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

conformed to him. Then, through the mysteries of his ascent, the Word Incarnate
progressively transforms the soul’s love from a carnal to a spiritual love, gradually
leading the soul from the memory of Christ’s sufferings in the flesh to the contemplation
of his glorified presence. Finally, by his gift of the Spirit, Christ both strengthens souls to
successfully undertake their imitation of his journey and affords them with a pledge that
they are indeed being inwardly renewed in the lost divine likeness by his transformative
grace.
The Mysteries of Christ’s Descent and the Cultivation of Humility
In contemplating the mysteries of Christ’s descent, from his Advent to his
Passion, Bernard is first of all concerned to show how the Word’s taking flesh is intended
to recall fallen human beings from their curiosity, to expose their proud self-deception as
false, and to bring them to the humbling but salutary knowledge of their own miseria.
These themes are immediately evident in Bernard’s very first sermon for the First Sunday
of Advent. Here Bernard opens with an analysis of fallen humanity’s miserable
condition: “The unhappy sons of Adam have neglected to devote themselves to what is
true and saving, and preferred to seek instead what is fleeting and transitory.” 353 They are
like sailors in the wake of a shipwreck, desperately clinging to bits of wood in the vain
hope that these will keep them afloat: “So they perish is this vast and spacious sea, they
perish in misery as they reach out for what perishes, leaving aside all that is of substance,
353 1 Adv 1 (IV, 161): “Infelices enim filii Adam, omissis veris et salutaribus studiis, caduca potius
et transitoria quaerunt.”
232