Advent Day 12: Bernard of Clairvaux
Love Mystic
Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart.
Advent Day 12: Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Christian mystics have reported visions throughout the ages. Julian of Norwich had her Jesus with a hazelnut in the palm of his hand. Teresa of Avila saw an angel holding a spear of gold. Hildegard of Bingen had the bright vault of heaven opened to her. But perhaps the most startling vision belongs to Bernard of Clairvaux.
One day Bernard, who was seriously ill, was deep in prayer when Mary appeared, breastfeeding the baby Jesus. Once Jesus had his fill, Mary shifted the baby to her other arm and let fly a stream of milk straight into Bernard’s mouth. (This incident inspired an entire sub-genre of painting called The Lactation of St. Bernard. Google it. My favorite, by Alonso Cano, shows Mary as having impressive aim). Miraculously healed, Bernard went on to become one of the greatest mystics in history—one remembered for his deep intimacy with God which he described, not surprisingly, in sensual, earthy terms.
Bernard was born in 1090 to a noble French family. Highly charismatic, he never lacked for friends who eagerly tagged along for his frequent nights on the town during which he sampled the temptations and delights available to the aristocracy. But when his mother died in 1113, grief-stricken Bernard vowed to abandon his carousing ways and devote his life to prayer and contemplation at the nearby Benedictine abbey. His friends followed him even there. When he arrived at the abbey doors, he had thirty others in tow.
Bernard’s sharp intellect and spiritual genius soon revealed themselves. Only two years after entering the abbey, his superiors sent him and twelve others to found a new monastery in Clairvaux.
Bernard would go on to found scores of monasteries, dabble in papal politics, and revive contemplative practices like Lectio Divina and meditation. He also produced a wealth of writing where he explored his experience of God as pure love.
Like many medieval mystics, he used the language of marriage to describe his connection to God.
The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved, then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?
Bernard’s insight wasn’t just that God loves us, but that God is Love. This phrase is familiar in the twenty-first century (though, even now, what that means is rarely considered outside contemplative communities), but to twelfth-century people, used to fire and brimstone religion, it was a revelation.
Bernard spent his life preaching the mystical marriage, and counseling others how, through loving action and contemplation, they might increase their intimacy with God. He did this most significantly in eighty-six sermons on the Old Testament erotic allegory Song of Songs.
In Sermon Three, he describes the journey toward the Divine as a series of increasingly intimate kisses.
First, the kiss of contrition where we grow weary with our old ways of doing things and, longing for a deeper life, we fall at Christ’s feet and cover them with kisses and tears.
Then the kiss of grace as we commit to follow the forgiving, loving and peaceful path of Jesus. This commitment is offered as a kiss on Christ’s hand.
Finally, the kiss of union when we have walked the spiritual journey a while and are making real, lasting change, and living with honest humility.
…then shall we humbly dare to raise our eyes to his mouth, so divinely beautiful, not merely to gaze upon it, but I say it with fear and trembling — to receive its kiss. Christ the Lord is a Spirit before our face, and he who is joined to him in a holy kiss becomes through his good pleasure one spirit with him.
Once you’ve tasted this intimacy with Christ, Bernard says, your heart hungers for more, and you live your life in pursuit of it.
If Bernard’s words sound strange to modern ears, recall that in his day people were still intimate with all aspects of bodily life—not just their own bodies but those of others. We birthed children at home, our loved ones died at home, and we butchered our own animals. We also lived in one-room dwellings. No part of life was hidden from view. And if the idea of Mary squirting milk into Bernard’s mouth seems a little shocking, remember that prior to the invention of infant formula, breastfeeding was the one and only source of life for babies. Through breastfeeding, love became life. As such, it rose to the level of the mystical and spiritual. Even the Bible conjures images of breastfeeding:
Rejoice with Jerusalem…all you who love her…that you may suck and be satisfied with her consoling breasts; that you may drink deeply with delight from the abundance of her glory. Isaiah 66:10-12
Bernard dove deeper into his favorite theme in his masterpiece On The Love Of God, where he describes four degrees of ascending love:
Love of self for self’s sake wherein we love ourselves and primarily serve our own needs by constantly seeking security and pleasure (Bernard knew something about this from his youth).
