The Steps of Love.70

The Steps of Love.70

Ladders The Steps of Love You wish me to tell you why and how much God should be loved. My answer is: The reason for loving God is God; the measure, to love without measure.

There are two reasons why God should be loved for his own sake: No one can be loved more justly and no one can be loved more fruitfully.

When it is asked why God should be loved, there are two meanings possible to the question. It can be asked, for what merit of his or for what advantage of ours is God to be loved.

My answer to both questions is the same: I can see no other reason for loving him than himself.

So first let us see for what merit of his he is to be loved.

God certainly merits a lot from us since he gave himself to us when we deserved it least. Besides, what could he have given us better than himself? Hence, when seeking why God should be loved, if one asks what right he has to be loved, the answer is that the main reason for loving him is that "he loved us first." Surely he is worthy of being loved in return when one thinks of who loves, whom he loved, and how much he loves. Is it not he whom every spirit acknow ledges, saying: "You are my God, you do not need my goods." This divine love is sincere, for it is the love of one who does not seek his own advantage. To whom is such love shown? It is written: "Although we were his enemies up to

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then, we were reconciled to God." Thus God loved, and freely so, his enemies. How much did he love? John answers:

"God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son." And Paul adds: "He did not spare his own Son but delivered him up for us." The Son also said of himself: " No one has greater love than that he lay down his life for his friends."

(On Loving God 1) The first step of love:

We love ourselves for our own sake Love is one of the four natural passions. There is no need to name them for they are well known. It would be right, however, for that which is natural to be first of all at the author of nature's service. That is why the first and greatest commandment is: "You should love the Lord your

God. ..."

Since nature has become more fragile and weak, necessity obliges us to serve it first. This is carnal love by which we love ourselves above all for our own sake. We are only aware of ourselves. As it is written: "What is animal came first, then what was spiritual." Love is not imposed by a precept, it is implanted in our nature. Who is there that hates his own flesh? Yet should love, as it happens, grow immoderate and, like a savage current, burst the banks of necessity, flooding the fields of delight, the overflow is immediately stopped by the commandment which says: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." It is just indeed that those who share the same nature should not be deprived of the same benefits, especially that benefit which is grafted in that nature. Should we feel overburdened at satisfying not only our brothers' and sisters' just needs but also their pleasures, let us restrain our own if

Ladders we do not want to be transgressors. We can be as indulgent as we like for ourselves providing we remember our neighbor has the same rights.

O fellow traveler, the law of life and order imposes on you the restraint of temperance lest you follow after your wanton desires and perish, lest you use nature's gifts to serve through wantonness the enemy of the soul. Would it not be more just and honorable to share them with your neighbor, your fellow, than with your enemy? If, faithful to the wise one's counsel, you turn away from sensual delights and content yourself with the teaching of the apostle [Paul] on food and clothing, you will soon be able to guard your love against "carnal desires which war against the soul. " And I think you will not find it a burden to share with those of your nature that which you have withheld from the enemy of your soul. Your love will be sober and just when you do not refuse your brother and sister that which they need of what you have denied yourself in pleasure. Thus carnal love becomes social when it is extended to others.

What would you do if, while helping out your neighbor, you find yourself lacking what is necessary for your life?

What else can you do than to pray with all confidence to him "who gives abundantly and bears no grudges, who opens his hand and fills with blessings every living being"?

There is no doubt that he will assist us willingly in time of need since he helps us so often in time of plenty. It is written: "Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and the rest will be added thereto." Without being asked he promises to give what is necessary to us who withhold from ourselves what we do not need and love our neighbor. This is to seek the kingdom of God and implore his aid against the tyranny of sin, to prefer the yoke of chastity and sobriety rather than let sin reign in your mortal body. And again, it is only right to share nature's gifts with those who share that nature with you.

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Nevertheless, in order to love one's neighbor with perfect justice, one must have regard to God. In other words, how can one love one's neighbor with purity if one does not love that neighbor in God? But it is impossible to love in God when one does not love God. It is necessary therefore to love God first, then one can love one's neighbor in God.

Thus God makes himself lovable and creates whatever else is good. He does it this way. He who made nature protects it, for nature was created in a way that it must have its

Creator as protector. The world could not subsist without him to whom it owes its very existence. No rational creature may ignore this fact concerning itself or dare lay claim through pride to benefits due the Creator. Therefore, the same Creator wills by a deep and salutary counsel that we be disciplined by tribulations, so that when we fail and God comes to our help we who are saved by God will render God the honor due him. It is written: "Call to me in the day of sorrow, I will deliver you and you shall honor me." In this way, we who are animal and carnal and know how to love only ourselves, start loving God for our own benefit. Be cause we learn from frequent experience that we can do everything that is good for ourselves in God and that without God we can do nothing good.

The second step of love:

We love God for our own sake We therefore love God, but for our own sake and not yet for God's sake. Nevertheless, it is a matter of prudence to know what you can do by yourself and what you can do with God's help to keep from offending him who keeps you free from sin. If our tribulations, however, grow in fre quency, and as a result we frequently turn to God and are frequently freed by God, must we not end, even though we

Ladders had a heart of stone in a breast of iron, by realizing that it is God's grace that frees us, and come to love God not only for our own sake but because of who he is?

The third step of love:

We love God because of who he is Our frequent needs oblige us to invoke God more often and approach him more frequently. This intimacy moves us to taste and to discover how sweet the Lord is. Tasting

God's sweetness entices us more to pure love than does the urgency of our own needs. Hence the example of the Samaritans who said to the woman who had told them the Lord was present: "We believe now not on account of what you said, for we have heard him and we know he is truly the Savior of the world." We walk in their footsteps when we say to our flesh, "Now we love God not because of your needs, for we have tasted and know how sweet the Lord is."

The needs of the flesh are a kind of speech, proclaiming in transports of joy the good things experienced.

When we feel this way we will not have trouble in fulfilling the commandment to love our neighbor. We love

God truthfully and so love what is God's. We love purely and we do not find it hard to obey a pure commandment, purifying the heart, as it is written, in the obedience of love.

We love with justice and freely embrace the just command ment. This love is pleasing because it is free. It is chaste because it does not consist of spoken words but of deed and truth. It is just because it renders what is received. Whoever loves this way loves the way we are loved, seeking in turn not what is our own but what belongs to Christ, the same way Christ sought not what was his but what was ours, or rather, ourselves. He so loves who says: "Confess to the Lord for he is good." One who confesses to the Lord, not because

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the Lord is good to him or her but because the Lord is good, truly loves God for God's sake and not for one's own benefit. That one does not love in the way of the one of whom it is said: "That one will praise you when you do him or her favors." This is the third step of love: in it God is loved because of who he is.

The fourth step of love:

We love ourselves for God's sake Happy the one who has attained the fourth degree of love. That one no longer loves self except for God. "O God, your justice is like the mountains of God." This love is a mountain, God's towering peak. Truly, indeed, it is the fat fertile mountain. "Who will climb the mountain of the Lord?" "Who will give me the wings of a dove, that I may fly away to find rest?" This place is made peaceful, a dwelling-place in Sion, "/das for me, my exile has been lengthened." When will flesh and blood, this vessel of clay, this earthly dwelling, understand the fact? When will this sort of affection be felt that, inebriated with divine love, the mind may forget itself and become in its own eyes like a broken dish, hastening toward God and clinging to him, becoming one with him in spirit, saying: "My flesh and my heart have wasted away, O God of my heart, O God, my share for eternity." I would say that person is blessed and holy to whom it is given to experience something of this sort, so rare in life, even if it be but once and for the space of a moment. To lose yourself, as if you no longer existed, to cease completely to experience yourself, to reduce your self to nothing, is not a human sentiment but a divine experience. If any mortal, suddenly rapt, as has been said, for a moment is admitted to this, immediately the world of sin envies that one. The evil of the day disturbs such a

Ladders person, the mortal body weighs such a one down, the needs of the flesh bother, the weakness of corruption offers no support. And sometimes with greater violence than from these, charity toward the brothers and sisters recalls us.

Alas, we have to come back to ourselves to descend again into our being and wretchedly cry out: "Lord, I suffer violence," adding, "Unhappy person that I am, who will free me from this body doomed to death?"

All the same, since scripture says God made everything for his own purpose, the day must come when the work will conform to and agree with its Maker. It is therefore neces sary for our souls to reach a similar state. Then, just as God willed everything to exist for himself, so we wish that ourselves and other beings have been and are only for his will alone, not for our pleasure. The satisfaction of our wants, chance happiness, delights us less than to see his will done in us and for us, which we implore every day in prayer saying: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

O pure and sacred love! O sweet and pleasant affection! O pure and sinless intention of the will, all the more sinless and pure since it frees us from the stain of selfish vanity, all the more sweet and pleasant, for all that is found in it is divine.

It is deifying to go through such an experience. As a drop of water seems to disappear completely in a big quantity of wine, even assuming the wine's taste and color, just as red, molten iron becomes so much like fire it seems to lose its primary state, just as the air on a sunny day seems trans formed into sunshine instead of being lit up, so it is necessary for the saints that all human feelings melt in a mysterious way and flow into the will of God. Otherwise, how will God be all in all if something human survives in us? No doubt, the substance remains, though under another form, another glory, another power. When will this happen? Who will see it? Who will possess it? "When shall I come and when shall

1 appear in God's presence?" O my Lord, my God, "my heart

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said to you: My face has sought you, Lord, I will seek your face.7' Do you think I shall see your holy temple?

