Of Three Degrees of Mortification

O conclude and finish off this treatise, we will briefly set forth the three degrees of mortification which St. Bernard assigns. The first is that which the Apostle St. Peter teaches us in his first canonical epistle. Brethren, I ask you to live as strangers and pilgrims on earth, and as such to refrain the desires and appetites of the flesh, which war against the spirit (I Pet. ii. 11). We are all pilgrims in this world on our way to our heavenly country, as St. Paul says: We have not here a lasting city, but we go seeking for one to come (Heb. xili. 14), for while we are in the body we are away from the Lord (II Cor. v. 6). Let us, then, make ourselves pilgrims and wayfarers. The wayfarer, says St. Bernard, goes straight ahead on his way, taking care to avoid all the circuitous routes that he can. If he sees on the route people laughing, or keeping festivals, weddings, and merry-makings, he pays no attention to it, nor cares about it, but goes straight on his way, because he is a wayfarer and those things do not concern him. All his anxiety and occupation is to sigh after his native place and take care to approach and arrive there. He is content with a light dress and with a meal enough to keep him going on his journey; he has no mind to go laden with unnecessary baggage, but to go light that he travel better.

’ This is the way, then, we ought to try to behave on our pilgrimage. We should use the things of this world just by the way, in view of the end before us, like pilgrims and wayfarers as we are, not taking more than is necessary to enable us to go on our way. Having food and wherewith to be clothed, with these let us be content, as St. Paul says (I Tim. vi. 8). Let us eschew and rid ourselves of all that is not necessary, that thus we may travel the better for traveling light. Let us sigh after our country and be sensible of our exile. Happy and blessed is he, says St. Bernard, who behaves and conducts himself like a pilgrim upon earth, and knows and bewails his exile, saying with the prophet: Hear, O Lord, my sighs, my tears and groans, for Iam a stranger and pilgrim on earth, as were my fathers and forebears (Psalm xxxviii. 13).

This degree is a very high one, and we shall do not a little if we get to that. But the saint tells us there is another, higher and of greater perfection. For the pilgrim, though he does not join in with the neighbors and townsfolk, sometimes is pleased to see and hear what passes on the road and to relate it to others; and with these trifles, although he does not altogether lose his way, nevertheless he is kept back and arrives later; and even he may be so amused and kept back by these things as not only to be made to reach his home later, but even never to reach it at all. But who is more of a stranger and more free and detached from the things of this world than the pilgrim? Do you know? He who is dead. For the pilgrim, though it be only to ask and seek what is necessary for his journey and go laden with it, may be occupied and kept back more than would be desirable; but the dead man, though he has to go unburied, feels it not. The dead man hears alike those who blame him and those who praise him, those who flatter him and those who complain of him; or rather he hears none of them, for heis dead. This, then, is the second degree of mortification, higher and more perfect than the former, which St. Paul lays down when he says: Ye are dead, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3). We must not rest content with being as pilgrims in this life, but we must try to be as dead men. How is that to be? “Do you know how?” says a doctor. ‘Look at the condition of a dead man. The sign of one’s being dead is his not seeing, nor answering, nor feeling, nor complaining, nor being proud, nor getting angry.” But if you have eyes to see and judge of the doings of others and even perchance of the superior, you are not dead. If you have back-answers and excuses for what obedience bids you; if you show feeling when they tell you of your faults and rebuke you; sensitiveness and resentment, when they humble you and make no account of you, you are not dead, but very much alive to your passions, to your honor and reputation. For the dead man, although they trample on him, and run him down, and make no account of him, feels it not. Oh, how happy and blessed, says St. Bernard, is he who is in this manner dead, for this death is life, since it keeps us unspotted in the world and makes us entire strangers to it.

Great assuredly is this degree, and of high perfection; but possibly we shall be able to find something else higher and more perfect still. But where are we to go to look for it, and in whom shall we find it but in him who was rapt to the third heaven? For, says St. Bernard, if you give me another and a third degree higher and more perfect, you may well call it the third heaven. But can there be anything more than dying? Yes, there is something more than dying. Our Lord Jesus Christ humbled and abased himself even unto death. Is there anything more than that? Yes, St. Paul goes on to say, and the Church goes on to say it on the second night of Tenebrae: Even unto the death of the cross (Phil. ii. 8). To die crucified, that is more than simply to die; for the death of the cross was a kind of death the most ignominious and shameful that there then was. This, then, is the third degree of mortification, higher and more perfect than the preceding. Thus rightly may we call it the third heaven to which also the Apostle St. Paul was caught up. The world is crucified to me, and I to the world (Gal. vi. 14). He does not merely say that he was dead to the world, but that he was crucified to the world and that the world was a cross to him and he to the world. That is to say, all that the world loves, the delights of the flesh, honors, riches, the vain praises of men—all that is a cross and a torment to me, and as such I abhor it; and what the world takes for a cross, for a torment and dishonor, to that I have my heart fastened and nailed; that it is that I love and embrace. This is being crucified to the world and the world to me, and the world being a cross to me and [I to it.

This is a higher and more perfect degree than the first and second, says St. Bernard. The pilgrim, though he passes on and does not stop much over the things that he sees, yet after all does see them and stops some little time over them. The dead man (that is the second degree) takes prosperity and adversity equally, honors and ignominies, and makes no difference between them. But this third degree goes further and is not equally disposed to the one and the other; not only is it insensible, as the dead man is insensible, to honor and reputation, but it is a cross and torment to it to be regarded and esteemed, and it abhors such things accordingly. Not only is it insensible to marks of ignominy and contempt, but finds therein its glory and satisfaction. Far be it from me to glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me and I to the world (Gal..vi. 14). God grant that I may never glory in anything but in the Cross of Christ, for love of Whom all that the world loves is a cross to me; and all that the world takes for a cross is my glory and great contentment. J am full, he says, of consolation, bathed in joy and gladness at suffering tribulations, persecutions, and affronts for Christ (II Cor. vii. 4). This, then, is the third degree of mortification, which with much reason St. Bernard calls the third heaven for its high perfection. And though he says it under the guise of this metaphor, yet it is the common doctrine of doctors and saints that in what we understand by the third heaven the perfection of mortification consists. This is the sign by which philosophers judge whether one has attained perfection in any virtue, when he does the acts thereof with relish and delight. And so, if you wish to know if you are making progress in mortification and if you have attained to perfection in it, see whether you are pleased when they cross your will and deny you what you ask; see whether you are pleased when they despise you and make little account of you, and pained when they honor and esteem and make much of you. Let everyone, then, enter within himself, St. Bernard says, and see and examine with attention which of these degrees he has reached; and let us not stop nor rest until we reach and are caught up to this third heaven. This is what the Lord said to St. Francis: “If thou desirest Me, take bitter things for sweet and sweet things for bitter.”

Caesarius relates that in a monastery of the Cistercian Order there was a religious called Ralph, a great servant of God, who had many revelations. One night, staying in the church in prayer after matins, he saw Christ our Redeemer hanging on His Cross, and along with Him fifteen religious of his order, everyone also on his cross, in company with Christ our Redeemer. And though it was night, such was the brightness and splendor that shone forth from the presence of Christ that he could see very clearly and recognize them quite well that they were all alive. Five of them were lay brothers and ten choir monks. While he stood amazed at so admirable a vision, Christ our Redeemer spoke to him from the Cross: “Ralph, dost thou recognize who these are that thou seest crucified around Me?” He answered: “Lord, I recognize quite well who they are, but I do not understand what the vision signifies and is meant to tell me.” Then the Lord said to him: “These alone of all that order of thine are they who are crucified with Me, conforming their life to My Passion.”