On Loving God
by St. Bernard of Clairvaux
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Chapter X. Of the fourth degree of love:
wherein man does not even love self save for
God's sake
How blessed is he who reaches the fourth degree of love, wherein one loves
himself only in God! Thy righteousness standeth like the strong mountains, O
God. Such love as this is God's hill, in the which it pleaseth Him to dwell.
'Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?' 'O that I had wings like a dove;
for then would I flee away and be at rest.' 'At Salem is His tabernacle; and
His dwelling in Sion.' 'Woe is me, that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech!'
(Ps. 24:3; 55:6; 76:2; 120:5). When shall this flesh and blood, this earthen
vessel which is my soul's tabernacle, attain thereto? When shall my soul, rapt
with divine love and altogether self-forgetting, yea, become like a broken
vessel, yearn wholly for God, and, joined unto the Lord, be one spirit with
Him? When shall she exclaim, 'My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the
strength of my heart and my portion for ever' (Ps. 73:26). I would count him
blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life,
for even an instant to lose thyself, as if thou wert emptied and lost and
swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial. But if sometimes a poor
mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life
envies his happiness, the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of
death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative, the weakness of
corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he
must ever cry out lamentably, 'O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me' (Isa.
38:14); and again, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the
body of this death?' (Rom. 7:24).
Seeing that the Scripture saith, God has made all for His own glory (Isa.
43:7), surely His creatures ought to conform themselves, as much as they can,
to His will. In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we
should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness
will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but
in accomplishing God's will for us: even as we pray every day: 'Thy will be
done in earth as it is in heaven' (Matt. 6:10). O chaste and holy love! O sweet
and gracious affection! O pure and cleansed purpose, thoroughly washed and
purged from any admixture of selfishness, and sweetened by contact with the
divine will! To reach this state is to become godlike. As a drop of water
poured into wine loses itself, and takes the color and savor of wine; or as a
bar of iron, heated red-hot, becomes like fire itself, forgetting its own
nature; or as the air, radiant with sun-beams, seems not so much to be
illuminated as to be light itself; so in the saints all human affections melt
away by some unspeakable transmutation into the will of God. For how could God
be all in all, if anything merely human remained in man? The substance will
endure, but in another beauty, a higher power, a greater glory. When will that
be? Who will see, who possess it? 'When shall I come to appear before the
presence of God?' (Ps. 42:2). 'My heart hath talked of Thee, Seek ye My face:
Thy face, Lord, will I seek' (Ps. 27:8). Lord, thinkest Thou that I, even I
shall see Thy holy temple?
In this life, I think, we cannot fully and perfectly obey that precept, 'Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with
all thy strength, and with all thy mind' (Luke 10:27). For here the heart must
take thought for the body; and the soul must energize the flesh; and the
strength must guard itself from impairment. And by God's favor, must seek to
increase. It is therefore impossible to offer up all our being to God, to yearn
altogether for His face, so long as we must accommodate our purposes and
aspirations to these fragile, sickly bodies of ours. Wherefore the soul may
hope to possess the fourth degree of love, or rather to be possessed by it,
only when it has been clothed upon with that spiritual and immortal body, which
will be perfect, peaceful, lovely, and in everything wholly subjected to the
spirit. And to this degree no human effort can attain: it is in God's power to
give it to whom He wills. Then the soul will easily reach that highest stage,
because no lusts of the flesh will retard its eager entrance into the joy of
its Lord, and no troubles will disturb its peace. May we not think that the
holy martyrs enjoyed this grace, in some degree at least, before they laid down
their victorious bodies? Surely that was immeasurable strength of love which
enraptured their souls, enabling them to laugh at fleshly torments and to yield
their lives gladly. But even though the frightful pain could not destroy their
peace of mind, it must have impaired somewhat its perfection.
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