Love of God for self’s sake wherein we love God out of fear that, if we don’t, He will shut down some (imagined) divine ATM and stop providing for us.
Love of God for God’s sake. This is where the path grows narrow and many turn back. It is the point in our lives when we realize that God has not saved us from our trials but has sustained us through them. With the passage of each trial, our hearts soften, and we are more and more called to loving-kindness and generosity, not in hopes of reward, but because this is how Jesus loves us, and as followers of Jesus we are called to mirror him.
Love of Self for God’s sake. Here, the state of graced union with God is achieved. Having reached this stage, any gift or praise we receive we see as belonging to God rather than to us.
Bernard warns that the 4th degree is only reached through contemplative practice, and even then comes only in flashes.
Such experiences are rare and come only for a moment. In a manner of speaking, we lose ourselves as though we did not exist, utterly unconscious of ourselves and emptied of ourselves…This perfect love of God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength will not happen until we are no longer compelled to think about ourselves and attend to the body’s immediate needs. Only then can the soul attend to God completely. This is why in the present body we inhabit this is difficult to maintain. But it is within God’s power to give such an experience to whom he wills, and it is not attained by our own efforts.
Bernard’s God is one who loved and wanted love and who was Love. A God who enlivens all our senses. Awakened to this, Bernard spent his life trying to wake others up to it as well. In the Christ-soaked world in which Bernard lived, the sole purpose of all creation was to love. Love was the Alpha and the Omega, its own reason and reward.
Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love you; I love in order that I may love.
Practice
Bernard of Clairvaux was a major proponent of Lectio Divina, an ancient method of reading and meditating on scripture. Today, let’s try Lectio using the story of the Annunciation.
Lectio Divina has four movements. Each of the four movements is practiced for a minimum of two minutes and, ideally, five. Before starting, it’s helpful to use a timer that you can set to go off during regular intervals. I use the Timer function on the free meditation app, Insight Timer, which is available on the web or on your phone.
Lectio (reading). Read Luke 1:26-38. Read it slowly until you reach the end of the story. Then slowly repeat, over and over, Mary’s assent to carry Jesus: I am the Lord’s servant. Don’t think about the story. Don’t analyze it. Just let the words sink in as you repeat them. When your timer goes off, move to…
Meditatio (meditation). Here you go silent while considering Mary’s words, I am the Lord’s servant. Again, don’t analyze Mary or the story. Meditate on what her words mean to you. For example, how are you the Lord’s servant? How do you enter a spirit of loving surrender with God? When the timer goes off, move to…
Oratio (prayer). Now enter dialogue with God through prayer. Talk to God about what Mary’s words bring up for you, how they inspire or confuse, how you might live by their example. Then…
Contemplatio (contemplation). Rest in silence and the presence of God. When thoughts arise, just think, I am the Lord’s servant and try to let them go.
In addition to scripture, Lectio Divina can be used with poems, prose or song lyrics. Read more about Lectio, or watch Father James Martin’s brief introduction to this practice.
Holiday Happenings at Life In The City
Dec. 11, 11:15 am: LITC’s original musical, Make Room In Your Heart.
Dec. 21, 7:30 pm: Blue Christmas, an intimate service for the longest night of the year.
Dec. 23, 7:00 pm: Our annual Christmas Eve-Eve service.
Dec. 25, 11:15 am: Celebrate Christmas morning with your church family.
Jan 1, 11:15 am: A quiet, contemplative service to welcome 2023.
Feedback
This is a first draft of a book that will go to publishers in 2023. If you spot typos or have suggestions, leave them in the comments below or email Greg Durham at greg@lifeinthecityaustin.org.
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