Sermon LXXXIII. On the Right of Every Soul to Aspire to the Nuptials of the Word, and in what this Spiritual Marriage Consists

"In my bed by night I sought Him Whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and I found Him not. I will rise and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek Him Whom my soul loveth: I sought Him and I found Him not."

"The Watchmen who kept the city found me: Have you seen Him

Whom my soul loveth?

"When I had a little passed beyond them, I found Him Whom my soul loveth: I held Him and I will not let Him go, till I bring Him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me."

We have now, my brethren, on three successive days devoted the regular time which we have appointed for these discourses to the task of demonstrating the affinity between the Word and the soul. Now it may be asked, what is the use of all this labour? Let me tell you. We have learned from this discussion that every human soul, no matter how burdened with sins, no matter how entangled in vices, no matter how enslaved to the enticements of pleasure, though she beheld captive in exile, imprisoned in the flesh, clinging to the mire, sunk in the slime, yoked to the body, tortured with cares, distraught with solicitudes, terrified with fears, aiilicted with sorrows, deceived and seduced by errors, worried with anxieties, disquieted with suspicions; though she be, lastly, a stranger in the land of her enemies, and, in the words of the Prophet Baruch, "defiled with the dead "and "counted with them that go down into hell"; yes, I say, though the soul should be in such a state of despair and damnation, yet we have learned from the preceding discourses how she can still discover in herself something which is not only capable of establishing her in the hope of pardon and in the confidence of mercy, but also of animating her with courage to aspire even to the nuptials of the Word, to enter boldly into an alliance of friendship with God, and to begin fearlessly to draw the sweet P yoke of love with Him Who is Lord of the angels. For / what may she not safely presume in the case of One I with Whose image she beholds herself adorned, and / by Whose likeness she perceives herself ennobled? I What, I ask, has she to fear from His Majesty, since she possesses in that relationship to Him in which she I was created a sufficient motive for confidence? Only I let her strive henceforth to prove and preserve the '"' nobility of her nature by innocence of life: or rather let her study to enhance and decorate with the appropriate colours, so to speak, of worthy actions and affections that heavenly beauty which is her birthright.

What, then, is the reason why she is so little industrious in a matter which concerns her highest interests? Industry, my brethren, is a very important endowment of our nature. But if it fails to perform its functions, are not the rest of our natural gifts and faculties thrown into a state of disorder, and the whole covered over, as it were, with the rust of decadence? Now this redounds to the dishonour of the Creator. For God, the Author of our nature, has willed that the seal of her divine origin should be always preserved in the soul, unto this purpose, namely, in order that she might always have within herself a memorial of the Word, which would constantly be reminding her either to continue faithful to Him, or to return, if she should ever be so unfortunate as to abandon Him. It is not by moving from one place to another, or by moving with visible steps, but by moving in the manner in which motion is possible to a spiritual substance, namely, with her affections, or rather with her vices, that she descends, so to speak, beneath herself, when by the wickedness of her life and conversation she becomes degenerate and makes herself unlike herself. But although this unlikeness vitiates, it does not destroy her nature. And according as it renders her natural nobility more conspicuous by the contrast with itself, in the same measure, by its conjunction, does it dishonour that nobility. Again, the return of the soul is her conversion to the Word by Whom she is to be reformed and to Whom she is to be conformed. In what respect, do you ask? In charity. Hence the Apostle exhorts us, saying, "Be ye therefore followers of God as most dear children; and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us."

It is by this conformity of charity, my brethren, that the soul is wedded to the Word, when, namely, loving even as she is loved, she exhibits herself in her will conformed to Him to Whom she is already conformed in her nature. Therefore, if she loves Him perfectly she has become His Bride.¹ What can be more sweet than such a conformity? What can be more desirable than this charity by which, O happy soul, not content any longer with human teachers, thou art enabled of thyself to draw nigh with confidence to the Word, to cleave to Him steadfastly, to interrogate Him familiarly, and to consult Him in all thy doubts, as audacious in thy desires as thou art capacious in thy understanding? 'This is in truth the alliance of a holy and spiritual marriage. But it is saying too little to call it an alliance: it is rather an embrace. Surely we have then a spiritual embrace when the same likes and the same dislikes make one spirit out of two? Nor is there any occasion to fear lest the inequality of the persons should cause some defect in the harmony of wills, since love knows nothing of reverence. Love means an exercise of affection, not an exhibition of honour. Honour is given by him who is awe-stricken, who is astounded, who is terrified, who is filled with admiration. But none of these emotions has any place in the lover. Love is all-sufficient for itself. Whithersoever love comes, it subjugates and renders captive to itself all the other affections. Consequently the soul that loves, simply loves and knows nothing else except to love. The Word is indeed One Who deserves to be honoured. Who deserves to be admired and wondered at; yet He is better pleased to be loved. For He is the Bridegroom and the soul is His Bride. And between a bridegroom and his bride what other relation or connection would you look forexcept the bond of a mutual love? Such is the strength of this bond that it overcomes even the most intimate union which nature forms, I mean the union between parent and child. So much is evident from the words of the Saviour, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife." You perceive, my brethren, how love, as it is found between a bridegroom and bride, is not only more powerful than the other human affections, but it is even more powerful than itself.