I do not think that this can take place for sure until the word is fulfilled: "You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength,77 until the heart does not have to think of the body, and the soul no longer has to give it life and feeling, as is the case in this life. Freed from this bother, its strength is established in the power of God. For it is impossible to assemble all these and turn them toward God's face as long as the care of this weak and wretched body keeps one busy to the point of distrac tion. Hence it is in a spiritual and immortal body, calm and pleasant, subject to the spirit in everything, that the soul hopes to attain the fourth step of love, or rather, to be possessed by it. For it is in God's hands to give it to whom he wishes. It is not obtained by human efforts. I mean we will easily reach the highest step of love when we will no longer be held back by any desire of the flesh nor upset by troubles, as we hasten with the greatest speed and desire toward the joy of the Lord.

Consequently, until death is swallowed up in victory, until eternal light invades from all sides the limits of night and takes possession to the extent that heavenly glory shines in our bodies, we cannot set ourselves aside and pass into God. We are still attached to our bodies, if not by life and feeling, certainly by a natural affection, so that they do not wish nor are able to realize their consummation without them. This rapture of the soul, which is its most perfect and highest state, cannot, therefore, take place before the res urrection of the body. Because the spirit, if it could reach perfection without the body, would no longer desire to be united to the flesh. For, indeed, the body is not deposed or resumed without profit for the soul.

To be brief, "The death of his saints is precious in the sight of the Lord. 77 If death is precious, what must life be,

Ladders especially that life? Do not be surprised if the glorified body seems to give the spirit something, for it was a real help when we were sick and mortal. How true that text is which says that all things turn to the good of those who love God.

The sick, the dead and the resurrected body is a help to the soul who loves God; the first for the fruits of penance, the second for repose, and the third for consummation. Truly the soul does not want to be perfected without that from whose good services it feels it has benefited in every way.

The flesh is clearly a good and faithful partner for a good spirit. It helps if it is burdened; it relieves if it does not help.

It surely benefits and is by no means a burden. The first state is that of fruitful labor; the second is restful but by no means tiresome; the third is above all glorious. Listen to the Bridegroom in the Song of Songs inviting us to this triple progress: "Eat, friends, and drink, be inebriated, dearest ones." He calls to those working in the body to eat; he invites those who have set aside their bodies to drink, and he impels those who have resumed their bodies to inebriate themselves, calling them his dearest ones as if they were filled with charity. There is a difference between those who are simply called friends, who sigh under the weight of the flesh, who are held to be dear for their charity, and those who are free from the bonds of the flesh who are all the more dear because they are more ready and free to love.

More than the other two, these last ones are called dearest and are so. Receiving a second garment they are in their resumed and glorified bodies. They are that much more freely and willingly borne toward God's love because noth ing at all remains to solicit them or hold them back. Neither of the first two states can claim this, because in the first state the body is endured with distress; in the second state it is hoped for as for something missing.

In the first state, therefore, the faithful soul eats its bread, but alas, in the sweat of its brow. While in the flesh it moves

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by faith which necessarily acts through charity, for if it does not act, it dies. Moreover, according to our Savior, this work is food: "My food is to do the will of my Father." Afterward, having cast off its flesh, the soul no longer feeds on the bread of sorrow. Having eaten, it is allowed to drink of the wine of love, not pure wine, for it is written of the bride in the Song of Songs: "I drank my wine mixed with milk." The soul mixes the divine love with the tenderness of that natural affection by which it desired to have its body back, a glorified body. The soul, therefore, glows already with the warmth of charity's wine, but not to the stage of intoxica tion, for the milk moderates its strength. Intoxication dis turbs the mind and makes it wholly forgetful of itself, but the soul which still thinks of the resurrection of its own body had not forgotten itself completely. For the rest, after finding the only thing needed, what is there to prevent the soul from taking leave of itself and passing into God entirely, ceasing all the more to be like itself as it becomes more and more like God? Only then the soul is allowed to drink wisdom's pure wine of which it is said: "How good is my cup, it inebriates me!" Why wonder if the soul is inebriated by the riches of the Lord's dwelling when, free from worldly cares, it can drink pure fresh wine with Christ in his Father's house.

At last here is that sober intoxication of truth, not from overdrinking, not reeking with wine but burning for God.

From this, then, that fourth degree of love is possessed forever when God alone is loved in the highest way. For now we do not love ourselves except for his sake, that he may be the reward of those who love him, the eternal recompense of those who love him forever.

(On Loving God 30ff)

Ladders A summation Love is the excellent food. Its place is in the middle of the dish of Solomon, the dish which diffuses the mingled odor of virtues, fragrant as all the powders of the perfumer. It fills the hungry and gives joy to those being filled. On this dish we find peace and patience and longanimity and joy in the Holy Spirit, and any other kind of virtue, any other fruit of wisdom you can think of. Humility has it own contribution to the banquet and graces the dish with the bread of sorrow and the wine of compunction. Truth offers these first to beginners, saying, "Rise up after you have been seated, you who eat the bread of sorrow." Contemplation then brings its offering of solid bread of wisdom made of the finest wheat and the wine which gladdens the human heart, to which Truth calls the perfect with the words: "Eat, my friends, and drink; be inebriated, my dearest ones." Truth does not fail to make provision for the less perfect. "Love is placed in the middle for the daughters of Jerusalem." These are the ones not yet able to take solid food, so Truth gives them love's milk instead of bread, and oil instead of wine. This portion is "in the middle" because beginners could not yet relish it, being too much afraid. The perfect find it insufficient now that they have plenty of the sweet food of contemplation.

Beginners are not able to enjoy the sweetness of milk until they have been purged by the bitter draughts of fear. It must cleanse them of the infection of carnal pleasures. The perfect now turn from milk since they have had a glorious foretaste of the feast of glory. Only those in the middle, those who are growing, who are still delicate, are content with the sweet milk foods of charity.

The first food, then, is humility: bitter but medicinal; the second is charity: sweet and soothing; the third is contem plation: solid and strength-giving.

(The Steps of Humility and Pride 4f)

A Twosome Saint Bernard has built his ladders, one atop the other, reaching to the very heights of the heavenly life, to the inner life of the most Holy

Trinity. His presentation is simple enough; the steps are practical and concise. But what about the climber? And where does he or she get the will to climb? These are precisely the questions that the Abbot of Clairvaux now studies with his usual clarity.

His essay on Grace and Free Choice was addressed to his friend, William of Saint Thierry. It opens with the report of a dialogue which may well represent an exchange that actually took place between the two friends. Together they had studied the way of love; now they were concerned about the lover.

Love of its very nature is free, it is a free choice. And vet the Lord has said: "Without me you can do nothing." How can we do it with him, dependent on him, and yet choose freely? Later theologians will struggle long and hard with this question as had some earlier ones.

Bernard is content to leave the mystery but to clearly affirm the respective roles and responsibilities. His is a practical answer: Grace does the whole work and so does free choice. But he gives this qualification: Whereas the whole is a work done in free choice, so the whole is a work of grace. Without the two the work cannot be done: the one as the operative principle, the other as the object in which it is accomplished . God is the author of grace; none but God can give it, none but free choice can receive it. To consent is to be saved. Ours is to receive God's grace and move with it.

A Twosome In developing this teaching, Bernard gives us many distinctions and examples which help us to understand more fully the inner workings of our human life. The more we know ourselves, the better and more easily we can cooperate with grace in our ascent to God and to the fullness to which we are called by our very nature.

In the course of this essay, Bernard again affirms the preeminence of the contemplative dimension of our lives.

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Grace and Free Will Once, in conversation, I happened to refer to my experi ence of God's grace, how I recognized myself as being impelled to good by its prevenient action, felt myself being borne along by it and helped, with its help, to find perfec tion.

"What part do you play, then," asked a bystander, "or what reward or prize do you hope for, if it is all God's work?"

"What do you think yourself?" I replied.

"Glorify God," he said, "who freely went before you, aroused and set you moving; and then live a worthy life to prove your gratitude for kindnesses received and your suitability for receiving more."

"That is sound advice," I observed, "if only you could give me the means to carry it out. Indeed, it is easier to know what one ought to do than to do it. For it is one thing to lead the blind and another to provide a vehicle for the weary. Not every guide supplies the traveler with the food for the journey. The one who sets him in the right direction gives him one thing; the one who provides him with food to keep him from fainting on the way, another. So, too, not every teacher is automatically a communicator of the good he teaches. Hence, I stand in need of two things: instruction and help. You, friend, certainly give fine instruction for my ignorance but, unless the apostle [Paul] be mistaken, it is

A Twosome the Spirit who helps our weakness. Indeed, the One who advises me by means of your words must assist me also through his Spirit, so that I may be able to do as you advise.

For it is already due partly to his assistance that I can will what is right, although I cannot do it. But I would have no grounds for believing that I would some day manage to do it, were it not that he who has given me to will shall also enable me to accomplish on account of my good will."

"Where then," said he, "are our merits or where our hope?"

"Listen," I replied. "He saves us not because of deeds done by us in righteousness but in virtue of his own mercy.

What? Did you imagine that you create your own merits, that you can be saved by your own righteousness, you who cannot even say 'Jesus is Lord' without the Holy Spirit? Or have you forgotten the words: 'Without me you can do nothing,' and 'It depends not on the one running, nor the one willing, but on God who has mercy'?"

You ask: "What part, then, does free choice play?"

I shall answer you in a word: It is saved. Take away free choice and there is nothing to be saved. Take away grace and there is no means of saving. Without the two combined this work cannot be done: the One as operative principle, the other as object toward which or in which it is accom plished. God is the author of salvation, the free choice is only capable of receiving it. What, therefore, is given by God alone and to free choice alone, cannot any more happen without the recipient's consent than without the Bestower's grace. Consequently, free choice is said to co operate with operating grace in its act of consent or, in other words, in its process of being saved. For to consent is to be saved.

