The Clairvaux Institute is an educational foundation dedicated to revitalizing society by returning to the sources of culture. The return of language to the elevation of poetry. The return of the individual to the completion of community. The return of nature to the care of human stewardship. The return of humanity to the splendor of the sacred. Clairvaux’s vision of culture is based on the revitalization of these four principles that are essential to a healthy culture: Language, Community, Nature, and Revelation.
- All cultural endeavors begin with a divine gift (which is in some sense a revelation) which man then develops in innumerable, wonderful ways. In order for human culture to remain healthy it must be continually renewed by returning to the Divine Source of these gifts (James 1:17) through the mediation of sacred forms such as liturgy, sacrament, and Sacred Scripture.
- Culture is primarily embodied in language. When language (and its attendant systems of signs) degenerates, a culture experiences a lessening in its ability to communicate meaning. A situation of meaninglessness is deadly to man, who being an intellectual creature, lives in meaning like a fish in water. Poets are the creators and revitalizers of meaning. In order to keep a culture healthy, poets and poetry must be cultivated.
- Man is by nature communal. He is born and lives within webs of relationships. These webs, moving gradually from the familial to political, are the framework of a culture. Contemporary cultures are experiencing an unprecedented breakdown of the bonds that make up these webs. Man must be re-educated in and reintroduced to the necessity and joy of community.
- Human culture is built on nature as on a foundation. Through work and art man transforms and elevates nature into the domain of meaning which is culture. But in order for this transformation to be truly successful, it must take into account the form and ordination already present in nature. Agriculture and medicine are examples of areas in which contemporary man must recover this proper relationship with nature.
When these springs of culture irrigate the lives of men the fields of society grow lush with beauty.
Please click on the view book to read more about our mission or email us to receive a hard copy: info@clairvauxinstitute.org.
