felix hominum

lenten series: Bernard of Clairvaux On Loving God, pt 5

So then in the beginning man loves God, not for God's sake, but for his own. It is something for him to know how little he can do by himself and how much by God's help, and in that knowledge to order himself rightly towards God, his sure support.

But when tribulations, recurring again and again, constrain him to turn to God for unfailing help, would not even a heart as hard as iron, as cold as marble, be softened by the goodness of such a Savior, so that he would love God not altogether selfishly, but because He is God?

Bernard of Clairvaux - On Loving God ch. ix

In the first degree of love, we love God for "self's sake".  That is, we love God for what God can do for us.  We are pleased to receive God's benefits and blessings, and as we do so we are drawn to love Him.  But will we still love God when "tribulations, recurring again and again" break upon us? This is the movement from loving God because of His benefits presently enjoyed, to loving God because of His care for us in the midst of troubles.  As Bernard puts it, can we begin to love God simply "because He is God"?

Bernard also gives us a way of approaching hardships in life.  They are redeemable in that we begin to seek God despite them.  It is analogous to the marriage vow of loving "for better, for worse".  The test of love does not come in the better, in comes in the worse.  The analogy breaks down when we realize that it is not the Beloved who has become worse, only the circumstances of our lives.  It is God's presence in hardship and despite hardship which begins to fashion in us a newer and deeper degree of love. 

Let frequent troubles drive us to frequent supplications; and surely, tasting, we must see how gracious the Lord is (Ps. 34.8). Thereupon His goodness once realized draws us to love Him unselfishly, yet more than our own needs impel us to love Him selfishly: even as the Samaritans told the woman who announced that it was Christ who was at the well: `Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the savior of the world' (John 4.42). 

This is a fairly interesting use of the story of the woman at the well.  In a figurative interpretation, Bernard says that our "need" functions like the woman - they announce to us the presence of Christ. Then a deeper part of us replies that we can see and love God better; not simply because our needs announced that they were being looked after.  Loving God for the sake of our "needs" impels us to love selfishly;  we will love only as long as our "needs" are met.  But as God meets those needs He also draws us onward in a place of "troubles".

I don't find it clear from the text that God creates the troubles, merely that He uses them for this higher purpose.  Nor is it clear that God's response is merely to change our circumstances again to what they were.  Rather, the goal seems to be to recognize God's goodness in the midst of hardships.  And I might say, from my own limited experience, that is quite a leap to make.  But worth it if it is made...

Lenten post series on Bernard of Clairvaux here

Which, btw, seems to missing post #4, but that is a mystery which I will need to address another time...

Bernard of Clairvaux - On Loving God, pt 3

Chapter V

Of the Christian's debt of love, how great it is

From the contemplation of what has been said, we see plainly that God is to be loved, and that He has a just claim upon our love. But the infidel does not acknowledge the Son of God, and so he can know neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit; for he that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father which sent Him, nor the Spirit whom He hath sent (John 5.23). He knows less of God than we; no wonder that he loves God less.

Or, to put it in a positive way, the degree to which one truly loves is dependent upon the degree to which one truly knows the object of love.  For Bernard, loving God more fully involves knowing God more fully - as Father, Son & Spirit.  Now I tend to agree with Bernard on this point.  We use the word "love" in such a variety of ways, but my suspicion is that for many it has a modern-romantic connotation which reduces it to a certain kind of feeling.  In this case we are talking about Bernard's first degree of love, in which we love for what we can get out of it.  This is not necessarily a bad beginning point, but it is only a beginning point.

I am reminded of the variety of young couples with whom I've discussed marriage.  In many ways, such a venture is really committing yourself to an "unknown";  you can only more fully love as you more fully come to know the beloved.  It is at this beginning stage, this first degree, that there is plenty of opportunity for "errors in loving", if I can use the phrase.  For I might love partly the real beloved, and partly my illusion or impression or constructed version of the beloved.  It is as true of human beloveds as of the Divine Beloved.  I may love God in part, and then in part I may love my mistaken understanding of God, or my illusion or impression of who God is.  Growth in love is tied to knowing - truly - the Beloved.

It is this sort of thing which is meant in the promise that we will know fully, even as we are fully known.  This deeper knowing which is part of deeper loving is not a modernist "knowledge", in the sense of information about a subject.  Bernard uses extensive imagery from the Song of Solomon in this treatise;  this is an intimate knowing. 

all posts in lenten series: Bernard of Clairvaux here

lenten series: Bernard of Clairvaux - On Loving God pt 2

Text online at CCEL

Why should anyone love God?  Why should you or I love God?  This is the question which provides the starting point for Bernard of Clairvaux's treatment of love.  There is a movement, a growth in love, according to Bernard of Claivaux.  We begin love in a rather "self-serving" fashion, and by grace we progress to there we realize that "the reason for loving God is God Himself". 

