Saint Bernard is the guide who replaces Beatrice in the Empyrean, in canto XXXI, and leads Dante to the end of the poem. The text presents him as an old man dressed in the glorious people, with a kindly look, and he himself says he is the faithful one of Mary, for whom he burns with love. Tradition identifies him with Bernard of Clairvaux.
In canto XXXII he takes on the office of teacher of his own free will and shows the seats of the rose. He shows Eve at the feet of Mary, described as the one who opened the wound that Mary closed; then Rachel with Beatrice and the Hebrew women, who divide the flower like a wall; he explains that the children sit there through the merit of others, and that nothing in the kingdom happens by chance; and he shows the patricians of the rose, whom tradition reads as Adam and Peter, Moses and John, along with Anne and Lucy, whom he names.
In canto XXXIII he opens his prayer to the Virgin with a series of paradoxes, "Virgin Mother, daughter of your Son," and asks for Dante the final step. He tells Mary that whoever wants grace without turning to her wants desire to fly without wings. She answers with her eyes, which show how welcome the prayers are to her, and Bernard, smiling, signals to Dante to look up. What he brings to the poem is a way of guiding different from Beatrice's: he asks, and does not explain.