Sermon XI. On the Mode and the Fruit of Redemption

"Smelling sweet of the best ointments."

I want to repeat, to-day, my brethren, what I said at the end of my last discourse, namely, that I wish to see you all participating in that heavenly unction, whereby fervent devotion recalls with joy and gratitude the benefits bestowed by God. A very desirable grace is this, and for two reasons. Firstly, it lightens the labours of this present life, which become more supportable for us whilst our souls are exulting in the praises of God. And, secondly, because there is nothing on earth which so nearly approximates to the life of the blessed in heaven as a fervent choir singing to the glory of the Lord. So Holy Scripture says, "Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house, O Lord, for ever, and ever they shall praise Thee." It is, as I think, to this same ointment of Devotion in particular that the Psalmist refers when he sings, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! like the precious ointment on the head." Such a commendation cannot, it seems to me, be applied to the ointment of Contrition. That, although it is indeed "good," can hardly be described as "pleasant," because the remembrance of past sin begets rather pain than pleasure. Besides, they who are engaged in producing that unguent do not "dwell together." Each for himself mourns and laments over his own transgressions. But when returning thanks, we direct all our thoughts and attention to God alone, and for this reason we may be truly said to "dwell together." Thanksgiving is "good," as rendering to God the glory that is most justly due to Him. And it is also "pleasant," inasmuch as it is a source of delight.

Wherefore, my brethren, I exhort you to withdraw your minds occasionally from the sad and disquieting memory of your sins, and to pass out of the confined limits of your consciences into the smoother ways of thoughts upon the benefits of God. Thus, after experiencing confusion within yourselves, you will feel your courage revive at the view of the divine goodness. I wish you would resolve to put to the test of experience that which the Prophet recommends to us in the words, "Delight in the Lord and He will give thee the requests of thy heart." True, sorrow for sin is a necessity, yet it should not be continuous. It must sometimes give place to the more cheering thoughts of the divine clemency, lest otherwise the heart, frozen hard by excessive sadness, should fall a victim to despair. Let us, then, mingle a little honey with our wormwood, in order that we may be able to swallow the bitters thus tempered with sweets, and so derive advantage to our spiritual health. Listen to God Himself, how He moderates the bitterness of a contrite heart, how He recalls the pusillanimous from the abyss of despair, how with the honey of sweet and faithful promises He consoles the afflicted and raises up the dejected. By the mouth of His Prophet He says, "For My praise I will bridle thee, lest thou shouldst perish." That is to say, "lest at the view of thy sins, thou shouldst yield to excessive sadness, and, like a runaway horse, plunge headlong over the precipice to thy destruction, I will bridle thee, I will hold thee back to receive My pardon, I will lift thee up to sing My praises, and thou that art confounded at the memory of thy sins, shalt have thy courage reanimated by the experience of My bounty, discovering My mercy to be greater than thine own guiltiness." Had Cain been held in check with this bridle, never would he have cried out in despair, "My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon." God forbid! my brethren, God forbid! The divine loving-kindness is greater than any iniquity whatever. Therefore "the just is his own accuser in the beginning of his words,"[^1] but only in the beginning, not throughout. Rather it is his custom to conclude his words with the praises of God. Take an example of a just man proceeding in this way. "I have thought on my ways," sings David, "and turned my feet unto Thy testimonies." For in his own ways he had endured pain and misery, but had found delight in the way of God's testimonies, "as in all riches." And do you, therefore, my brethren, after the example of the just man, "think of the Lord in goodness," whilst you think of yourselves in humility. So we read in Wisdom, ' Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek Him in simplicity of heart." This lesson must be impressed upon your minds by a frequent, or rather by an uninterrupted remembrance of the divine bounty. Otherwise how can that of the Apostle be fulfilled in you, "In all things giving thanks," if you allow the benefits, for which thanks should be rendered, to escape from your memory? I should not like to see you deserving the reproach formerly addressed to the Jews, of whom the Scripture testifies that they were unmindful of God's benefits and of the wonders He had worked in their behalf.

But it is impossible, I will admit, for any man to recall and keep in mind all the benefits which our "compassionate and merciful Lord" ceases not to bestow upon mortals. "Who shall declare the powers of the Lord? Who shall set forth all His praises?" Yet, at least, that which is the chief and greatest, I mean the benefit of Redemption, ought surely never to depart from the memory of the redeemed. In this there are two things which I now wish to recommend, in a special way, to your consideration. I shall be as brief as possible, remembering what is said in Proverbs, "Give an occasion to a wise man, and wisdom shall be added to him." The two things of which I speak are the mode of our Redemption, and its fruit. The mode is God's emptying of Himself. The fruit is His filling of us from Himself. "Meditate on these things." The latter is the seed of holy hope; the former an incentive to the most ardent love. But both are necessary to our progress, lest our hope, unaccompanied by love, should become mercenary, or our love grow lukewarm if considered productive ot no fruit.

