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

led astray. Their amor carnalis Christi must be transformed into an amor spiritualis
Christi. Christ effects this transformation in his disciples’ hearts as he ascends before
their very eyes: “He did not draw all his disciples’ affections to his flesh that they might
remain with his flesh, but rather that they might be transferred to his spirit, that they
might someday say, ‘Though we once knew Christ according to the flesh, now we know
him so no longer’ (2 Cor 5:16).” 383 And, as Christ withdraws his flesh from his disciples’
sensitive gaze, he at the same time sends them his Spirit, who “transforms their [carnal]
love into an altogether spiritual love and enflames with them a ‘love as strong as death’
(Sg 8:6).” 384 As they pass from the mystery of the Ascension to the mystery of Pentecost,
then, Christ’s disciples, filled with the Spirit’s gift of charity, so long for Christ’s
presence in glory that they are now willing to give up all that is earthly, even their very
lives, that they might reign with him there.
The Mystery of Pentecost and New Self-Knowledge in the Spirit
To this point, we have seen how Bernard’s meditations on the mysteries of
Christ’s descent and ascent map the soul’s progression in self-knowledge we have
discerned in Chapters 1 and 3. By the mysteries of his descent, from his Advent to his
Passion, Christ the Word Incarnate displays such humility that he confounds the proud,
and leads them to a humbling, but salutary knowledge of their own miseria. Yet, by
these same mysteries, the Word-made-flesh reveals the compassionate, saving love of
383 6 Asc 12 (V, 157): “Ceterum non ut maneret in carne, sed ut transferretur ad spiritum, totus ab
eo in illam carnem Discipulorum fuerat collectus affectus, ut dicere esset aliquando: ETSI COGNOVIMUS
CHRISTUM SECUNDUM CARNEM, SED NUNC IAM NON NOVIMUS.”
mors.”
384 6 Asc 15 (V, 159): “in spiritalem omnino mutavit amorem, ut accensa in eis caritas fortis ut
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