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

human creatures to their originally intended participation in his own divine life and
blessedness, he must instruct their proud and willful hearts in the opposed and salutary
ways of humility and charity.
Third, supposing God were indeed able to recall his fallen creatures to their true
end, the loving contemplation of himself, and to show them the way to this end, the way
of humility and love, fallen human beings would still remain voluntarily enslaved to sin
and subject to death and therefore still incapable of themselves of embracing the way of
humility and charity to the promise of eternal life. Consequently, if God’s saving plan is
to be accomplished, he must not only reveal to his creatures their goal and their way to
that goal, but also free them from their slavery to sin and infuse into their hearts his gifts
of grace, humility, and charity.
In his brief narration of the Word’s Incarnation in SC 35, Bernard appears
explicitly concerned to address the first of these three needs of fallen humanity, but
implicitly speaks to the second and third as well. In their fall, he suggests, human beings
have “exchanged the glory of God for the likeness of an ox that eats grass” (Ps 105:20).
By this tristis et lacrimis mutatio, they have exchanged the desire for God for the desire
for the “grass” of sensible, created realities. Consequently, the Word, by his own
gracious mutatio, has “become like grass,” or taken flesh, that they might be drawn to and
feed on his sacred humanity. Bernard writes:
So the bread of angels has become like grass laid in a manger, set
before us as beasts. Indeed the Word was made flesh (Jn 1:14);
and, according to the Prophet, all flesh is as grass (Is 40:6). Yet,
this grass does not wither, nor does its bloom fade, for the Spirit of
the Lord has rested upon him. For, as the Prophet also says, grass
withers and its bloom fades, but the Word of the Lord remains
forever (Is 40:8). If, therefore, the Word is grass, and the Word
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