That is why the animal spirit does not receive this salvation: It lacks the power of voluntary consent by which it might tranquilly submit to a saving God whether by

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acquiescing in his commands or by believing his promises or by giving thanks for his benefits.

Voluntary consent is a self-determining power of the soul. Its action is neither forced nor extorted. It stems from the will and not from necessity, denying or giving itself on no issue except by way of the will. But if it is compelled in spite of itself, then there is violent, not voluntary, consent.

Where the will is absent, so is consent, for only what is voluntary may be called consent. Hence, where you have consent, there also is the will. But where the will is, there is freedom. And this is what I mean by the term "free choice."

(Grace and Free Choice 1 f)

A Twosome Three Kinds of Freedom There are three kinds of freedom, as they occur to us: freedom from sin, freedom from sorrow, and freedom from necessity. The last belongs to our natural condition, the first we are restored to by grace, and the second is reserved for us in our homeland.

The first freedom might be termed freedom of nature, the second of grace, and the third of life or glory. At first we were created with free will and voluntary freedom, a creature noble in God's eyes. Secondly, we are re-formed in innocence, a new creature in Christ. And thirdly, we are raised up to glory, a perfect creation in the Spirit. The first freedom is thus a title of considerable honor, the second of even greater power, and the last of total happiness. By the first we have the advantage over other living things, by the second over the flesh, by the third we overcome death itself.

Or, to express it another way, in the first God put under our feet sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field. In the second he laid out flat and crushed under our feet those spiritual beasts of the world of whom it is said: "Do not deliver the souls of those who trust in you to the wild beasts." Finally, by the last, in our more perfect submission to ourselves through victory over corruption and death — when death shall be, last of all, destroyed — we will pass over into the glorious freedom of the children of God. By

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this freedom Christ will set us free when he delivers us as a kingdom to God the Father. Of this last freedom, I think, and also of the one we have called freedom from sin, he said to the Jews: "If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." He meant that even free choice stands in need of a liberator. A liberator, of course, who would set it free not from necessity, which was quite unknown to it since this pertains to the will, but rather from sin, into which it had fallen both freely and willingly, and also from the penalty of sin, which it carelessly incurred and has unwillingly borne. From these two evils free choice was quite unable to extricate itself except through him who alone of all humans was made free among the dead, free, that is, from sin in the midst of sinners.

Christ alone, among the sons of Adam, was free from sin.

(Grace and Free Choice 7f) Freedom from necessity Freedom from necessity belongs alike to God and to every rational creature, good or bad. Neither by sin nor by suffering is it lost or lessened; nor is it greater in the just person than in the sinner, nor fuller in the angel than in the human. The consent of the human will, which is directed by grace toward the good, makes the person freely good and, in the good, free by the fact that it is voluntarily given and not unwillingly extorted. In the same way, when the consent willingly goes toward the bad it makes the person nonetheless free and spontaneous in doing evil. The person is not forced to be evil by some other cause. That one simply chooses to be so, led by his or her own will. And just as the angels in heaven and even God himself remain freely good, that is, they remain good by their own will and not from any extrinsic necessity,

A Twosome so the devil freely opts for evil and persists in it not by coercion from without but of his own free choice. Freedom of will thus continues to exist, even where the mind is captive, as fully in the bad as in the good, yet more orderly in the good. It is complete in its own way in the creature as in the Creator, yet more powerfully in the Creator.

When a person complains saying: "I wish I could have a good will but I just can't manage it," this in no way argues against the freedom of which we have been speaking, as if the will thus suffered violence or were subject to necessity.

Rather, that person is witnessing to the fact that he or she lacks that freedom which is called freedom from sin. Be cause those who want to have a good will prove thereby that they have a will, since their desire is aimed at good only through their will. And if they find themselves unable to have a good will whereas they really want to, then this is because they feel freedom is lacking to them, freedom namely from sin, by which it pains them that their will is oppressed, though it is not suppressed. Indeed it is more than likely that, since they want to have a good will, they do to some extent have it. What they want is good, and they could hardly want good otherwise than by means of a good will, just as they could want evil only by a bad will.

When we desire good then our will is good; when we desire evil, our will is evil. In both cases there is will and in both freedom. Necessity yields to will. But if we are unable to do what we will, we feel that freedom itself is somehow captive to sin or misery, not that it is lost.

In my opinion, therefore, free choice takes its name from that freedom alone by which the will is free either to judge itself good, if it has consented to good, or bad, if to evil.

Only by willing, in fact, can it feel itself to consent to either.

Freedom from sin might, perhaps, more fittingly be called free counsel and freedom from sorrow, free pleasure rather than free choice.

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Choice is an act of judgment. But even as it belongs to judgment to distinguish between what is lawful and what is not, so it belongs to counsel to examine what is expedient and what is not, and to pleasure to experience what is pleasant and what is not.

(Grace and Free Choice 9ff) "Your kingdom come"

One thing is certain: we shall possess free counsel and free pleasure when, by God's mercy, we shall obtain what we pray for: "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

This shall come to pass, as has been said, when that which appears common to every rational creature, namely, a choice which is free from necessity, shall be in the elect of the human race also, as it is already in the holy angels: secure from sin and safe from sorrow. This happy experience of these three freedoms will prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. In the meantime, this is not yet so.

In its full measure, we have only freedom of choice. Free dom of counsel is possessed only in part, and that only in the few spiritual ones among us who have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires so that sin no longer reigns in their mortal bodies. Now it is freedom of counsel which brings it about that sin does not so reign. That it still has some small hold is due to the fact that free choice is still captive. "But when the perfect comes, then the imperfect will pass away." This means: When freedom of counsel shall have been fully achieved, the judgment's shackles shall also fall away.

And that is what we daily ask in prayer when we say to God: "Your kingdom come." This kingdom is not yet wholly established among us. But it comes closer by degrees each

A Twosome day, and daily it gradually extends its bounds. It does so in those whose interior self, with the help of God, is renewed from day to day. In the measure that grace's kingdom is extended, sin's power is weakened. It is a process which is still unfinished because of this perishable body which weighs down the soul, and because of the needy condition of this earthly dwelling which burdens the mind full of thoughts. Even those who appear more perfect in this mortal state have to acknowledge that "in many things we all offend" and "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." That is why they pray without ceasing: "Your kingdom come." But this will not be fully accomplished even in them until sin not only has no further sway over their perishable bodies but no longer is at all, nor can be, in a body that is immortal.

(Grace and Free Choice 12f) Freedom of pleasure What shall we say about freedom of pleasure in this present evil age? The day's own trouble is scarcely sufficient for the day; every creature groans and is in labor until now, subjected as it is to futility not of its own will; the life of a person is a hard service upon the earth; even the spiritual ones who have already received the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly, awaiting the redemption of their bodies.

Can there really be room in such a situation for this type of freedom? What is left free for our good pleasure, I ask, where every square inch seems to be taken up by sorrow?

Indeed, here not even innocence or righteousness are im mune from sorrow (any more than they are from sin), where the just one cries out: "Wretched person that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" And again: "My

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tears have been my food day and night." Where night follows day and day night in one rhythm of sorrow, there is no moment's room for real pleasure. And then, all those who desire to live a godly life in Christ will suffer more persecution, since judgment begins with the household of God, as he commanded, saying: "Begin with mine."

Yet, though virtue is not immune from sorrow, perhaps vice is. Can it at times enjoy pleasure in some part, avoiding misery? No! For those who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the worst sort of things, imitate the wild laughter of the mad. No sorrow is more truly sorrow than false joy. The more a thing wears the guise of happiness in this world, the more is it misery. As the Wise One says: "It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting."

(Grace and Free Choice 13) Corporal joy A certain pleasure is to be found in goods of the body, namely, in eating, drinking, warm clothing, and in the other things that pamper and adorn the body. But do even these escape affliction? Bread is fine, but to one who is hungry.

Drink is delightful, but to the thirsty. To the sated food and drink are a burden, not a joy. Once hunger has been eased, bread will mean little to you. Thirst slaked, even the most limpid font will no more attract you than a swamp. Only those who are hot seek the shade. Only the cold or those in darkness hail the sun. None of these things pleases without the prick of necessity. Take this away and at once the pleasure which seemed to form part of them yields to tedium and distaste.

It must therefore be admitted here again that everything belonging to the present life involves suffering. The only

A Twosome mitigating factor is that in the midst of the relentless hardships which go with our more difficult undertakings, lighter tasks come as a sort of relaxation. In a given time and situation, while heavy and light alternate, the experi ence of the light seems to provide an interlude to sorrow, as when sometimes we think it a joy when we pass out of the doldrums of nerve-racking trials into worries of a milder kind.

(Grace and Free Choice 14) The Joy of Contemplation But what of those who at times, being caught up in the Spirit through the ecstasy of contemplation, become capa ble of savoring something of the sweetness of heavenly bliss? Do these attain to freedom from sorrow as often as this happens to them? Yes, indeed. Even in this present life, those who with Mary have chosen the better part — which shall not be taken away from them — enjoy freedom of pleasure; rarely, however, and fleetingly. This pleasure is undeniable. For those who now possess that which shall never be taken away, plainly experience what is to come. In a word, happiness. And since happiness and sorrow are incompatible, as often as these participate through the Spirit in the former they cease to feel the latter. Hence, on this earth, contemplatives alone can in some way. enjoy freedom of pleasure, though only in part, in a sufficiently modest part, and on very rare occasions.

