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

knowledge and contempt of himself, his brothers, and God. Here, in On Conversion, he
shows how the life of conversion restores the soul to the true knowledge and genuine
love of each.
So reconciled to itself, its neighbors, and God, and with its memory purified by
Christ’s mercy, the converted soul is now prepared for the contemplative vision of God
promised in the sixth beatitude, “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they will see God” (Mt
5:8). In his commentary on this vision, Bernard follows the mystical tradition in
affirming that this glimpse of the Bridegroom remains imperfect in this life. When a
speck is removed from the physical eye, the eye is not immediately healed, but must be
progressively washed to restore its former sight. In the same way, the abbot suggests, the
soul’s eye must be progressively washed of sin by an ongoing, indeed lifelong, practice
of conversion.
Yet through this life of conversion, the soul is gradually renewed in the lost divine
likeness and so comes by stages to an ever clearer contemplative vision. Limited though
this vision may be, it is nevertheless, Bernard insists, the soul’s confirmatio or assurance.
For as the soul begins to glimpse God, it is able to take to itself John’s confidence in
saying, “We are God’s children now. It does not yet appear what we will be, but we
know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). Conflating two of
his most cherished verses, Bernard concludes: “Now we see in a mirror dimly, but in the
future we will see face to face (1 Cor 13:12), and once our face has been perfectly
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