Furthermore, the fruit which we expect from our love is that which has been promised by Him Who is the Object of our love, "good measure, and pressed down, and shaken together and running over, shall they give into your bosom." That measure, as I am told, will be without measure. But my desire is to know what that thing is which is to be measured to us according to the measure, or rather according to the immensity promised us. "The eye hath not seen, O God! besides Thee what things Thou hast prepared for them that love Thee." Do Thou, Who hast made the preparation, vouchsafe Thyself to tell us what Thou hast prepared. It is our belief, it is our confident hope that, as Thou hast promised, so shall it be, and that "we shall be filled with the good things of Thy house." But what are these "good things" and of what kind? Perhaps "corn and oil and wine"? Gold, and silver and precious stones? But we can "conceive" what these are, and our eyes have "seen" them. We see them and feel only disdain and disgust for prizes so poor. What I seek is that which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." That is pleasant, that is sweet, that is delightful to inquire about, whatever it may be. "They shall be all taught of God," says St. John, "and God shall be all in all." I am informed, then, that the plenitude which we expect from God, is nothing less than a plenitude of God.

But, my brethren, who can comprehend "how great is the multitude of sweetness" which is hidden in this short word, "and God shall be all in all"! Not to speak ol the body, I discern in the soul three faculties, to wit, reason, will, and memory. And these, I say, are not so much powers of the soul, as the soul herself.¹ How much is wanting to the integrity and perfection of each of the three in this present life is well known to every man that walks according to the spirit. Why should this be so, unless because of the fact that God is not yet "all in all"? Hence it is that the reason is so very often deceived in its judgments, that the will is agitated by a fourfold perturbation,² that the memory is overclouded by a manifold oblivion. To these three kinds of "vanity" the noble "creature is made subject, not willingly, but in hope." For He "Who satisfieth" the soul's "desire with good things," will Himself become to the reason a Plenitude of Light, to the wall an Immensity of Peace, and to the memory an ever abiding Eternity. O Truth! O Love! O Eternity! O Blessed and Beatifying Trinity! After Thee this miserable trinity of mine (viz., the soul herself, as endowed with her three faculties) miserably yearns, because it can nowhere find content so long as it remains an exile from Thee. By departing from Thee in what errors has it not involved itself! in what sorrows! in what terrors! Woe, woe is me! For what kind of trinity have I exchanged Thee, O Blessed and Divine Trinity! "My heart is troubled," and hence my sorrows. "My strength hath left me," and hence -my terrors. "And the light of my eyes itself is not with me," and hence my errors. Behold, O trinity of my soul, how different a trinity from the Divine thou hast fallen upon in thy exile!

Yet, "why art thou sad, O my soul, and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to Him," that is, when errors shall have been banished from my reason, sorrows from my will, and terrors from my memory, and when, according to my hope, there shall succeed to them admirable tranquillity, perfect sweetness, and eternal security. The first of these I shall find in God as He is Truth, the second in God as He is Love, the third in God as He is Almighty Power. Thus shall God be all in all, communicating Himself to my reason as everlasting Light, to my will as imperturbable Peace, and to my memory as an unfailing, eternally flowing Fountain of Truth. I leave it to you, my brethren, to decide whether I should be right if I attributed the first grace to the Son, the second to the Holy Spirit, and the last to the Father. Yet this must not be understood in such a way as really to exclude either the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost from any one of the three communications. For we should be on our guard lest we admit in the Three Divine Persons any such distinction as would detract from the plenitude of perfection common to All, or, on the other hand, any such plenitude of perfection as would be incompatible with the Personal Distinctions. At the same time, take notice that in the same way as the just derive tranquillity, sweetness, and security from the Divine Trinity, the earthly-minded experience a corresponding threefold influence from the trinity of evil, viz., the allurements of the flesh, the empty pageants of the world, and the pomps of the devil; and it is by this noxious influence alone that the present life succeeds in deluding its wretched lovers. Hence, St. John tells us "all that is in the world is concupiscence of the flesh, and concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life." So much for the fruit of Redemption.