(Grace and Free Choice 15)

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Grace is Necessary I think it has been clearly shown that even freedom of choice is to some extent held captive as long as it is unaccompanied or imperfectly accompanied by the two other freedoms. From no other cause arises this frailty of ours of which the apostle [Paul] speaks: "So that the things you would not, these you do." To will, indeed, lies in our power as a result of free choice but not to carry out what we will. I am not saying to will the good or to will the bad, but simply to will. For to will the good indicates an achieve ment, and to will the bad a defect. Simply to will denotes the subject itself, which does either the achieving or the failing. To this subject, however, creating grace gives exist ence. Saving grace gives it the achievement. But when it fails, it is to blame for its own failure. Free choice, accord ingly, constitutes us willers; grace, willers of the good.

Because of our willing faculty, we are able to will; because of grace, we are able to will the good. Just as to simply fear is one thing and to fear God another, to love is one thing and to love God another. For to fear and to love on their own signify affections, but coupled with the additional word "God" they signify virtues. So, too, to will is one thing and to will the good another.

Mere affections live naturally in us, as if they were finding their source in us, but those additional acts are of grace.

A Twosome Nothing is made perfect in us except that which creation has given and grace sets in order, so virtues are nothing else than ordered affections.

That is why the Bride in the Song of Songs says: "Set charity in order in me."

Freedom of choice continues to operate in us so the basis for merit remains. Meritedly then, when we are bad we are punished for the bad we did of our own free choice, and we are glorified for the good which could not have been without a similar decision of our will. It is our own will that enslaves us to the devil, not his power. Whereas it is God's grace which subjects us to God, not our own will. Our will, created good (as must be granted) by the good God, shall neverthe less be perfect only when perfectly subjected to its Creator.

This does not mean that we ascribe to it its own perfection and to God only its creation, since to be perfect is far more than to be made. Attributing to God of what is less and to ourselves of what is more surely stands condemned in the very statement. Finally, the apostle [Paul], feeling what he was by nature and what he hoped to be by grace, said: "I can will what is right but I cannot do it." He realized that to will was possible to him as a result of free choice, but that for this will to be perfect he stood in need of grace. For if to will what is evil is a defect of the willing faculty, then undoubtedly to will what is good marks a growth in this same faculty. And to measure up to every good thing that we will is its perfection.

In order, then, that our willing derived from our free choice may be perfect, we need a twofold gift of grace: true wisdom, which means the turning of the will to good, and full power, which means its confirmation in good.

From the first moment of its existence, the will posseses in itself a twofold goodness: The general one, from the very fact of creation, for by a good God only good could be created —

"God saw everything he had made and behold, they were

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very good"; and the special one, arising from its freedom of choice, by which it was made in the image of him who created it. And if to these two goods we add a third, conversion to the Creator, then the will may rightly be regarded as perfectly good: good, that is, as part of a good creation; better within its own sphere of action; best in its orientation. This latter implies the total conversion of the will to God and its wholehearted, voluntary and devoted subjection.

(Grace and Free Choice 19) Sin Three freedoms the first man received. By abusing the one called freedom of choice, he deprived himself of the others. He abused it, in that what he had received for his glory he turned to his shame as the scripture says: "Man, when he was in honor did not understand; he became like the senseless beasts."

Among all living beings, to the human person alone was given the ability to sin as part of his prerogative of free choice. But we were given it not that we might sin, but that we might appear the more glorious did we not sin when we were capable of doing so. What in fact could afford us greater glory than that scripture's words be spoken of us:

"Who is the one and we shall praise that one?" Why such praise? "For that one has done wonderful things in life."

What kind of things? "That person had the power to transgress and did not transgress and to do evil and did not do it." This honor the first man kept as long as he was sinless, but once he sinned he lost it. He sinned because he was free to sin, and free from no other source than his own freedom of choice, which bore within it the possibility of sinning. No failure this of the Bestower but rather of the abuser, who made over to the service of sin that faculty he

A Twosome had received for the glory of not sinning. For though the root of his sin lay in the ability received, yet he sinned not because he was able to but because he willed to. So it was that when the devil and his angels rebelled, others of their company refused to do so not because they could not but because they would not.

The sinner's fall, therefore, was not due to the gift of being able to but to the vice of willing to. However, if he fell by the power of his will, this does not mean that he was equally free to rise again by the same power. The ability to remain standing lest he fall was indeed given to his will but not to get up again once he fell. It is not as easy to climb out of a pit as to fall into one. By his will alone, man fell into the pit of sin, but he cannot climb out of his will alone, since now even if he wishes he cannot not sin.

Does the fact that we cannot sin then put an end to free choice? No. But we lost free counsel by which previously we had enjoyed the ability not to sin.

And this is where Christ comes in. In him we possess the necessary power of God and wisdom of God. Christ, inas much as he is wisdom, pours back into us true wisdom and so restores to us our free counsel and, inasmuch as he is power, renews our full power and restores to us our free pleasure.

Here below, we must learn from our freedom of counsel not to abuse free choice so that one day we may be able to fully enjoy freedom of pleasure. Thus we are repairing the image of God in us, and the way is being paved, by grace, for the retrieving of that former honor which we forfeited by sin. Happy then will be the person who shall deserve to hear said of him or her: "Who is this and we shall praise this one. For this one has done wonderful things in life. That person had the power to transgress and did not transgress, to do evil and did not do it."

(Grace and Free Choice 22ff)

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The image and likeness of the Creator I believe that in these three freedoms there is contained the image and likeness of the Creator in which we were made. In freedom of choice lies the image, and in the other two is contained a certain twofold likeness. Maybe the reason why free choice alone suffers no lessening or falling away is that in it, more than in the others, there seems to be imprinted some substantial image of the eternal and immutable divinity.

Although it had a beginning, free choice knows no end, nor has it experience either of increase through righteous ness or glory or decrease through sin or sorrow. What could be more like eternity without actually being eternity? Now, in the other two freedoms, liable not only to partial dimi nution but even to total loss, one sees added to the image a certain more accidental likeness of the power and wisdom.

By a fault we lost them. By grace we recovered them. And daily, each of us in varying degrees, either advances in them or falls away. They may be even irreparably lost. And they can be so possessed that they cannot in any way be lost nor diminished.

(Grace and Free Choice 28f) Through Christ the likeness is restored in us In this present world the proper likeness could not be found. Even the image would still have lain stained and deformed had not that woman of the gospel lit her lamp

(had Wisdom not appeared in the flesh), swept the house (of the vices), and searched carefully for her lost coin (her image). Its original luster gone, covered over with the coating of transgression, the image lay buried, as it were, in

A Twosome the dust. She found it, wiped it clean, and rescued it from the "region of unlikeness." Then she refashioned it to its erstwhile beauty and made it like the saints in glory. Some day she will make it quite conformable to herself. On that day the words of scripture will be fulfilled: "We know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." To whom, in fact, could this work be better suited than to the Son of God who, being the splendor and the figure of the Father's substance, upholding all things by his word, was well qualified for it. He was able to reform what was deformed, strengthen what was weak and, dispelling with the splendor of his own figure the shadows of sin, make us wise. By the might of his word he lent us strength against the tyranny of the demons.

(Grace and Free Choice 32) Free choice should govern the body Free choice should try to govern its body as wisdom does the world. It should reach mightily from end to end, strongly commanding each sense and each member that it will not suffer sin to reign in its mortal body. It will not give its members over as instruments of wickedness but rather to serve justice. And so we will no longer be servants of sin, since we will not commit sin. Further, set free from sin, we can now begin to recover our freedom of counsel and vindicate our dignity. We can reestablish in ourselves a worthy likeness to the divine image, in fact, we can com pletely restore our former loveliness. But let us take care to do this no less gently than mightily, not reluctantly or under compulsion, but with prompt and ready will, for this is the beginning, not the fullness of wisdom. This makes the offering acceptable, since "God loves a cheerful giver." In

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this way we will be imitating wisdom in all we do, mightily resisting vices and being gently at rest with our own con science.

We cannot achieve these things, however, without the help of him by whose example we are spurred on to desire them. With his help, and by it, we ourselves are conformed and transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. But if by the Spirit of the Lord, then hardly by free choice. Let no one imagine, therefore, that free choice is so called because it affects good and evil with equal power or facility. It was indeed able to fall of itself, but it can rise up again only through the Spirit of the Lord.

(Grace and Free Choice 34f) Grace and free choice in the work of salvation Are we to say, then, that the entire function and the sole merit of free choice lies in its consent? Assuredly. Not that this consent in which all merit consists is its own doing, since we are unable even to think anything of ourselves, which is less than consent.

These words are not mine but the apostle's, who attrib utes everything susceptible of good to God and not to his own choosing power: thinking, willing and accomplishing for his good pleasure. If, then, God works these three things in us, namely thinking, willing and accomplishing the good, the first he does without us, the second with us, and the third through us. By suggesting the good thought, he goes one first step ahead of us. By also bringing about the change of our ill will, he joins it to himself by its consent. And by supplying consent with the faculty and ability, the Operator within makes his appearance outwardly through the exter-

A Twosome nal work that we perform. Of ourselves we cannot, of course, take that first step. But he who can find no one who is good, can save no one without his first stepping into the lead.

There can be no doubt, therefore, that the beginning action rests with God and is enacted neither through us nor with us. The consent and the work, however, though not origi nating from us nevertheless are not without us.

