St. Stephen Harding

St. Stephen Harding was born about 1060 in Dorset, England, and studied as a young man at the abbey of Sherborne before traveling through Scotland, France, and Rome in search of the deeper Christian life. He entered the reforming monastery of Molesme in Burgundy, and when its founder St. Robert and the prior St. Alberic sought a stricter observance of the Rule of St. Benedict, Stephen joined them in withdrawing in 1098 to found a new house in the marshland of Cîteaux, the cradle of the Cistercian order.

As the third abbot of Cîteaux, Stephen gave the young order its enduring shape. He composed the Charter of Charity, the constitution that bound the Cistercian houses together in a spirit of simplicity and mutual accountability, and he insisted on austerity, manual labor, and fidelity to the Rule. It was Stephen who welcomed the young St. Bernard and his companions in 1112, an event that would carry the reform across Europe. He died at Cîteaux on 28 March 1134 and is celebrated on 26 January.