We are as if we were not, likened to vanity and counted as nothing, supposing ourselves to be something when actually we are nothing. We enter this world wounded, walk here and then depart, wounded still. There is no sound flesh in us, from the sole of the foot to the top of the head. Reflecting on the sad state of human nature, the prophet exclaims: ‘A heavy yoke is upon the sons of Adam from the day they leave their mother’s womb until they are buried in our common mother earth’.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Meditation 4.6; CF 3:113.
