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

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certain signs of your predestination,” and “fills you heart with the dew of heaven, if not continuously, then at least very often.” 390 The grounds for this confidence are given in the Spirit’s second gift, the robur vitae, or strength of life, by which the Spirit so conforms us to the humility and charity of Christ that “what is impossible to you by nature becomes, by the Spirit’s grace, not only possible, but even easy.” 391 Finally, by his gift of the scientiae lumen, the Spirit arouses in our hearts the proper, authentically humble response to God’s superabundant gifts of grace, so that “when you have done all things well, you will consider yourself an unprofitable servant, and whatever good you discern within you, you will attribute to him from whom all good comes and without whom you cannot even begin, let alone complete, any good work.” 392 In his meditation on the last of Christ’s saving mysteries, then, Bernard leaves us with a vision of the renewed soul strikingly akin to his description of the Bride’s honestum in the last of his complete sermons on the Canticle. The soul that has been progressively conformed to Christ, for whom Christ is born, suffered, risen, and ascended, now receives from Christ the gift of the Spirit. Sensing the Spirit’s transforming work within itself, this soul, radiant with the likeness of Christ’s exemplary humility and love, begins to discern within itself the figure of Christ’s one true Bride, the Church. This inward sense of the Spirit dispels the soul’s former anguish over its own 390 2 Pent 6 (V, 168): “Pignus salutis, ut ipse Spiritus reddat testimonium spiritui tuo, quod filius Dei sis: qui certissima signa praedestinationis tuae cordi tuo imprimat et ostendat; qui donet laetitiam in corde tuo, et de rore caeli, si non continue, tamen saepissime mentem tuam impinguet.” 391 2 Pent 6 (V, 169): “Robur vitae, ut quod per naturam tibi est impossibile, per gratiam eius non solum possibile, sed et facile fiat.” 392 2 Pent 6 (V, 169): “Scientiae lumen, ut, cum omnia bene feceris, te servum inutilem putes, et quidquid boni in te inveneris, illi tribuas, a quo omne bonum est, sine quo non parum aliquid, sed nihil omnino potes incipere, ne perficere dicam.” 247
miseria and fires it with the confident expectation of eternal life. Indeed as this soul grows in love of God by the Spirit’s gift of God’s own charity, it gradually thinks less and less of its own spiritual state, and more and more of its Bridegroom and his embrace. This soul has, in other words, already begun, even in this life, to forget itself and to pass over entirely into her Beloved. Further, the Spirit’s same gift of divine love has so permeated the soul that it now undertakes the spiritual and bodily exercises of the monastic life with ease and delight. In the words of Benedict’s Prologue, which Bernard does not explicitly cite but surely has in mind, this soul has “begun to run on the path of the Lord’s commandments, with [its] heart overflowing with the inexpressible delights of love.” 393 Finally, the soul-as-Bride’s conformity to the exemplary humility of Christ reminds it that the transforming work it now experiences within itself is not its own accomplishment, but the work of Christ and the Spirit. In this truly humble, but altogether joyous, self-knowledge, the soul sees itself anew as the beautiful fruit of their graced missions from the Father’s heart, and longs eagerly for that eternal day when the divine Persons will complete within it the work they have begun in time. The Paschal Lamb as the Source of the Soul’s Growth in Self-Knowledge So far, we have seen how, for Bernard, the divine Person of the Word, in virtue of his Incarnation, is able both to grow in self-knowledge, humility, and charity and to model these virtues for his disciples. To complete our study of the role Christ plays in Bernard’s theology of self-knowledge, we will need to consider one further aspect of the 393 RB Prol.49: “Processu vero conversationis et fidei, dilatato corde inenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine curritur via mandatorum.” 248
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MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM HIS: SE
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MY BELOVED IS MINE AND I AM HIS: SE
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To my Father, James U. DeFrancis, S
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Christ as the Model of Self-Knowled
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esearch: John Cavadini, Cyril O’R
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self-knowledge is the indispensible
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For Bernard, then, humble self-know
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likeness of charity. Within the Cis
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When Gilson asserted that by self-k
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Bernard, Sommerfeldt continues, hum
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a “false image” of himself. 26
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some newfound and joyous moment of
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ecognize that same sinfulness in hi
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foundations of man’s return to Go
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the descent of humility begins the
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saving work of Jesus Christ in the
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the humility, obedience, and love C
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Of particular importance to Bernard
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and second, “what it is like in i
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In his ground-breaking study of med
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direct links between the two. 52 It
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swells in one’s heart that it mov
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pride as “the desire for a perver
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The knowledge of self and God in th
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mercy until you renew all that is i
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CHAPTER 1: THE SCOPE OF BERNARD’S
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Prior to its first conversion, Bern
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Origen, Bernard here and elsewhere
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of God, they will grow ever more un
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and love as she is loved, and the B
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In the interim or “meanwhile” o
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Why do you judge yourself worthy to
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For Bernard, the lesson to be drawn
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warning and why should it compel he
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worldly things her flesh and senses
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aspired to seize a kind of parody o
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thousands of evils upon our entire
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edemptive work is suitably adapted
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emains forever, this grass too rema
