Tag: Bernard of Clairvaux
Discover that which has no Beginning
What is God? The Beginning; this is the answer he gave of himself Many things in the world are spoken of as beginnings, and this is in respect to what comes after them. Yet if you look back and see something which precedes another, you will call that the beginning. Therefore, if you seek the… Read More ›
The Trinity in us
Let us consider ourselves, and the actions of the ‘Trinity in us’, from the beginning of the world until the end. Let us see how that Majesty upon whom lie both the administration and the governance of the ages has been concerned not to lose us forever. Indeed he had made all things mightily, and… Read More ›
The Trinity in Us
Let us consider ourselves, and the actions of the ‘Trinity in us,’ from the beginning of the world until the end. Let us see how that Majesty upon whom lie both the administration and the governance of the ages has been concerned not to lose us forever. Indeed he had made all things mightily, and… Read More ›
Free Choice: A God Given Right
Free choice is something clearly divine which shines forth in the soul like a jewel set in gold. From it the soul derives its power of judgment, and its option of choosing between good and evil, between life and death, in fact between light and darkness, and any other concepts which are perceived by the… Read More ›
Winning the Battle Against Temptation
Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich once quipped that if we could really see, that the fallen angels that surround us would blot out the sun. I am no skeptic – I believe it. Sometimes I wonder if we realize the real struggle going on in the spiritual realm in our day to day lives. Unlike monastics… Read More ›
Make the Lord your joy
My advice to you is to turn aside occasionally from troubled and anxious pondering on the paths you may be treading, and to travel on smoother ways where the gifts of God are serenely savored, so that the thought of him may give breathing space to you whose consciences are perplexed. I should like you… Read More ›
God is always present
Expect a twofold help from God in the course of your spiritual life: correction and consolation. One controls the exterior, the other works within; the first curbs arrogance, the latter inspires trust; the first begets humility, the latter strengthens the faint-hearted; the first makes one discreet, the latter devout. The first imbues us with fear… Read More ›
The simplicity of the soul
Unlikeness means, not that the likeness has been destroyed, but that it has been concealed by something else which has been laid over it. The soul has not in fact put off her original form but has put on one foreign to her. The latter is an addition; the former has not been lost. This… Read More ›
Does not love make amends?
I will flee from the sight of the anger of the Lord and go to a place of refuge, to that zeal of mercy which burns sweetly and wholly purifies. Does not love make amends? Truly it does powerfully. I have read that it covers a multitude of sins. But I would ask this: is… Read More ›
The love of the Lord for each of us
The Lord of the universe has prevented us, visited us, assisted us; that sovereign majesty has willed to die that we might live, willed to serve that we might reign, willed to suffer exile that we might be brought home, willed to stoop to the meanest services that he might set us over the works… Read More ›