You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much. I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. Is this plain? Doubtless, to a thoughtful man; but I am debtor to the unwise also. A word to the wise is sufficient; but I must consider simple folk too. Therefore I set myself joyfully to explain more in detail what is meant above.

It is interesting that Bernard takes into account a self-serving beginning point on our part.  Loving God is both reasonable and profitable.  Now neither one of those considerations might appeal to us.  Those who are familiar with the prosperity gospel might cringe at the second, and fans of Dawkins would cringe at the first.  Loving God as something "reasonable" - ultimately rational, yes, but also reasonable in the sense that this activity is proper to our nature.  And profitable?  Well, we might conjure up the image of Jesus lamenting that the crowds were following him because they had their fill of the loaves, not because they wanted to become his followers.  Our culture might be more susceptible to seek God for the wrong kind of "profit" - a purely material gain.  But as Bernard points out, the greatest gift which God gives to us is simply God Himself

We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable. When one asks, Why should I love God? he may mean, What is lovely in God? or What shall I gain by loving God? In either case, the same sufficient cause of love exists, namely, God Himself.

And first, of His title to our love. Could any title be greater than this, that He gave Himself for us unworthy wretches? And being God, what better gift could He offer than Himself? Hence, if one seeks for God's claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us (I John 4:19).

Chapter 1

This then is the beginning point - we love something or someone because of their "loveliness", or because of what we can gain from loving them.  This dynamic is often all too apparent in human relationships.  Whether such a beginning point is flawed I leave for others to decide. Bernard refers to this kind of loving in chapter VIII, wherein "a man love's God for self's sake".  However, it is a deficiency of love to let it remain at that level.  The goal is to love for the pure sake of the beloved.

all posts in lenten series: Bernard of Clairvaux here

Bernard of Clairvaux - On Loving God, chapter 1

"Have a miserable Lent."  I'm trying to make that the new greeting for the season, sort of a go-between to "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Easter"

This year's Lenten series will focus on Bernard of Clairvaux's vision of the 4 stages of love as found in his work "On Loving God".  The work itself is not overly long - more like an extended essay.  But it should be read slowly and deeply and prayerfully.

The best way to read an older text is just to read it.  There are many other aids and commentaries and such out there, but I suggest it that it would be a mistake to begin with the commentaries rather than the original.  I'll add some comments as we go along...

free mp3 @ Books should be free

plain text at CCEL

Latin text here

You want me to tell you why God is to be loved and how much. I answer, the reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. Is this plain? Doubtless, to a thoughtful man; but I am debtor to the unwise also. A word to the wise is sufficient; but I must consider simple folk too. Therefore I set myself joyfully to explain more in detail what is meant above.

We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable. When one asks, Why should I love God? he may mean, What is lovely in God? or What shall I gain by loving God? In either case, the same sufficient cause of love exists, namely, God Himself.

And first, of His title to our love. Could any title be greater than this, that He gave Himself for us unworthy wretches? And being God, what better gift could He offer than Himself? Hence, if one seeks for God's claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us (I John 4:19).

Ought He not to be loved in return, when we think who loved, whom He loved, and how much He loved? For who is He that loved? The same of whom every spirit testifies: 'Thou art my God: my goods are nothing unto Thee' (Ps. 16:2, Vulg.). And is not His love that wonderful charity which 'seeketh not her own'? (I Cor.13:5). But for whom was such unutterable love made manifest? The apostle tells us: 'When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son' (Rom. 5:10). So it was God who loved us, loved us freely, and loved us while yet we were enemies. And how great was this love of His? St. John answers: 'God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life' (John 3:16). St. Paul adds: 'He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all' (Rom. 8:32); and the son says of Himself, 'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (John 15:13).

This is the claim which God the holy, the supreme, the omnipotent, has upon men, defiled and base and weak. Some one may urge that this is true of mankind, but not of angels. True, since for angels it was not needful. He who succored men in their time of need, preserved angels from such need; and even as His love for sinful men wrought wondrously in them so that they should not remain sinful, so that same love which in equal measure He poured out upon angels kept them altogether free from sin.

all posts in lenten series: Bernard of Clairvaux here