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Theology of the Heart: Teachings of the Saints |
The
Love of the Bridegroom and the Bride
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
This
sermon of St. Bernard is in the
Office of Readings for August 20, his feast day.
Love is sufficient of
itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own
merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect
beyond itself. Its profit lies in its practice. I love because I love, I
love that I may love. Love is a great thing so long as it continually
returns to its fountainhead, flows back to its source, always drawing
from there the water which constantly replenishes it.
Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the
only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some
sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves,
all he desires is to be loved in return; the sole purpose of his love is
to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by
their love of him.
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?
Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and give herself wholly
to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do is to respond to
love. And when she has poured out her whole being in love, what is that
in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that original source?
Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and Bridegroom, creature
and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one might as well equate a
thirsty man with the fountain.
What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her passionate love,
her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just because she cannot
match stride for stride with her giant, any more than she can vie with
honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness, show herself as
white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal in love with him
who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves less because she is
less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing is lacking where
everything is given. To love so ardently then is to share the marriage
bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally loved, and it is in the
perfect union of two hearts that complete and total marriage consists.
Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by the Word first and with a
greater love?
Sermo 83, 4-6; Opera
omnia, Edit. Cisterc 2 [1958], 300-302
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