We must therefore be careful, whenever we feel these things happening invisibly within us and with us, not to attribute them to our own weak will nor to any necessity on the part of God — for there is none — but to that grace alone of which he is full. It is this grace which arouses free choice when it sows the seed of the good thought, which heals free choice by changing its disposition, which strengthens it so as to lead it to action, and which saves it from experiencing a fall. Grace so cooperates with free choice, however, that only in the first movement does it go a step ahead of it. In the others it accompanies it. Indeed, grace's whole aim in taking the step ahead is that from then on free choice may co-operate with it. What was begun by grace alone is completed by grace and free choice together in such a way that they contribute to each new achievement not singly but jointly, not by turn but simultaneously. It is not as if grace did one half of the work and free choice the other. Each does the whole work according to its own proper contribution. Grace does the whole work and so does free choice with this one qualification: Whereas the whole is done in free choice, the whole is done of grace.

We trust the reader is pleased to find that we have never strayed from the meaning of the apostle [Paul], and that wherever our words may have wandered we found ourselves often returning to almost his very words. For what else does what we are saying amount to but, "So it depends not upon the human's will or exertion but on God's mercy." He does not say this as if it were possible for a person to will or to

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run in vain. What he means is that we who will and run should glory not in ourselves but in him from whom we received in the first place the power both to will and to run.

In a word: "What have you that you did not receive?"

You are created, healed, saved. Which of these, O human, comes from you? Which is not impossible to free choice?

You could neither create yourself, since you were not there to do so, nor when in sin could you restore yourself to grace, nor raise yourself from the dead. And this is to say nothing of those other good things which are either necessary to those who have been healed or laid up for those who are to be saved.

Those, therefore, who possess true wisdom acknowledge a threefold operation, not indeed of free choice, but of divine grace in free choice, or concerning it. The first is creation, the second reformation, and the third consumma tion. Created first in Christ unto freedom of will, by the second we are reformed through Christ unto the spirit of freedom. Lastly we reach fulfillment with Christ in eternity.

What had no existence had to be created by one who had; what was deformed had to be reformed through the Form [Christ, who was in the form of God]; the members can only be perfected with the Head. This will happen when we all shall have attained "to mature personhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." When

Christ who is our life appears, we also shall appear with him in glory.

{Grace and Free Choice 46ff)

A Never Ending Romance His Sermons on the Song of Songs are Bernard's masterpiece. He started writing them in 1136 and was in the midst of writing the eighty-sixth sermon when he died. They probably do represent talks he gave to his brothers in the chapterhouse of Clairvaux, but they are in fact literary works cast in the form of sermons and meant for a much wider audience, which they got. They represent the work and thought of a mature man at the pinnacle of his life, a man of great influence and lofty mystical experience.

Many find the sermons difficult to read, and this for a number of reasons. As he moves along commenting on the Song of Songs verse by verse, word byword, Bernard introduces into his spiritual teaching all sorts of extraneous matters. The one who is looking for spiritual teaching, as we are in this book, would prefer he might have kept to that and not included the political and ecclesial affairs, the theologi cal controversies, the outbreaks of personal emotion and family affairs, etc. But I believe Bernard very deliberately included all of this as an important part of his teaching. We are all too apt to make the "spiritual life" a very particular part of our life, perhaps a rather esoteric part. No, the journey into Christ, in Christ, is woven into the very fabric of our lives. We do not have any "spiritual life." We are, like our Master and Lord, very incarnate. The only life we have is the very real everyday life that should be filled with family affairs, ecclesial activities, and political concerns. It is all of a piece.

We shouldn't be frightened by the term "mystical." Actually, Bernard

A Never Ending Romance rarely uses it, though writers use it a great deal in speaking about his life and teaching. The fact is that everyone of us at baptism receives the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. The "mystical life" essentially is nothing other than the activity of the Spirit in our lives, when the Holy Spirit through the activity of the gifts brings us intuitions and experiences of God that are beyond those we can attain with our human reason and senses. God is God. He is beyond us. If we are going to really experience God, experience a loving relation ship with him, we have to be ready to leave the limitations of our human reason behind and move into other realms of knowledge and experience. This is what Bernard is seeking to help us understand.

Precisely because what Bernard is talking about is beyond the thoughts and concepts of ordinary human reason, he has recourse to allegory and image. And because he is speaking of God and our relationship with God, where better could he find his images and allegories than in the inspired Word of God. This invitation into the domain of poetry and beyond may be very unfamiliar to the prag matic and the prosaic. But a willingness to let go of the programmatic that we feel comfortable with because we feel we can control it, is perhaps for us the first step toward a willingness to let go and let God

— to let go of our rational control and let the Spirit have space to open up new realms to us through the gifts, realms that will begin to satisfy those deepest longings, that we usually have not even dared to admit exist in us, because they seem to be unfulfillable.

Come, let Bernard sing to you for a bit, inspired by the divine Song of Songs.

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In the Weave of Life Rightly it is called the Song of Songs. Grace alone can teach it, it cannot be learned except by experience. It is for the experienced, therefore, to recognize it and for others to burn with the desire, not so much of knowing as of experi encing it, since this canticle is not a noise made by the mouth but a jubilation of heart, not a sound of the lips but a tumult of internal joys, not a symphony of voices but a harmony of wills. It is not heard outside for it does not sound externally. The singer alone can hear it and he to whom it is sung, namely the Bridegroom and the bride. For it is a nuptial song, celebrating the chaste and joyous embraces of loving hearts, the concord of minds and the union resulting from reciprocal affection.

(On the Song of Songs 1:11) You have seen the way we must follow, the order of procedure. First we cast ourselves at his feet, we "kneel before the Lord, our maker/' deploring the evil we have done. Then we reach out for the hand that will lift us up, that will steady our trembling knees. And finally, when we shall have obtained these favors through many prayers and tears, we humbly dare to raise our eyes to his mouth, so

A Never Ending Romance divinely beautiful, not merely to gaze upon, but — I say with fear and trembling — to receive his loss; for Christ the Lord is a Spirit before our face. And we who are joined to him in a holy kiss become, at his good pleasure, one spirit with him.

(On the Song of Songs 3:5) Even to me, miserable as I am, it has been given some times to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus and to embrace with all devotion now one foot, now the other, insofar as his gracious mercy deigned to permit. But whenever, under the sting of my conscience, I lost sight of the divine mercy and clung a little too long to the foot of justice, immediately

I became oppressed with an indescribable terror and a miserable confusion and, enveloped in the most horrible darkness, I could only cry tremblingly, "From out of the depths, who knows the power of your anger and who for fear of you can endure your wrath?" And if, leaving the foot of justice, I should chance to lay hold of that of mercy, I straightaway grew more tepid at prayer, more slothful at work, more ready for laughter, more imprudent in speech.

In short, my whole being, body and soul, showed evidence of greater inconstancy. Therefore, taught by experience, no longer judgment alone or mercy alone but both "mercy and judgment, I will sing to you, O Lord."

(On the Song of Songs 6:9) If you willingly share with us your brothers and sisters the gifts you have received from above, if you show yourself everywhere among us obliging, affectionate, graceful, obe dient and humble, you also shall receive the testimony of all that you, too, are redolent with the best of ointments.

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Yes, every one among you, my sisters and brothers, who not only supports with patience the corporal and spiritual infirmities of his brother and sister but, insofar as he is permitted and has power, assists them by kind services, comforts them by his words, and directs them by counsels or consoles the weak ones at least by fervent and incessant prayer — every such brother and sister, I say, exhales a good odor in their community and smells sweet with the best ointments.

(On the Song of Songs 12:5) Those who are wise will see their lives as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then pours forth the overflow without loss to itself. They know that a curse is on those who allow their own property to degenerate. And if you think my opinion worthless then listen to one who is wiser than I. 'Tools," said Solomon,

"come out with all their feelings at once but the wise subdue and restrain them." Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare. So urgent is the charity of those through whom the streams of heav enly doctrine flow to us that they want to pour it forth before they have been filled. They are more ready to speak than to listen, impatient to teach what they have not grasped, and full of presumption to govern others while they know not how to govern themselves.

I am convinced that no degree of charity that leads to salvation may be preferred to that suggested by the Wise

One, "Have pity on your own soul, pleasing God." Listen to what a prudent and vigilant charity advises, "This does not mean that to give relief to others you ought to make things difficult for yourselves. It is a question of balancing."

A Never Ending Romance The reservoir resembles the fountain that runs to form a stream or spreads to form a pool only when its own waters are brimming over. The reservoir is not ashamed to be no more lavish than the spring that fills it. He who is the primal

Fountain of Life, full in himself and filled with himself, gushed forth and danced into the secret places of the heavens about him, to fill them all with his favors. And having endowed these remotest heights and recesses, he burst upon our earth, saving humans and beasts through his munificence, multiplying his mercies everywhere. When he had first filled up the secret places, his teeming mercies billowed over. They poured upon the earth and drenched it, to multiply its riches. You must imitate this process. First be filled and then control the outpouring. The charity that is benign and prudent does not flow outward until it abounds within.

(On the Song of Songs 13:3-4) I wish to remind you now of the principles necessary for our salvation and how to apply them, the truths that must be infused into us and their order of importance, before we can presume to pour ourselves out. Circumstances oblige me to be as brief as possible for the time's quick passage demands that I bring this sermon to a close.

Just as a doctor comes to a wounded person so the Holy Spirit comes to the soul. Is it possible to find any person whom the devil's sword does not wound even after the wound of original sin has been healed by the medicine of baptism? Therefore when the Spirit draws near to a soul that says, "My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness," what is the first thing the Spirit must do?

Before all else he must amputate the ulcerous tumor that has grown upon the wound and prevents its healing. This

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ulcer, caused by inveterate bad habits, must be sliced away with the scalpel of piercing sorrow.

The pain will be bitter, but it can be alleviated with the ointment of devotion, which is nothing other than the joy born of the hope of pardon. This in turn springs from the power of self-control, from victory over sin. Soon the victor is pouring out words of thanks, "You have loosed my bonds,

I will offer you the thanksgiving sacrifice."