In the mode of Redemption, which, if you remember, I described as an emptying of Himself on the part of God, there are also three things to which I would particularly invite your attention. For that emptying was not imperfect or partial. "He emptied Himself" even to the extent of taking flesh, of enduring death, even the death of the cross. Who can conceive the humility, the loving-kindness, the condescension manifested by the Lord of Majesty in assuming our nature, in bearing the pains of death, in submitting to the shame of crucifixion? But it may be asked, "Could not the Creator have repaired the work of His hands without all this trouble?" Most certainly He could. Yet He preferred to do so at such cost to Himself in order to take from man every shadow of excuse for that most detestable and hateful vice of ingratitude. If, then, He endured so much hardship it was with the view to make man His debtor for so much love, and that at least the difficulty of Redemption might remind l, G us of the obligation of thanksgiving, in whom creation, because of its easiness, had failed to awaken any feeling of devotion or gratitude. For how does this ungrateful human creature look upon the benefit of Creation? "I have been created, indeed," he says, "without merit of my own, yet also without inconvenience or trouble on the part of my Maker. He simply spoke and I was made, in common with everything else. What great thing is it whatever thou bestowest, when the gift costs thyself nothing more than a word?" Thus, the impiety of man, depreciating the benefit of Creation, found an occasion for ingratitude there precisely where it should have discovered only motives for love, and that "to make excuses for sins." But now "the mouth is stopped of them that speak wicked things." Now, O man, it is as clear as daylight what sacrifice of Himself the Creator made for thee. From Lord He became a servant; from rich He became poor; from the Word Divine He was made flesh; and from the Son of God He did not disdain to become the Son of man. Remember, then, that, if created from nothing, thou hast not been redeemed for nothing. In six days God created all things, thyself included. But for the space of thirty-three whole years "He wrought salvation in the midst of the earth." Oh, what labours He endured! Did He not, by the ignominy of His cross, add bitterness for Himself to the necessities of the flesh and the temptations of the enemy, and crown them all with the horror of His death? And indeed it was needful for us that He should do so.³ Thus, O Lord! thus "men and beasts Thou hast saved. Oh, how Thou hast multiplied Thy mercy, O God!"

"Meditate on these things," my brethren; live in them. With their perfume refresh your hearts, long dried up within you by the pungent odours of your sins. So shall you abound in those unguents which are both sweet and salutary. Nevertheless, do not imagine you possess, as yet, the "best ointments," so highly commended in the breasts of the Spouse. But my limits will not permit that I should speak of these now. What I have said about the other two, keep fresh in your memory and prove its truth by the test of experience. And with respect to the third and most excellent ointment, assist me by your prayers that my discourse thereon may be worthy, both in matter and manner, of that delightful supplement to the attractions of the Bride, and may animate your souls to the love of the Bridegroom, Who is Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. and Richard of St. Victor, denies that the Passion and Death [^1]: These words are not found in the Vulgate. In Proverbs xviii. 17, we read, "The just is first accuser of himself." But St. Bernard's reading concurs also with others of the Fathers, and exactly translates the Greek. Hence we may suppose that it is taken from an earlier version. — (Translator.)

Footnotes

1. This expression does not necessitate our admitting that the Mellifluous Doctor belonged to the school of philosophers (including Scotus and Ockham amongst medieval authors, and amongst modern scholastics Gutberlet, Jungmann and apparently Maher, cf. his Psychology, p. 36) who teach that the faculties of the soul are really identical with the soul. For there is a sense in which, consistently with a real distinction between them, the faculties can be said to be the soul. — (Translator.) ↩

2. What these perturbations are the holy Preacher does not pause to explain, because he takes it for granted that his hearers will understand. In the same way he refers to, without naming them, in his book On the Love of God, ch. viii. But in his second sermon for Lent, and in the fiftieth "De Diversis," he treats the subject explicitly. In the latter place, commenting on the text, "Go forth, ye daughters of Sion, and see King Solomon in the diadem wherewith His mother hath crowned Him," he writes: "He alone, viz., Christ, has been crowned by His mother, for He alone came forth from His mother's womb with His passions in order, as a Bridegroom coming forth from the bridal-chamber. These passions, as is well known, are four, namely, love, joy, fear, and sadness." This is, in fact, the traditional classification of the passions, said to have originated with Zeno of Cittium (350-258 B.C.), founder of the Stoic philosophical school, who taught his disciples that the only road to peace and happiness was by the eradication of these four emotions {ndBry), Cicero discusses them in the Tusculan Disputations; St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, xiv. 9) shows, like St. Bernard, that not only are they not evil in themselves, but they can even be made most important auxiliaries of virtue. — (Translator.) ↩

3. This seems to unsay what has been said above. But there is no real contradiction. In the preceding page the Saint, in opposition to the two other great lights of his time, St. Anselm of Christ was the only means at God's disposal for saving the human race; here, in opposition to Abelard, he maintains the congruity or moral necessity of that manner of redemption. The whole subject is discussed with masterly skill in his 190th Epistle, addressed to Innocent II. — (Translator.) ↩