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graciously condescending to assume
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Thus the abbot resolves his spiritu
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of self-knowledge enabled self-dece
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humbles himself will be exalted”
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Church, enabling scholars to instru
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Through this unflinching self-exami
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soon tempers my bitter vision of my
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edeem him, sanctify him, and offer
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As observed above, in the second ha
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modeled and effected by the Word-ma
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Ignorance of self breeds pride when
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consideration of others and their a
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consideration of his treatise as a
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symmetry between these two parts an
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Though this discrepancy at first ap
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self, God, and neighbor. Since it i
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estored in this divine likeness as
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eturn to his suffering brothers and
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much more should the monk not exalt
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for your brother’s misery and not
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sinful weakness and nothing of thei
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Finally, we should note that Bernar
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journey to which the monk will comm
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and judge others or to see how they
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condemned. Lifting his eyes in humi
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will contrary to both the law of Go
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in him by her obedience to his will
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contempt not only for herself and h
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his rule over the reprobate he woul
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in misery rather than to be subject
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descending these early steps of pri
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pleases them and avoid what makes t
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knows.” 201 Should the topic of c
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Here abbot Bernard figures the prou
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ut believe in his inmost heart that
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Asserting Self-Will Against Superio
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As so often in his narrative of the
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who he is, everyone judges him, and
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monk’s descent into this deepest
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God in heaven. He will acknowledge
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Consumed by this self-centered love
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their hearts. Hence Bernard’s fre
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done…by whoever would walk in the
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In recognizing the two distinct mom
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experience, lamenting how he has ma
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inward movement in the soul. In any
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share with them in that divine merc
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Operating inwardly within this judg
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the Truth in his own nature? Matter
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arguing from both allusions in text
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upon the “stage” of the soul an
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(Is 46:8). For Bernard, this first
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desperate need for the healing grac
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consolations afforded it by the lif
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thoroughly diseased: reason now see
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Reason’s rebuke is powerful, and
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In this vision, reason is permitted
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conscience she enjoys through the m
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Word of God, “that living and eff
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knowledge and contempt of himself,
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The Self-Awareness of the Bride in
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When the brightness of this beauty
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For Bernard, then, the soul that ha
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Page 207 and 208: Conclusion Having considered three
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Page 211 and 212: CHAPTER 4: SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE M
Page 213 and 214: Christ’s incarnate, crucified, an
Page 215 and 216: indeed to the entirety of his theol
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Page 219 and 220: The foregoing elements of Bernard
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Page 227 and 228: excursus has been labeled a “digr
Page 229 and 230: “learned” (didicit) is being pr
Page 231 and 232: To resolve this question, Bernard r
Page 233 and 234: You see, therefore, that Christ is
Page 235 and 236: to the Spirit, by contemplation in
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Page 239 and 240: Christ’s Ascension culminates in
Page 241 and 242: conformed to him. Then, through the
Page 243 and 244: Modeling this laudabilis curiositas
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Page 247 and 248: equally deadly, extreme of despair.
Page 249 and 250: and humbled by God, so that there w
Page 251 and 252: as essential elements of the Word I
Page 253 and 254: led astray. Their amor carnalis Chr
Page 255: delivered us from sin and enabled u
Page 259 and 260: death to bring about a real, inward
Page 261 and 262: sins,” “justification,” and
Page 263 and 264: these life-giving virtues, we must
Page 265 and 266: precisely through, a careful approp
Page 267 and 268: perhaps she means, “My Beloved in
Page 269 and 270: To such a soul, the abbot continues
Page 271 and 272: gradually assuming the figure of Ch
Page 273 and 274: to judge themselves in Truth, and s
Page 275 and 276: ejoice with those who rejoice and w
Page 277 and 278: love of himself in the glory of div
Page 279 and 280: I. Works of Bernard of Clairvaux BI
Page 281 and 282: ------. Sermo 29A. Edited by C. Lam
Page 283 and 284: Courcelle, Pierre. Connais-toi toi-
Page 285 and 286: ------. “Le premier traité authe
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