The soul then applies the medicine of penance, a poultice of fastings, vigils, prayers and other tasks that penitents perform.

As the penitents toil they must be fed with the food of good works that they may not falter. We are not left in doubt about what the necessary food is: "My food," said

Christ, "is to do the will of my Father." Hence, works motivated by love that are a sure source of strength should accompany the performance of penances. For instance it is said: "Alms is a most effective offering for all those who give in the presence of the Most High."

Food causes thirst, thus they must drink. So let the food of good works be moistened with the beverage of prayer, that a work well done may rest quietlv in the stomach of conscience and give pleasure to God. In prayer we drink the wine that gladdens a person's heart, the intoxicating wine of the Spirit that drowns all memory of the pleasures of the flesh. It drenches anew the arid recesses of the conscience, stimulates digestion of the meats of good works, fills the faculties of the soul with a robust faith, a solid hope, a love that is living and true. It enriches all the actions of our life.

The sick have had their food and drink. What should they do now but take their ease and let the sweat of their labors dry while they enjoy the quiet of contemplation.

Falling asleep in the midst of their prayer they dream of God. What thev see is a dim reflection in a mirror, not a vision face to face. However, although it be but a vague

A Never Ending Romance apprehension and not an actual vision, a fleeting glimpse of the spariding glory as it passes, utterly delicate in its impact, yet they burn with love.

Let such as these preach. Let them bear fruit. Let them show new signs and do fresh wonders. For vanity can find no toehold in those whom charity totally possesses. A total love is the law in all its fullness, it can effectively fill the heart's capacity. God himself is love and nothing created can satisfy those who are made in the image of God except the God who is love.

We need first of all compunction of heart, then fervor of spirit; thirdly, the labor of penance; fourthly, works of charity; fifthly, zeal for prayer; sixthly, leisure for contem plation; seventhly, love in all its fullness. All these are the work of the one and same Spirit.

(On the Song of Songs 18:5-6) "Your name is oil poured out, therefore the maidens love you beyond measure." What does the bride mean by "be yond measure"? Greatly, vehemently, ardently. Shall I say that this spiritual doctrine may be indirectly applied to those of you who have recently arrived, as a reproof of that indiscreet zeal or rather that incredibly obstinate intemper ance which we have repeatedly attempted to restrain? You have no desire to be content with the common life. The regular fast is not enough for you nor the solemn vigils nor the rules of the house nor the amount of food and clothing we have allowed you. You want to have your own private ways rather than share what is common. In the beginning you entrusted yourselves to our care, why do you take charge of yourselves again? For now you have again for master not me but that self-will by which, on the testimony of your own consciences, you have so often offended God.

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It is that which urges you not to show pity for nature's needs, not to yield to reason, not to respect the advice or example of the seniors, not to obey us. Are you unaware that obedience is better than sacrifice? Have you not read in your Rule that what is done without permission of the spiritual father shall be ascribed to presumption and vain glory and not reckoned meritorious? Have you not read in the gospel the example of obedience given by the boy Jesus as a way to holiness for young people? For he had stayed behind in Jerusalem and explained that he must be busy about his Father's affairs; yet because his parents would not concur with him he did not disdain to follow them to Nazareth. So we have the Master obeying his disciples, God obeying humans, God's Word and Wisdom obeying a carpenter and his wife. And what is the comment of sacred scripture? It says, "He was subject to them." How long will you be wise in your own eyes? God entrusts himself to mortals and obeys them, and you will still walk in your own ways?

(On the Song of Songs 19:7) All of us do not run with equal ardor. . . . Some are more eager for the study of wisdom, others concentrate on doing penance in the hope of pardon, others again are inspired to practice the virtues by the example of Christ's life and behavior, while yet others are roused to fervor more by the memory of his passion.

Is it possible for us to find examples of each kind?

Those ran in the fragrance of wisdom who had been sent by the Pharisees and returned to them saying, "No one ever spoke like this man!" They admired his doctrine and praised his wisdom. Nicodemus, also, was lured into running by this fragrance when he came to Jesus by night, illumined by

A Never Ending Romance the light of his wisdom, and went back reformed, instructed in many things.

Mary Magdalene ran in the fragrance of justice. Many sins were forgiven her because she loved much.

The tax collector ran in similar fashion. Justice himself bears witness that after he had humbly implored forgiveness for his sins, he "went home again at rights with God."

Peter ran when, after his fall, he wept bitterly to wash away his sin and be restored to righteousness. David ran when he acknowledged and confessed his crime and was privileged to be told: "The Lord has put away your sin."

Paul testifies that he ran in the fragrance of holiness when he glories in being an imitator of Christ. He said to his followers: "Take me for a model as I take Christ."

And all those were running, too, who said: "We have left everything and followed you." It was because of the desire to follow Christ that they had left all things.

A general exhortation to everyone to follow in this fra grance is contained in the words: "Those who say they abide in Christ ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

Finally, if you wish to hear of those who ran in the fragrance of the passion, behold the martyrs.

(On the Song of Songs 22:9) By your leave then we shall search the sacred scripture for these three things, the garden, the storeroom, the bedroom. The one who thirsts for God eagerly studies and meditates on the inspired word. Know that there we are certain to find the one for whom we thirst. Let the garden, then, represent the plain, unadorned historical sense of scripture, the storeroom its moral sense, and the bedroom the mystery of divine contemplation.

A Never Ending Romance 1 13 For a start, I feel my comparison of scriptural history to a garden is not unwarranted, for in it we find persons of many virtues like fruitful trees in the garden of the Bridegroom, in the paradise of God. You may gather samples of their good deeds and good habits as you would apples from trees.

(On the Song of Songs 23:6-9) On this third return from Rome, my brothers, a more merciful eye has looked down from heaven. The Lion's [the anti-pope] rage has cooled, wickedness has ceased, the Church has found peace. The reprobate, the man who for almost eight years has bitterly embroiled it in schism, has been brought to nothing in its sight. But have I returned from so great dangers to be useless to you? I have been granted to your desires; I am ready to serve your advance ment. Through your merits I am still alive, so I wish to live for your welfare, for your salvation.

(On the Song of Songs 24:1) You are aware that a loyal companion has left me alone on the pathway of life; he who was so alert to my needs, so enterprising at work, so agreeable in his ways. Who was ever so necessary to me? Who ever loved me as he? My brother by blood, but bound to me more intimately by religious profession. Share my mourning with me, you who know these things. I was frail in body and he sustained me, faint in heart and he gave me courage, slothful and negligent and he spurred me on, forgetful and improvident and he gave me timely warning. Why was he torn from me? Why snatched from my embraces, a man of one mind with me, a man according to my heart. We loved each other in

A Never Ending Romance Our bodily companionship was equally enjoyable to both, because our dispositions were so alike. But only 1 am wounded by the parting. All that was pleasant we rejoiced to share, now sadness and mourning are mine alone. Anger has swept over me, rage has fastened on me. Both of us were so happy in each other's company, sharing the same expe riences, talking together about them. . . .

Girard was mine, so utterly mine. Was he not mine who was a brother to me by blood, a son by religious profession, a father by his solicitude, my comrade on the spiritual highway, my bosom friend in love? And it is he who has gone from me. I feel it, the wound is deep.

(On the Song of Songs 26:4-9) If we fervently persist with prayers and tears, the Bride groom will return each time and not defraud us of our express desires. But he will return only to disappear soon again and not to return again unless he is sought for with all our heart. And so, even in this body we can often enjoy the happiness of the Bridegroom's presence. But it is a happiness that is never complete, because the joy of his visit is followed by the pain of his departure. The beloved has no choice but to endure this state until the hour when we lay down the body's weary weight and, raised aloft by the wings of desire, freely traverse the meadows of contempla tion and in spirit follow the One we love without restraint wherever he goes.

(On the Song of Songs 32:2) Perhaps you think that I have sullied too much the good name of knowledge, that I have cast aspersions on the learned and proscribed the study of letters. God forbid! I

A Never Ending Romance

am not unmindful of the benefits its scholars conferred and still confer on the Church both by refuting her opponents and instructing the simple. And I have read the text: "As you have rejected knowledge so do I reject you from my priesthood" and that "the learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven and those who have instructed many in virtue as bright as stars for all eternity." But I recall reading too that knowledge puffs up.

All knowledge is good in itself provided it be founded on truth; but since because of the brevity of time you are in a hurry to work out your salvation in fear and trembling, take care to learn principally and primarily the doctrines on which your salvation is more intimately dependent. Do not doctors of medicine hold that the work of healing depends on a right choice in the talcing of food, what to take first, what next, and the amount of each to be eaten? For although it is clear that all the foods that God has made are good, if you fail to take the right amount in due order, you obviously take them to the detriment of your health. And what I say about foods I want you to apply to the various kinds of knowledge.

It implies the order, the application and the sense of purpose with which one approaches the object of study. The order implies that we give precedence to all that aids spiritual progress; the application, that we pursue more eagerly all that strengthens love more; and the purpose, that we pursue it not through vainglory or inquisitiveness or any base motive but for the welfare of oneself or one's neighbor.

For there are some who long to know for the sole purpose of knowing and that is shameful curiosity; others who long to know in order to become known and that is shameful vanity. To such as these we may apply the words of the Satirist: "Your knowledge counts for nothing, unless your friends know you have it." There are still others who long for knowledge in order to sell its fruits for money or honors

A Never Ending Romance

and this is shameful profiteering. Others, again, who long to know in order to be of service and this is charity. Finally, there are those who long to know in order to benefit themselves and this is prudence.

