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

a thousand needs; when he sees himself as one driven to vice and
incapable of virtue? 130
Thus the monk discovers and confesses the humbling truth that he is a fallen, disfigured
image of God, voluntarily enslaved to sin, subject to suffering, and condemned to eternal
death. Bitter though it may be, however, this knowledge of oneself as a disfigured image
is truly salutary for it moves the monk to turn to God and to seek his healing. This monk
knows that he is an image disfigured by his sin, and this is the source of his humility, but
he likewise sees that he remains an image, and this grounds his hope that his Creator may
still will to restore him in the likeness of the Incarnate Word: “Pierced by the thorns of
his misery, will he not be converted in his sorrow? Let him be converted, I say, to tears,
converted to contrition and sighs, and cry out in his humility, ‘Cleanse my soul, for I
have sinned against you’ (Ps 40:5).” 131 When, moreover, the monk humbled by true self-
knowledge approaches God in contrition and seeks his healing, his self-knowledge will
lead to the true knowledge of God, as he finds in God “the Father of mercies and the God
of all comfort” (2 Cor 1:3).
As so often in his sermons, Bernard illustrates this point for his readers by
reference to his own experience: “As long as I look at myself, my eye is consumed with
bitterness. Yet when I lift my eye to the aid of divine mercy, this joyous vision of God
130 SC 36.5 (II, 7): “Nam quomodo non vere humiliabitur in hac vera cognitione sui, cum se
perceperit oneratam peccatis, mole huius mortalis corporis aggravatam, terrenis intricatam curis, carnalium
desideriorum faece infectam, caecam, curvam, infirmam, implicitam multis erroribus, expositam mille
periculis, mille timoribus trepidam, mille difficultatibus anxiam, mille suspicionibus obnoxiam, mille
necessitatibus aerumnosam, proclivem ad vitia, invalidam ad virtutes?”
131 SC 36.5 (II, 7): “Nonne magis convertetur in aerumna sua, dum configitur spina? Convertetur,
inquam, ad lacrimas, convertetur ad planctus et gemitus, convertetur ad Dominum, et in humilitate
clamabit: SANA ANIMAM MEAM, QUIA PECCAVI TIBI.”
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