Reflecting and Responding

Reflecting and Responding

Bernard of Clairvaux

The Desire for God and the Ascent of Pure Love

I promise to tell you only what God will give me to say about loving him. This subject is more profitable than any other.

LOVING GOD

BETWEEN THE CLOSE OF AUGUSTINE’S LIFE and the opening of the Crusades, some of the most significant shifts in the history of Western civilization occurred. First, the fledgling Christian church was facing new opposition on virtually every major societal front. In the seventh century Mohammad initiated religious reforms that would culminate in the rise of Islam. He died shortly thereafter, in 632, but within eighty years of his death major Christian centers came to be dominated by this new faith. Damascus fell immediately in 634 and Jerusalem fell soon after in 638. By the end of the seventh century Carthage had become Muslim, and as the eighth century opened the Straits of Gibraltar and the vast lands on both sides of the mouth of the Mediterranean were Muslim as well.

Coinciding with these new religious and political movements was a dramatic urban reversal. Between 400 and 800, huge numbers of people left the cities and returned to the agrarian countryside. At the same time, theological concerns were developing over the nature of Christ, the role and importance of penance and the formalization of the Mass. These latter developments eventually led to the end of the use of vernacular languages in worship as the church, now centralized in Rome, instituted Latin as the standard language instead.

This social, political and cultural climate cut the nerve of spiritual development, which resulted in a dearth of spiritual writers during the Middle Ages. Despite these setbacks, however, God was preserving a remnant. Eventually a smattering of saints arose to rally the faithful and provide a compelling witness to Jesus Christ. One of these was Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), a legendary spokesman of the faith and one of the great Christian saints between Augustine and Aquinas.

Bernard’s influence is remarkable. His interests ranged from biblical studies and theology to literature and political thought. Like Augustine before him, Bernard believed that we always love but we do not always love properly. Since love orders desire, the way we love directly influences how we attempt to satisfy our fundamental longings. Thus, what we desire to know shapes what we come to love, and what we love influences what we come to know.

Bernard is reported to have written numerous treatises that have been lost or destroyed, but the core of his spiritual writings is still intact. He lived during a period of great cultural renaissance in Western Europe. The twelfth century saw the rise of the troubadours and the emergence of courtly love. This context and Bernard’s own inclinations combined to forge a love-mysticism theology unparalleled in Christian history. His commitment to the right ordering of our love of God is best reflected in two distinct works: The Steps of Humility and Pride and On Loving God.

In The Steps of Humility and Pride, Bernard identifies twelve degrees of spiritual decline and twelve degrees of spiritual progress.

These steps—both of decline and of progress—are filled with insight into the human condition. The steps of decline begin with a contempt for our neighbor, lead to a contempt for those God places over us, and end in utter contempt for God and the complete alienation of our soul. Conversely, the steps of progress begin with learning to love our neighbor, migrate through gaining respect for those God places in authority over us and results in a full understanding of our life with God. The reason these insights are so vital for today is that so many people are making life- limiting moves simply because of the inability to embrace the God-given order and design for life.

Steps of Decline

The decline begins when our soul deteriorates through three major kinds of contempt, according to Bernard. First, it deteriorates when we hold a spirit of contempt for our neighbor. Bernard divides this process into six steps: curiosity about the affairs of others, light-mindedness, foolish merriment, boasting, trying to be different and arrogance. Each of these attitudes demonstrates a lack of love of neighbor.

BERNARD’S TWELVE STEPS OF SPIRITUAL DEMISE

Loss of love of neighbor

Considering these qualities in more depth, we begin with curiosity. Curiosity about the affairs of others causes us to gossip. In other words, we aren’t interested in people because we want to help them, but only so we can gain information to share with others. Continuing down the list, light-mindedness reflects an inability to discern weighty matters from trivial concerns. Foolish merriment is the pursuit of pleasure for the sole purpose of being distracted from life. Boasting is a result of spending too much time comparing ourselves to others and not enough time learning how to love them. Trying to be different and arrogance reveal an excessive regard for ourselves.

Next, the soul deteriorates as it experiences contempt for superiors. Here, presumption, self-justification, insincere confession and rebellion keep us from submitting to earthly authorities. An unwillingness to submit to our earthly authorities prevents us from submitting to God.

This provocative teaching goes to the heart of one of the greatest challenges we face in our life with God. We really do have trouble accepting the guidance of others. We presume to know enough to reject their input; we self-justify, explaining away our own misbehavior while condemning that of others. Ultimately, our spiritual life hinges on our ability to submit to powers and authorities outside ourselves. The extent to which we can master this ability directly influences the extent to which we can submit to God.

The final steps of the soul’s descent reflect contempt for God. Here, feeling free to sin, utterly disregarding the Ten Commandments and developing habitual patterns of sin without remorse demonstrate contempt for God’s law. This lack of regard for God spells ruin for the human soul.

Bernard’s overarching concern is to help us recognize that when we fail to love our neighbor we ultimately fail to love God. There is no way to avoid it. We cannot express a pure love of God and ignore loving our neighbor. It is simply impossible.

Steps of Progress

By contrast, the twelve degrees of spiritual progress, or steps of humility, begin with a love of God and end in love of neighbor.