(On the Song of Songs 36:2-3) Spiritual vineyards signify spiritual men within whom all things are cultivated, all things are germinating, bearing fruit and bringing forth the spirit of salvation. What was said of the kingdom of God we can equally say of these vineyards of the Lord of hosts — that they are within us.

We read in the gospel that the kingdom will be given to a people who will produce its fruits. Paul enumerates these:

"The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, forbearance, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity." These fruits indicate our progress. They are pleasing to the Bridegroom because he takes care of us.

Do you see these novices? They came recently, they were converted recently. We cannot say of them that "our vineyard has flowered." It is flowering. What you see appear in them at the moment is the blossom. The time of fruiting has yet to come. Their new way of life, their recent adoption of a better life — these are blossoms. They have assumed a disciplined appearance, a proper deportment in their whole body. What can be seen of them is pleasing, I admit. One notices less attention to painstaking care of the body and of dress; they speak less, their faces are more cheerful, their looks more modest, their movements more correct. But since these are new beginnings, the flowers must be judged by their very novelty and as a promise of fruits rather than as the fruits themselves.

(On the Song of Songs 63:5-6)

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Moments of Ecstasy You ask then how I know the Word was present, when his ways can in no way be traced? He is life and power, and as soon as he enters in, he awakens my slumbering soul. He stirs and soothes and pierces my heart, for before it was hard as stone and diseased. So he has begun to pluck out and destroy, to build up and to plant, to water dry places and illumine dark ones, to open what was closed and to warm what was cold, so that my soul may bless the Lord, and all that is within me may praise his holy name.

So when the Word came to me, he never made known his coming by any signs: not by sight, not by sound, not by touch. It was not by any movement of his that I perceived his coming. Only by the movement of my heart did I perceive his presence. I knew the power of his might because my faults were put to flight and my human yearnings brought into subjection. But when he has left me, all these spiritual powers became weak and faint and began to grow cold. As often as he slips away from me, so often shall I call him back. As long as I live, the word "return," for the return of the Word, will be on my lips.

(On the Song of Songs 74:6f) It is a great good to seek God. In my opinion there is no greater blessing. It is the first of gifts and the final stage of our progress. This gift is inferior to none and yields place

A Never Ending Romance to none. What could be superior to it, when nothing has a higher place? What could claim a higher place, when it is the consummation of all things? What virtue can be attrib uted to anyone who does not seek? What boundary can be set for anyone who does seek him? The psalmist says: "Seek his face always." Nor, I think, will a soul cease to seek him even when it has found him.

It is not with steps of the feet that God is sought but with the desire of the heart. When we happily find him our desire is not quenched but kindled. Does the consummation of joy bring about the consuming of desire? Rather it is oil poured upon the flames. So it is. There will be a fullness of joy, but there will be no end to desire and therefore no end to the search. Think, if you can, of this eagerness to see God as not caused by his absence, for he is always present. And think of the desire for God as without fear of failure, for grace is abundantly present.

Now see why I have begun in this way. Surely so that every soul among you who is seeking God may know that you have been forestalled and that you were found before you were seeking. This will avoid distorting your greatest good into a great evil. For this is what we do when we receive favors from God and treat his gifts as though they were ours by right not giving glory to God. Thus those who appear great because of the favors they have received are accounted as little before God because they have not given him thanks.

But I am understating the case. The words I have used:

"great" and "little" are inadequate to express my meaning and confuse the issue. I will make myself clear. I should have said "good" and "evil. " For if a person who is very good takes the credit for his or her goodness, that one becomes correspondingly evil. For this is a very evil thing. If anyone says, "Far be it from me! I know that it is by the grace of God I am what I am, " and then seeks to take a little of the glory for the favor he or she has received, is that one not a

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thief and a robber? Such will bear these words: " Out of your own mouth I judge you, wicked servant. " What is more wicked than for a servant to usurp the glory due the Master?

(On the Song of Songs 84:1 f) "I sought him whom my soul loves" — that is what you are urged to do by the goodness of him who anticipates you, who sought you, and loved you before you loved him. You would not seek him or love him unless you had first been sought and loved. Not only in one blessing have you been forestalled but in two: being loved and in being sought. For love is the reason for the search and the search is the fruit of love and its certain proof. You are loved so that you may not suppose you are sought to be punished. You are sought so that you may not complain you are loved in vain. Both these loving and manifest favors give you courage and drive away your diffidence, persuading you to return and stirring your affections. From this comes the zeal and ardor to seek him whom your soul loves, because you cannot seek unless you are sought, and when you are sought you cannot but seek.

(On the Song of Songs 84:5) Happy the mind which had clothed itself in the beauty of holiness and the brightness of innocence, by which it manifests its glorious likeness, not to the world but to the Word, of whom we read that he is the brightness of eternal life, the splendor and image of the being of God.

The soul which had attained this degree now ventures to think of marriage. Why should she not, when she sees that she is like him and therefore ready for marriage? His loftiness has no terrors for her, because her likeness to him associates her with him, and her declaration of love is a betrothal. This is the form of that declaration: "I have sworn and I propose to keep your righteous judgments." The

A Never Ending Romance apostles followed this when they said, "See, we have left everything to follow you." There is a similar saying which, pointing to the spiritual marriage between Christ and the Church, refers to physical marriage: "For this shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they two shall be one flesh." The prophet [David] says of the bride's glory: "It is good to me to cling to good, and to put my hope in the Lord." When you see a soul leaving everything and clinging to the Word with all her will and desire, living for the Word, ruling her life by the Word, conceiving by the Word what it will bring forth by him, so that she can say "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain," you know that the soul is the spouse and bride of the Word.

The heart of the Bridegroom has faith in her, knowing her to be faithful, for she has rejected all things as dross to gain him. He knows her to be like him of whom it was said, "He is a chosen vessel for me." Paul's soul, indeed, was like a tender mother and a faithful wife when he said, "My little children, with whom 1 travail in birth again, until Christ shall be formed in you."

But notice that in spiritual marriage there are two kinds of birth and thus two kinds of offspring, though not in opposition to one another. For spiritual persons, like holy mothers, may bring souls to birth by preaching or may give birth to spiritual insights by meditation. In this latter kind of birth the soul leaves even its bodily senses and is sepa rated from them so that in her awareness of the Word she is not aware of herself. This happens when the mind is enraptured by the unutterable sweetness of the Word, so that it withdraws or rather is transported and escapes from itself to enjoy the Word. The soul is affected in one way when it is made fruitful by the Word, in another when it enjoys the Word. In the one it is considering the needs of its neighbor, in the other it is allured by the sweetness of the Word. A mother is happy in her child, a bride is even

A Never Ending Romance happier in her bridegroom's embrace. The children are dear, they are pledges of his love, but his kisses give her greater pleasure. It is good to have many souls, but there is far more pleasure in going aside to be with the Word. But when does this happen and for how long? It is sweet intercourse but lasts a short time and is experienced rarely. This is what I spoke of before when I said that the final reason for the soul to seek the Word was to enjoy him in bliss.

There may be someone who will go on to ask me, "What does it mean to enjoy the Word?" I would answer that that one must find someone who has experience of it and ask that person. Do you suppose if I were granted the experi ence that I could describe to you what is beyond descrip tion? Listen to one who has known it: "If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you." That is to say, it is one thing for me to be with God, and of that, God alone is the judge. It is another for me to be with you. I may have been granted this experience, but I do not speak of it. I have made allowance in what I have said, so that you could understand me. Oh, whoever is curious to know what it means to enjoy the Word, make ready your mind not your ear! The tongue does not teach this, grace does. It is hidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to children. Humility, my brothers and sisters, is a great virtue, great and sublime. It can attain to what it cannot learn, it is counted worthy to possess what it has not the power to possess. It is worthy to conceive by the Word and from the Word what it cannot itself explain in words. Why is this? Not because it deserves to do so, but because it pleases the Father of the Word, the Bridegroom of the soul, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God above all, blessed for ever. Amen.

(On the Song of Songs 85:11)

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father To consent is to be saved.

(Grace and Free Choice 2) Believe me, who have experience, you will find much more laboring among the woods than you ever will among books. Woods and stones will teach you what you can never hear from any professor.

(Letters 101:2) Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God's loving kindness.

(On the Song of Songs 11:2) If you work willingly and persevere in producing results, you will receive the reward of your labor. If you do otherwise

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father your talent will be taken from you, but the interest will still be demanded and you will suffer the fate of a dishonest and lazy worker.

(On the Song of Songs 13:7) If things always went wrong, no one could endure it; if they always went well, one would become arrogant.

(Letters 149:2) How well self-discipline composes the whole bearing of a maiden's body and the temper of her mind.

(Letters 113:5) You cannot drink from the cup of Christ and the cup of demons. The cup of demons is pride; the cup of demons is slander and envy, the cup of demons is debauchery and drunkenness, and when these fill the mind and body there is no room for Christ.

(Letters 2:10) Easily they love more who know themselves to be loved more.

(On Loving God 7) God not only gives me myself, he also gives me himself.

In his first work he gave me myself; in his second work he

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father

gave me himself; when he gave me himself, he gave me back myself.

(On Loving God 15) God is not loved without a reward, although he should be loved without regard for one.

(On Loving God 17) True love is content with itself; it has its reward, the object of its love. Whatever you seem to love because of something else, you do not really love; you really love the end pursued and not that by which it is pursued.

(On Loving God 17) True love merits its reward, it does not seek it.

(On Loving God 1 7) The soul that loves God seeks no other reward than that God whom it loves.

(On Loving God 17) The very law of our cupidity makes us want what we lack in place of what we have and grow weaiy of what we have in preference to what we lack.

