Bernard's journey and ours
Introduction
journey, which is shared with us in his exceptionally beau tiful writings.
Bernard's journey and ours One thing we can be sure of. Though he entered the monastic way early enough, at least by our standards, before he knocked at the door of Citeaux, his chosen monastery, he had entered into a full classical education and mastered its arts. Unfortunately, the exquisite beauty of his carefully crafted Latin is largely lost in translation. Something of the poetry with its rich imagery gets through — for his prose was more poetic than the verse of many an acclaimed poet.
Another thing is even more evident. As formed as he was in the schools, he was even more formed by what he aptly called the School of Love, the monastic way that used essentially one text: the sacred scriptures. One can easily believe that this man knew the whole of them by heart. Yet it was no mere rote knowledge. Inspired by the greatest
Fathers of the Church, who were also his teachers, he plumbed their depths and brought forth rich meanings.
Bernard's skilled and powerful pen was used at times in service of his political and ecclesial ministries. And it was effective. But it was primarily in a spiritual ministry that he wrote, as a spiritual father. These are writings that come forth from the depths of his own being. They tell us of the journey he took. They show us the way. They invite us to follow. They promise the richest of rewards, rewards that respond to the deepest longings of our hearts, longings they invite us to uncover. Longings which we usually fear to uncover because we fear they can never be fulfilled. But Bernard assures us that they can be fulfilled. And he speaks not just to the chosen ones who live with him in the cloister.
Nor does the assembly of the pious faithful define the limits
Introduction of his audience. He dares to remind all of their sublime calling to the fullness of divine union.
We have seen how every soul — even if burdened with sin, enmeshed in vice, ensnared by the allure ments of pleasure, a captive in exile, imprisoned in the body, caught in mind, fixed in mire, bound to its members, a slave to care, distracted by business, afflicted with sorrow, wandering and straying, filled with anxious forebodings and uneasy suspicions, a stranger in a hostile land and, according to the prophet [Baruch], sharing the defilement of the dead and counted with those who go down under condemnation and without hope, has the power to turn and find it can not only breathe the fresh air of the hope of pardon and mercy, but can also dare to aspire to the nuptials of the Word, not fearing to enter into an alliance with God or to bear the sweet yoke of love with the King of angels. Why should it not venture with confidence into the presence of him by whose image it sees itself honored and in whose likeness it knows itself made glorious?
(Sermons on the Song of Songs 83:1) His writings reveal his journey Saint Bernard's writings are for the most part what I would call occasional writings. They have been written for a specific occasion, usually at the request or urgent demand of a friend. Yet they do reveal where he himself is on the journey at the time of his writing. Undoubtedly, this monk with many connections, and the most celebrated writer of his times, received many requests. The ones he chose to respond to, sometimes very amply, would then most prob-
Introduction 1 1 ably reflect what was uppermost in his own mind at the time. Thus it is that a survey of the spiritual writings that came from Bernard's pen during the course of his life enable us to follow his own journey into consummate holiness.
His first work is especially revealing. Still free from the demands that reputation and popularity would put upon him, he could write at leisure on that which was closest to his heart and most fundamental in his thinking. He chose to write about the event that crowns our race and was the most significant moment in its history: the annunciation and incarnation, the visit of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin
Mary. It was the moment when God himself became one with us in our humanity as he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin. The persons of Jesus and Mary were central to Bernard's life ever since a boyhood vision on the night of Christmas. There he saw the wonder of God become man and coming forth from the Virgin. In his four Homilies in Praise of the Virgin Mother, he brings us through that dra matic moment with moving drama. The fact that God became one with us in our humanity, suffered, died, rose and ascended for us is the source of our faith, the cause of our hope, the reality that calls forth all our love.
Bernard's pen sings rapturously of this Woman, so fa vored by God, chosen dwelling place of the divine. It was a theme his pen would return to more than once as the years went by. For Mary was to him more than the mother he received at the foot of the cross in the person of the disciple whom Jesus loved. She was his advocate, his life, his sweet ness, his hope; she was the prototype of the Church, the mystic spouse of his Beloved.
She was the one closest, dearest, most precious to his Jesus. And Jesus was his all. His pen would write with rapturous beauty of this most holy name. He would cele brate as no other the nuptials of the soul, his soul, with this divine bridegroom. He would also dip his pen in the blood
Introduction and write of the Beloved's most bitter passion. And most bitter of all, but also most loving, he would accept that Jesus had in some way to go away so that the Spirit, the very kiss of God, could come.
So, as Bernard set out on the journey, Jesus and Mary were very present to him. And his way was clear. In response to a clear vocation, he had embraced the Cistercian way of life, a life bent on living the gospel in its fullness as it was laid out in Benedict of Nursia's Rule for Monasteries. Central to Benedict's spiritual program, a school of the Lord's service, is humility. He constructs a twelve-rung ladder of humility, that in essence sums up the whole of his spiritual teaching. With self-deprecating humor Bernard pointed out that one could go down a ladder as well as up, and that he was more familiar with tumbling down what had become steps of pride. He went on to describe them with great insight, without ever abandoning his sense of humor.
But far more important, he pointed out that we do not need a ladder unless we want to ascend to something. Where do we want to go? Humility is truth. We want to ascend the steps of truth. When we truly know ourselves in humility, then we know our fellows in compassion, and we are ready to come to know God in contemplation. Truth in action is love. The steps of love are just another way of expressing the same journey into God, into communion and union.
Bernard's is the way of love. With the Cistercians, largely under his leadership, Benedict's school of the Lord's service was transformed into a scola caritatis, a school of love.
Bernard's little treatise On Loving God is but the springboard for what would become his life-long exploration of love in commenting on sacred scripture's great love song, The Song of Songs.