BERNARD’S TWELVE STEPS OF SPIRITUAL PROGRESS

Ascending to a state of perpetual humility begins in stages one and two with a constant watchfulness against sin. As we exercise moral constraint, spiritual progress begins. Stages three through seven demonstrate how to submit to our superiors through patience in the face of accusation, honesty in confessing our sin and taking the initiative to remove any manifestation of evil. In these stages, we exhibit a respect for the authorities who provide guidance for our spiritual life.

The final phase of ascent leads us to a full love of neighbor. In these levels we are humble in the face of others, refuse to assert any special rights, refrain from speaking unless asked, are reluctant to laugh, exercise restrained speech and limit our expectations. Clearly, the steps of spiritual progress reverse the steps of spiritual decline.

This list reminds us of the early influence of Stoicism on Christianity. Bernard is challenging us to shackle any hint of individual desire or ambition. We are not only to rechannel these personal desires but eventually to completely stamp them out. The only desires that matter are the ones that emanate from a love of God.

These steps of progress and decline illustrate the ways we come to abide in God and the ways in which we turn away from him. The pivotal point in all of our motivation is love. To amplify this point, Bernard emphasizes the power of God’s love and the incredible foundation we build when we love him.

Table 1.3. Bernard’s Ordering

Level

I

II

III

Loves

Carnal

Rational

Spiritual

Faculties

Desire of flesh

Intellect

Wisdom

Actions

Confession

Active love, devotion

Contemplation

Spiritual Activity

Purgation

Illumination

Union

Biblical Example

Martha

Lazarus

Mary

Learning to Love Properly

In his landmark work On Loving God, Bernard outlines our fourfold ascent to a perfect love of God. There are three degrees of love that correspond to the three levels of knowledge and a fourth degree that is rarely realized but gives us a glimpse of the eternal, uncreated love that we will enjoy in heaven.

First, Bernard begins with self-love. Part of human nature since the Fall has been the unrelenting capacity we have to love ourselves. But as Bernard notes and modern psychology confirms, this incessant egocentrism stifles moral progress and spiritual growth. Eventually, we awaken to our own mortality, and this awakening breaks the power of egocentrism.

Still, this awakening is not free of egocentrism altogether. The second stage is when we learn to love God for our own sake. At this point, we realize we will die so we seek eternal life through God. The primary motivation is self-preservation, not love of God, but we take this important step when we realize our ultimate destiny.

But then we begin to realize that God loves others as much as he loves us. This leads to the third stage and is a breakthrough. Here we learn to love God for God’s sake. Thanksgiving for who God is and what God does supersedes our own desire for self-preservation. The breaking of the power of egocentrism results in seeing the world in its true light. Other people and other things are no longer evaluated by their ability to satisfy our own desires. Now, because God is seen as a center of the universe distinct from ourselves, others are seen as centers of value distinct from ourselves as well.

The fourth and final stage, the one it seems can only be realized at the end of life, is coming to love ourselves in the way we are loved by God. This is difficult since the spirit of stage four is easily confused with the motivation of stage two. Coming to love ourselves the way God does is very different from coming to love God simply for self-preservation. Stage two is concerned with self-preservation; stage four is concerned with ubiquitous love.

REFLECTING AND RESPONDING

Growing up I always had a great love for Bernard simply because of the hymn attributed to him, “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee.” I was especially taken by lines three and four:

     O hope of every contrite heart, O joy of all the meek,

     To those who fall, how kind Thou art! How good to those who seek!

     But what to those who find? Ah, this. No tongue or pen can show;

     The love of Jesus, what it is. None but His loved ones know.

This hymn had all the themes of divine love, or so I thought. Then as my education expanded I learned that Bernard was a great champion of the Second Crusade in 1149. My young mind simply could not put these two together—this great hymn of love and the savagery of the Crusades. And while I have since learned more about the nuances of the historical, cultural and political realities of the twelfth century, I still cannot put the two together. No doubt all of us deal with deep inconsistencies in the moral life.

I always loved the motto of Bernard, “To know Jesus and Jesus crucified.” For me it was a motto that seemed to transcend the divisions of Catholic and Protestant and Orthodox. I still think it does. I always felt that his mystical devotion was well-stated, positive and based solely on love of God. Then, too, it was an intently practical mysticism, supremely reflected in the common sense counsel of his Steps of Humility and Pride. It always seemed so wise to me to see that we grow in humility by first learning to love God and that this will inevitably lead us to love our neighbor. And as we view our neighbor as better than ourselves, we do indeed enter humility of heart. We deteriorate into pride in exactly the opposite direction; we begin first to disregard our neighbor and this inevitably leads us to disregard God. This happens because we come to think of ourselves as the C.E.O. of the universe. So I find his practicality appealing.

Bernard’s great work, On Loving God, however, was a different story. Oh, I know it is psychologically sound and theologically profound, but I have always had a hard time “getting it.” Maybe my problem is that I can never arrive at the fourth degree of love (love of self for God’s sake) by anything even close to actual experience. I can understand it in an intellectual way, but it is like a distant horizon in my actual living. Loving myself in the same way that God loves me! I’m sorry, but that is a long way off. Even the third degree of love (love of God for God’s sake) only seems to come around now and again. Don’t get me wrong; I have had experiences of loving God . . . but there always seems to be a mixture of motives. To love God purely because God is who God is—well, like I say, such experiences are rare indeed. No doubt, all it means is that I simply have a long way to go in this matter of the right ordering of love.

Lord, we are a real mixture of motives when it comes to loving you. And when it comes to loving, period. Would you please purify the stream of our loving, at least to the extent that we can stand it? Thank you. Amen.

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