MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM HIS: SELF-KNOWLEDGE IN THE ...

difficult to see how Bernard can here be describing the unitive way when the will remains
as yet unconverted; he seems, on the contrary, to reserve the soul’s contemplative vision
of God to later in the soul’s ascent when, with will rectified and the memory purified, it
hears the divine Voice announce the sixth beatitude, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for
they will see God” (Mt 5:9).
Further, a study of Conv 25, in which Bernard describes the soul’s present vision
in greater depth, suggests that the serenissimi luminis claritas the soul espies within the
monastic garden is not so much the light of the Bridegroom as the light of his Bride.
Within this garden, Bernard writes, reason sees that “the Bride’s nard gives forth its most
fragrant scent.” 289 There follows a richly textured account of the Bride’s revitalized
spiritual senses and their corresponding virtues, concluding with the spiritual senses of
taste and touch: “There she eagerly enjoys a foretaste of the incomparable delights of
charity and, once the thorns and briers which once pierced her have been burned away,
her soul is anointed with the balm of mercy and rests happily in her good conscience.” 290
Bernard hastens to add that what reason here sees is not the future reward promised the
Bride in heavenly glory, but the wages she earns here and now in her temporal life.
These wages are the Bride’s wisdom which, Bernard insists, can be taught only by the
Spirit and is to be found not in books, but only by experience.
In effect, the radiant light Bernard has the soul glimpses within the paradise of the
cloister is the radiant light of the Bride’s peaceful self-awareness, the rest in good
289 Conv 25 (IV, 99): “Illic nardus sponsae fragrantissimum praestat odorem.”
290 Conv 25 (IV, 99): “Ibi avidissime praelibantur incomparabiles deliciae caritatis et, succisis
spinis ac vepribus, quibus antea pungebatur, unctione misericordiae perfusus animus in conscientia bona
feliciter requiescit.”
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