Our Need for God's Help oo
Our Need for God's Help To know who we are, and to recognise our helplessness in the work of personal renewal is not enough. There has to be a cry from the heart to the Lord, 'I can't, you must', followed by a decision of the will to put our life in God's hands. Like the father of the Prodigal he is already running to meet us. We would not be seeking him at all unless he had first sought and loved us, unless he had nudged us, drawn us on to seek and to return home to the closest union with him.
While we were still sinners God first loved us.
This is the basis not only of Bernard's Cistercian mysticism, but of Christian mysticism itself.
Renewal Do not then, pin your hopes on ephemeral well-being, but cry to God and say: 'Do not desert me when my strength is failing.' You will ride above the vicissitudes of good and evil times with the poise of one sustained by values that are eternal, with the enduring equanimity of the man of faith who thanks God in every circumstance. Even amid the changing events and shortcomings of this world you will ensure for yourself a life of stability, provided you are renewed and reformed according to the glorious and original plan of the eternal God, the like of him in whom there is no shadow of a change.
Even in this world you will become as he is: neither dismayed by adversity nor dissolute in prosperity. Living thus, this noble creature, made to the image and likeness of his Creator, indicates that even now he is re-acquiring the dignity of that primal honour, since he deems it unworthy to be conformed to a world that is waning. Instead he strives to be re-formed by the renewal of his mind, aiming to achieve that likeness in which he knows he was created. This purpose of his compels the world itself, which was made for him to become conformed to him and co-operate for his good.
God Gives Us the Power The soul seeks the Word, but has been first sought by the Word. Otherwise when she had gone away from the Word, or been cast out, she would not turn back to look upon the good she had left unless she were sought by the Word. For if a soul is left to herself she is like a wandering spirit which does not return. Listen to someone who was a fugitive and a wanderer: 'I have gone astray as a sheep that was lost. O seek your servant.'
Do you want to return? But if it is a matter of your own will, why do you ask for help? Clearly because one cannot do it alone. If a soul desires to return and asks to be sought, whence does it obtain this desire? If I am not mistaken, it is the result of the soul being already sought and visited by God. And his seeking has not been fruitless, because it has activated the will, without which there could be no return.
But the soul is so feeble and the return so difficult, that it is not enough to be sought only once. The soul may have the will to return, but the will cannot act unless it has some supporting power. So the psalmist prays, "O seek your servant'; he is asking that the God who had given him the will to seek, might also give him the power to do so.
The Search for God The soul rises and goes about the city, and seeks her beloved through the streets and squares. Let her seek him as she can provided she remembers that she was first sought, just as she was first loved.
It is because of this that she herself both seeks and loves. Let us also pray, brethren, that his mercies may go before us, for our need is great. 'I sought him whom my soul loves' — this is what you are urged to do by the goodness of him who awaits 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 as well as being sought. For the love is the reason for the search, and the search is the fruit of the love, and its certain proof.
You are loved, so do 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 favours should give you courage, and drive away your diffidence, persuading you to return, and stirring your affections. From this comes the zeal to seek him whom your soul loves, because you cannot seek unless you are sought, and when you are sought you cannot but seek.
Returning to God Do you have the effrontery, the insolence, to return to him whom you spurned in your arrogance? It will be a wonder if you do not meet the judge rather than the bridegroom.
'I do not fear, because I love; and I could not love at all if I were not loved.' One who is loved has nothing to fear. Let those fear who do not love. Since I love, I cannot doubt that I am loved, any more that I can doubt that I love. Nor can
I fear to look upon his face, since I have sensed his tenderness.
In what way? In this — not only has he sought me as I am, but he has shown me tenderness, and caused me to seek him with confidence. How can he be angry with me for seeking him, when he overlooked the contempt I showed for him?
He will not drive away someone who seeks him, when he actually sought someone who spurned him.
The spirit of the Word is gentle, he searches the deep things of God, and knows his thoughts — thoughts of peace and not of vengeance. How can I fail to be inspired to seek him, when I have experienced his mercy and been assured of his peace? Brothers, to realise this is to be taught by the Word; to be convinced of it is to be found.
The Goodness of God If this horrible fear should ever besiege your heart, silently suggesting that your worship of God is not acceptable and that your repentance is fruitless because you cannot correct the matter in which you have offended him, do not for one moment give way to it, but answer it faithfully by saying to yourself: I have done evil, but it is done and cannot be undone. Who can tell whether God has not foreseen that it would profit me, that he who is good has not wished that good should accrue to me out of the evil I have done? May he punish me for what I have done amiss, but let the good he has provided for me remain.
The goodness of God knows how to use our disordered wishes and actions, often lovingly turning them to our advantage. What loving care the divine goodness has for us! Never does it cease to pour forth its blessings, not only where it can see nothing to deserve them, but often where it sees everything to the contrary!
I wish you to fear in order that you may repent. Not to fear, so that you may presume. To presume so that you do not lose heart. Not to presume so that you become slothful.
To be Re-formed by the Word There is a great natural gift within us, and if it is not allowed full play the rest of our nature will go to ruin, as though it were being eaten away by the rust of decay. This would be an insult to its Creator. This is why God, its Creator, desires the divine glory and nobility to be always preserved in the soul, so that it may have within itself that by which it may always be admonished by the Word, either to stay with him or to return to him if it has strayed.
It does not stray by changing its place or by walking, but it strays in its affections or rather in its defections, and it becomes unlike itself when it becomes unlike him through its way of life. But this unlikeness is not the destruction of its nature but a defect, for natural goodness is increased as much by comparison with itself as it is spoiled by communication with evil.
So the soul returns and is converted to the Word to be reformed by him and conformed to him. In what way? In charity — For he says, 'Be imitators of God, like dear children and walk in love, as Christ also has loved you.'
The Help of the Word 'Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?' If anyone aspires to reach the summit of that mountain, the perfection of virtue, he will know how hard the climb is. and how the attempt is doomed to failure without the help of the Word.
Unless it leans on him, its struggle is in vain. But it will gain strength by struggling with itself and, becoming stronger, will impel all things towards reason: anger, fear, covetousness, and joy. Like a good driver, it will control the vehicle of the mind, bringing every carnal affection, and every sense under the control of reason in accordance with virtue.
Surely all things are possible to someone who leans upon him who can do all things? What confidence there is in the cry, 'I can do all things in him who strengthens me!' Nothing shows more clearly the almighty power of the Word than that he makes all-powerful all those who put their hope in him. For all things are possible to one who believes.
So, I say, neither power, nor treachery, nor lure, can overthrow or hold in subjection the mind which rests upon the Word and is clothed with strength from above.
The Bride of the Word The soul which has attained this degree of likeness to the Word 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 purpose to keep your righteous judgments.'
The Apostles followed this when they said, "See we have left everything to follow you.'
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 what the Word will bring forth by her, 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.