But before embarking on this, Bernard stopped to explore who is the lover and how does he love, where does his power of love come from. As he wrote in his treatise, "It is
Introduction
impossible for a person by his own power of free will to turn wholly to the will of God and not rather to his or her own will." Love is the freest of things; it can never be forced. Yet the Lord says, "Without me you can do nothing." How does
God work in us by his grace so that at the same time we remain truly free to love him freely? This is the question
Bernard explores in the little work he wrote for his friend, William of Saint Thierry: Grace and Free Choice.
One of the beautiful things about Bernard's journey is the friendship he enjoyed with William of Saint Thierry.
From the day William first laid eyes on Bernard, he loved him deeply and wanted to be with him. But Bernard fully respected William's own vocation and insisted his friend continue to pursue it. However, when he was sick for a long period and confined to the infirmary, he did allow for his friend who was also sick to be brought to share his confine ment. Laying side by side they spoke for weeks of the Song of Songs. From then on the friends' journey was similar.
While Bernard wrote On Loving God, William wrote On the Nature and Dignity of Love. William was working on his
Commentary on Romans when he called forth Bernard's essay on Grace and Free Choice. Together they went ahead to explore the Song of Songs, Bernard writing his Sermons and William his Commentary. And it was William who called for an interruption on the part of both of them for the more painful business of responding to the dangers arising from the overly rationalistic theology of Peter Abelard. It would be difficult to overestimate the significance of this friend ship in the life of both of these men, especially given the passionate expressions we find in Bernard's letters to Wil liam. Even a man as extraordinarily endowed as Bernard of Clairvaux needed someone to walk with him on the journey, someone to support and challenge him, to call him forth.
As Bernard wrote to another: "The man who is his own master is the disciple of a fool."
Introduction As the years unfolded, Bernard was involved in many of the cares of the Church. These called forth various writings.
And his long series of Sermons on the Song of Songs addresses many of these cares. We also find in these sermons some very personal sharing. Undoubtedly the most touching is the beautiful eulogy for his brother Gerard. His humble recital of his altercation with his brother Bartholomew reveals another side of him. But essentially the Sermons on the Song of Songs is an ample presentation, very rich with poetic imagery, of the way of asceticism and prayer that leads to the fullest mystical experience. The fact that it is interwoven with so much of the stuff of life was not unintended. In doing this Bernard tells us in a very concrete and effective way that the spiritual journey, even the jour ney in the highest realms of mystical experience, takes place in the course of everyday life. Even as we truly seek God and seek to develop a life of prayer, we still have to live our life as it unfolds under the loving care of divine providence.
It is one life, all woven together, even though it is sometimes difficult for us to see how this is so. But the increasing presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives brings us to the understanding of this through his gifts.
I invite you now to journey with Bernard of Clairvaux, saint and abbot, a true spiritual father. Let him be present to you as you listen to him speaking through these words he himself wrote precisely for our guidance. Don't just read these texts but listen to them, enter into conversation with them — with him. Let the centrality of the incarnation, the presence of Jesus and his Mother Mary, be renewed in your life. Gain insight into the pride that keeps you from ascend ing the ladder of truth and love. Know yourself as a truly free person who has but to ascent to the loving activity of God in your life. Find not only the true freedom of the child of God but the unbelievable intimacy of a lover brought into the inner life of the Trinity.
Introduction
Translations The translations used here are taken for the most part from The Works of Bernard ofClairvaux, published by Cister cian Publications in their Cistercian Fathers Series. How ever, I have not hesitated to revise them when I felt
Bernard's eloquent Latin could be better expressed. I am grateful to all the translators and editors of Cistercian
Publications, who have been working with me these past twenty-five years to make the extensive corpus of Bernardine waitings available in English. The labor is far from finished. But it is my hope that this brief anthology will not only help you greatly on your own spiritual journey but also invite you to drink more deeply of the wisdom of this great spiritual father in the many volumes of his writings already published. A list of the published works, as well as other studies that might be helpful, will be found at the end of this volume along with a brief chronology of Bernard's life.
M. Basil Pennington, o.c.s.o
An Incarnational Spirituality When Bernard was still a young spiritual father, in his late twenties and early thirties, and his renown had not yet brought to his door the demands of the many, he enjoyed a certain amount of holy leisure. This was especially true during the periods when illness set him apart from the community and the regular exercises of the monastic life. It was during this period that he first took up his pen to begin what was going to be a very productive literary career, sharing with a wider audience his rich spiritual teaching.
His first work, Homilies in Praise of the Virgin Mother, four sermons on the gospel of the annunciation, makes two things clear to us with its opening lines. Although much of Bernard's writing took the form of homilies and sermons, this is only a literary form; the products do not necessarily represent anything ever preached, though undoubt edly the content did find its way into the many sermons he did preach. Secondly, we are immediately put in touch with Bernard's tremendous love for and appreciation of the sacred scriptures, which will ever remain his primary source and inspiration.
This work of devotion also puts us in touch with what was the foundation and center of Bernard's spiritual life: the incarnation,
God become man, the man Jesus Christ, who is a God who so loves us that he comes to dwell among us to share our humanity, to make it possible for us to share his divinity. This naturally and immediately leads to a beautiful and tender devotion not only to the God-man but also to his mother, the woman the Incarnate loved above all and
An Incamational Spirituality associated so intimately with himself in his saving mission of love.
Bernard's prose turns to poetry here. And it has its drama also. It is rich in its sensuous image. This very warm, affective devotion would ever remain a part of Bernard's spirituality. We shall share further on some of his later expressions of it in passages from, among other sources, his Sermons on the Song of Songs and his treatise On Loving God.
Also worthy of note here is Bernard's emphasis on that foundational virtue: humility. It would be the subject of his next literary produc tion, the first steps on the journey to divine union, which we shall see in the next section.