs of the Mid East. The campaign of Louis of France and Conrad of Germany ended in disaster, first in their defeat by the Turks as they marched to the east and then by their failure before the unyielding walls of Damascus. Bernard and his monks were disgraced by so publicly a misplaced loyalty, although the resilient abbot surely lived to pray another day. His most interesting contribution to European history, from a thoroughly modern, popular point of view, was his limited but foundational role in creating the Order of the Knights Templar. This monastic militia figured highly in Umberto Eco’s international bestseller Foucault’s Pendulum and in Dan Brown’s more recent The DaVinci Code.
Perhaps Bernard’s greatest gift to posterity is the corpus of his writings, penned in an elegant and polished Latin prose, reflecting his classical education. He composed treatises, sermons, letters, and scriptural commentaries that have endured the test of time and continue to offer insight and spiritual renewal to readers today. Most of his major works have been translated into English, as well as into a variety of other languages. The persistent theme of his literary legacy is amor dei, the love of God. So focused was he on this spiritual reality that Bernard wrote an extensive Commentary on The Song of Songs, an obscure but intimate poem of love in the Hebrew Bible. The Christian Saint uses allegory to draw out the meaning of the soul’s experience of the love of God, much like the experience of lovers who long for each other. Bernard died on August 20, 1153, not greatly advanced in years. By all accounts he was exhausted from his travels and political work, commitments that repeatedly drew him away from his cloister into the wider world. It is estimated that over his lifetime 800 to 900 members had been under his pastoral care in the house of prayer at Clairvaux. He also was a key figure in the founding of 68 other Cistercian monasteries over a period of 35 years. Upon his death, the Cistercian brothers were not slow in moving his name for sainthood. By 1174 he was canonized in the western Church. In 1830 Rome declared him a Doctor of the Church, that is, he was granted the title of a preeminent Teacher. Beloved by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, Bernard’s writings were highly influential in the early years of the Protestant reformations in central and northern Europe. Martin Luther (1483–1546), founder of the Evangelical Church in Germany (The Lutheran Church), in speaking of the older teachers of the faith said of Saint Bernard, “I prefer Bernard over all the others. He had the best knowledge of religion, as his writings show.” John Calvin (1509–1564), the greatest theologian of the Reformed and Presbyterian traditions, cited Saint Bernard prolifically throughout his mature writings.
The Cistercian Order itself, which Bernard helped to establish in its early years, continues to flourish globally. The Trappist Monks of Europe and North America are descended directly from the Cistercian Order. The Cistercians maintain an impressive publishing house and continue to sponsor studies of Saint Bernard and the life of prayer. Thomas Merton, the great spiritual writer of the 20th century was a Cistercian. In the Anglican-Episcopal Calendar of the Church Year, as well as in the Roman, Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1153, is celebrated on August 20, the day of his passing. In the ecclesiastical Latin heritage he bears the title doctor mellifluus, the teacher of sweetly flowing words. FURTHER READING ABOUT BERNARD & THE CISTERCIANS Bernard of Clairvaux Selected Works, Translation and Foreword by G. R. Evans, Introduction by Jean Leclerq, Preface by Ewert H. Cousins, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1987) Jean Leclerq, A Second Look at Saint Bernard, Trans. by Marie-Bernard Said, Cistercian Studies, 105 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990) Bernardus Magister. Papers Presented at the Nonacentenary Celebration of the Birth of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Edited by John R. Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Studies, 135 (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1992) |
BEGINNINGS
A SERVANT-LEADER
He oversaw the acquisition of the cemetery, the expansion of the church building in 1904, its interior reconfiguration in 1910, the building of a Rectory and the Parish House, not to mention the addition of a log cabin for the scouting program and the purchase of Saint Martin’s House in 1931. 
CRISIS & RECOVERY 
CHANGES
On Saturday, October 23, 2004 in the late afternoon, the attention of the parish was drawn keenly away from all other issues to a devastating fire that was spreading through the sacristy, organ casement, and roof of the church building. Local firefighters labored for hours to bring the blaze under control. When the smoke had cleared the parish faced an almost $6 million loss. The parish leadership retained the services of Historic Building Architects of Trenton, New Jersey, to direct the rebuild and sought an insurance claim equal to the loss. 
As Saint Bernard’s Church passed the milestone of the 110th anniversary of the laying of its cornerstone (July 8, 2007), it drew resilience from its heritage and confidence from a sense of God’s grace. 
theme is amply evident in his writings, as well as in the contours of his life. 