(On Loving God 19)

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father The desire to experience all things is like a vicious circle, it goes on forever.

(On Loving God 20) Justice is the vital, natural food of the rational soul; money can no more lessen its hunger than air can that of the body.

(On Loving God 21) God makes you desire, he is what you desire.

(On Loving God 21) God gave himself to merit for us, he keeps himself to be our reward.

(On Loving God 22) O Lord, you are so good to the soul who seeks you, what must you be to the one who finds you?

(On Loving God 22) To lose yourself, as if you no longer existed, to cease completely to experience yourself, to reduce yourself to nothing is not a human sentiment, it is a heavenly experi ence.

(On Loving God 27)

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father

As a drop of water seems to disappear completely in a chalice of wine, taking on the wine's taste and color; as the fiery molten iron becomes so like the fire that it leaves behind its own proper form; as air filled with sunlight takes on the very clarity of the light so that it seems to be not so much lit up as to be light itself, so in the holy it is necessary that every human affection in some ineffable way will melt and flow totally into the will of God.

(On Loving God 28) One can confess that the Lord is powerful, and one can confess that the Lord is good to him, and again one can confess that the Lord is simply good. The first is a slave, he fears for himself; the second is a hireling, he covets for himself; the third is a son, he honors his father. The first two seek something for themselves. Only in the son, who does not seek for himself, is found love.

(On Loving God 34) Whoever is curious to know what it means to enjoy the Word, make ready your mind not your ear! The tongue does not teach this, grace does.

(On the Song of Songs 85:14) Help me out of your abundance if you have it; if not, then spare yourself the trouble.

(On the Song of Songs 18:4)

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father We have received from God as part of our natural condition how to will, how to fear and how to love. In this we are creatures. But how to will the good and how to fear

God and how to love God we receive with grace's touch. In this we are creatures of God.

(Grace and Free Choice 17) Free will makes us our own; bad will, the devil's; and good will, God's.

(Grace and Free Choice 18) The only ones who can instruct brothers and sisters are those who are merciful, those who are meek and humble.

(The Steps of Fiumility and Pride 13) We can be as indulgent as we like for ourselves providing we remember our neighbor has the same rights.

(On Loving God 23) If you are a stranger to yourself, to whom are you not?

If a person is no use to himself, to whom is he useful?

(On Consideration 1:6) You cannot suddenly correct every error at once or reduce excesses to moderation. There will be an opportunity at the proper time for you to pursue this little by little, according to the wisdom given by God.

(On Consideration 1:12)

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father

This is exactly how the human heart behaves: what we know when it is not necessary, we forget in time of need.

(On Consideration 2:2) In acquiring salvation, no one should be closer to you as a brother than the only son of your mother.

(On Consideration 2:6) If you are wise, you will be content with the measure that God has apportioned you.

(On Consideration 2:9) They are totally deficient who think they are in no way deficient.

(On Consideration 2:14) Hold to the middle if you do not want to lose the mean.

(On Consideration 2:19) Every dwelling place beyond the mean is counted an exile by the wise one.

(On Consideration 2:19) Discretion is blinded by two things: anger and excessive softheartedness.

(On Consideration 2:20)

Words of Life from a Spiritual Father Those who possess, simply possess; those who love burn with zeal.

(On Consideration 3:9) A stream hollows out the land where it flows; so, the flow of temporal things erodes the conscience.

(On Consideration 4:20) In all things moderation is best.

(On Consideration 4:22) What is above is not taught through words but is revealed through the Spirit.

(On Consideration 5:5)

Chronology Note: Not all of Bernard's works can be dated with certainty. The dates given here are those the editor judges most probable.

1090 Bernard is born at Fontaines-les-Dijon in Burgundy.

1098 Robert of Molesme with his prior Alberic, subprior Stephen, and nineteen others found Citeaux, March

21.

1103 Bernard's mother Aleth dies.

1109 Alberic dies and Stephen becomes abbot of Citeaux.

1112 Bernard enters Citeaux with thirty relatives and friends.

1115 Bernard founds Clairvaux with twelve other monks.

1118 Bernard sends his first group from Clairvaux to found Trois Fontaines. By the time of Bernard's death

Clairvaux would have sixty-eight filiations.

Bernard is isolated from the community for a year.

1119 Bernard's father Tescelin enters Clairvaux shortly before his death.

Pope Calixtus II confirms the Carta Caritatis.

Chronology 1 123 Bernard publishes his first work, In Praise of the Virgin Mary.

1 124 Bernard writes The Steps of Humility and Pride for Godfrey of Langres, Abbot of Fontenay.

1 125 Bernard writes his Apologia for William of St. Thierry.

1 126 Cardinal Haimeric is named chancellor of the Holy Roman Church. Bernard writes On Loving God for him.

1 128 Synod of Troyes. Bernard promotes the approbation of the Knights of the Temple and writes for them In Praise of the New Knighthood.

Bernard writes On Grace and Free Will for William of St. Thierry.

1 130 Election of Innocent II and an antipope. Bernard works eight years to heal this schism.

1131 Pope Innocent II visits Clairvaux.

1132 Bernard sent a group of monks to found Rievaulx in England.

1133 Bernard enters Rome with Innocent II. Lothar is crowned emperor.

1134 Abbot Stephen Harding of Citeaux dies.

1135 Council of Pisa. Excommunication of the antipope.

Bernard begins his sermons on the Song of Songs. He would complete eighty-six sermons in this series be fore his death.

1137 Louis VII becomes king of France.

1 138 End of the papal schism. Conrad III becomes em peror.

1 139 Malachy, Archbishop of Armagh, comes to Clairvaux.

Later he would return to die in his friend's arms (1148). Bernard writes his Life of Saint Malachy.

1 140 Bernard speaks to the clerics at Paris and then writes On the Conversion of Clerics.

Chronology

Council of Sens. Condemnation of Peter Abelard.

Bernard writes Against the Errors of Peter Abelard.

1143 Bernard responds to two Benedictines with On Pre cepts and Dispensations.

1 145 Bernard's spiritual son is elected Pope Eugene III.

1 146 Bernard begins to preach the Second Crusade at Vezelay.

Bernard defends the Jews in the Rhineland.

Diet of Spires.

1 147 Pope Eugene III visits Clairvaux.

1149 Bernard begins his five books On Consideration for Pope Eugene III.

1153 Bernard dies at Clairvaux, August 20.

1174 Bernard is canonized by Pope Alexander III, Janaury 18.

Select Bibliography Bernard of Clairvaux. The Works of Bernard of Clairvaux, tr. Michael

Casey et. al. (Spencer MA - Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1969—). Sermons on the Song of Songs, 4 vols.

Sermons for the Summer Season Sermons on Conversion On Conversion to Clerics Lenten Sermons on the Psalm "He Who Dwells"

Treatises, 3 vols.

Apologia to Abbot William On Precept and Dispensation On Loving God The Steps of Humility and Pride On Grace and Free Choice In Praise of the New Knighthood Homilies in Praise of the Blessed Virgin Maiy

Parables The Life os Saint Malachy Live Books on Consideration The Letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tr. Bruno Scott

James (London: Burns and Oates, 1953).

Casey, Michael. Athirst for God. Spiritual Desire in Bernard ofClairvaux's Sermons on the Song of Songs, Cistercian Studies Series 77 (Kalamazoo ML

Cistercian Publications, 1987).

Cristiani, Leon. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tr. M. Angeline Bouchard (Boston MA: St. Paul Editions, 1977).

Daniel-Rops, Henri. Bernard of Claiimaux, tr. Elizabeth Abbott (New York: Hawthorn, 1964).

Select Bibliography 13 5 Diemer, Paul. Love Without Measure. Extracts From the Writings of St.

Bernard of Clairvaux, (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990).

Evans, G. R. The Mind of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).

Gilson, Etienne. The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, tr. A. H. C.

Downes (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990).

Hufgard, M. Kilian. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. A Theory of Art Formu lated from His Writings and Illustrated in Twelfth-Century Works of Art,

Mediaeval Studies 2 (Lewiston NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989).

Leclercq, Jean. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercian Spirit, Cistercian Studies Series 16 (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1975).

_.A Second Look at Saint Bernard, Cistercian Studies Series 105 (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1990).

_. Women and Saint Bernard, Cistercian Studies Series 104 (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1989).

McGuire, Brian Patrick. The Difficult Saint: Saint Bernard and His Times, Cistercian Studies Series (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications,

1991).

Merton, Thomas. The Last of the Fathers, (New York: Harcourt Brace <Sc World, 1954). This volume includes a translation of Pope Pius XII's encyclical Mellifluus Doctor.

_. Thomas Merton on Saint Bernard, (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1980).

Pennington, M. Basil. Last of the Fathers. The Cistercian Fathers of the Twelfth Century, (Still River MA: St. Bede's, 1983).

_. Bernard of Clairvaux. A Saint's Life in Word and Image, (Huntington IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1994).

Pennington, M. Basil, ed., Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Studies Commemo rating the Eighth Centenary of his Canonization, Cistercian Studies Series 28

(Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1977).

Pranger, M. B. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Shape of Monastic Thoughts:

Broken Dreams, (Leiden: Brill, 1994).

Sommerfeldt, John R. The Spiritual Teaching of Saint Bernard, Cister cian Studies Series 125 (Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications, 1995).

William of Saint Thierry. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tr. Geoffrey Webb and Adrian Walker (Westminster MD: Newman, 1960).

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My Brother, Daily We Touch Him, and A Place Apart.

ISBN 1-56548-089-9

5089 5 781565 48 896 New City Press

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