It must also be remembered that this Bridegroom is not only loving, but is Love Itself. May it be likewise said of Him that He is Honour? You are at liberty to think so, if you choose, but there is no authority for this to be found in Holy Scripture. I have read therein that "God is Charity," but never that He is Honour or Dignity. Not that God does not demand honour, for He has said, "If I be a Father, where is My honour? "But it is as a Father that He speaks thus. Were He to speak in His character as Bridegroom, I believe He would use different language and would say, "If I be a Bridegroom where is My love? "For He has asked the same question concerning the reverence due to Him in His capacity as Lord, "If I be a Master, where is My fear? "God therefore requires to be honoured as a Father, and to be feared as a Lord, but to be loved as a Bridegroom. Now in these various affections what is that which appears to excel and to hold the preeminence? Doubtless it is love. For without love "fear hath pain "and honour finds no favour. Fear is slavish until it has been emancipated by love. And the honour which proceeds not from love better deserves to be Ccilled flattery than honour. To God alone are due honour and glory; but God will refuse to accept both the one and the other unless they are sweetened with the honey of love. Love is sufficient of itself, it pleases of itself, and for its own sake. It counts as merit to itself and is its own reward. Besides itself, love requires no motive and seeks no fruit. Its fruit is its enjoyment of itself. I love because I love, and I love for the sake of loving. A great thing, my brethren, is love, if yet it returns to its Principle, if it is restored to its Origin, if it finds its way back again to its Fountain-Head, so that it may be thus enabled to continue flowing with an unfailing current. Amongst all the emotions, sentiments, and feelings of the soul, love stands distinguished in this respect, that in the case of it alone has the creature the power to correspond and to make a return to the Creator in kind, though not in equality. For instance, if God were to manifest anger against me, surely I should not answer Him with a like exhibition of anger. No indeed, but I should rather fear and tremble and supplicate mercy. Similarly, if He were to reprove me, I, instead of reproving Him in turn, should prefer to justify Him. Neither shall I presume to judge Him when I am judged by Him, but I shall rather humble myself and adore His justice. He Who saves me does not require that I should reciprocate the favour by saving Him. Nor does He Who delivers all stand Himself in need of being delivered by any. If He chooses to act as a Master I must conduct myself as a servant; if He commands I am bound to obey, without having any right to exact from Him a return of service or obedience. But consider now how different is the case with love. For when God loves me He desires nothing else than to be loved by me: He loves me in order that I may love Him, because He knows well that all who love Him find in this very love their joy and their happiness.

Truly a great thing is love.² But it has degrees of greatness. In the highest of these degrees stands the love of the Spouse. The children also love, but they have an eye to the inheritance, the thought of losing which makes them suspicious of everything, causes them to regard with more fear than affection Him from Whom they hope to receive it. For my part, my brethren, I look with suspicion on that love which appears to be supported by the hope of any other reward than a return of love. Such love is weak, and languishes, or even expires, if its hope happens to be withdrawn from it. It is an impure love, since it covets something foreign to its own nature. The love that is pure is never mercenary. Pure love derives none of its strength from hope, and yet suffers nothing from diffidence. This is the love proper to the Spouse, and she that is a Spouse is made a Spouse solely by this. Love is the sole dowry and the sole hope of the Spouse. This is all-sufficing for her. With this alone the Bridegroom is content. He requires nothing else, and she possesses nothing else. It is such love as this that makes Him her Bridegroom as it makes her His Bride. It belongs exclusively to the Bridegroom and the Bride, and none else, not even the children, can share in it. To the children the Father says, "Where is My honour?" not, "Where is My love?" For the Bridegroom reserves to the Bride her prerogative. Moreover, children are commanded to honour their father and their mother, but nothing is said to them about love; not because parents are not to be loved by their children, but because many children feel more inclined to treat their parents with respect than with love. True, "the honour of the King loveth judgment," as the Psalmist says; but the love of the Bridegroom, or rather the Bridegroom Who is Love, requires of His Spouse nothing more than a return of love and loyalty. Let her then who is so beloved by Him, be careful to reciprocate His love. How, indeed, can she help loving since she is a Spouse, and the Spouse of Love? Or how is it possible that Love should not be loved?

Rightly, therefore, does the Spouse, renouncing all other feelings, abandon herself entirely to love alone, since in the interchange of love she has to correspond to a Bridegroom Who is Love Itself. For even when her whole being has been dissolved and poured out in love to Him, what after all is her love compared with the never-failing outflow from Love's own Fountain? Love surely does not abound in an equal degree in her who loves and in Him Who is Love, in the soul of man and in the Word of God, in the Bride and in the Bridegroom, in the creature and in the Creator, any more than the water equally abounds in him who thirsts for it and in the well which is its source. What then? Shall her hope of the heavenly nuptials, and her learning desire, and her ardent love, and her confident expectation, be all disappointed and perish wholly, because she cannot in running keep up with a giant, or contend with honey in sweetness, or equal the meekness of a lamb, or rival the purity of a lily, or emulate the brightness of the sun, or compete in love with Him Who is Charity? Certainly not. For although the Spouse, as a creature, is less than her Creator, and hence loves also less, yet if she loves with her whole being, her love is perfect and wanting in nothing. Wherefore, as I have told you already, it is love of this kind that constitutes the spiritual marriage of the soul with the Word.³ For she cannot love in this perfect way without being perfectly loved in return, so that by the consent of the two parties the marriage is ratified and completed. But perhaps some may have a doubt as to whether the soul is anticipated and surpassed by the Word in loving. That, however, is quite certain: He loved her long before she began to love Him, and He loves her far more than she loves Him. Happy the Spouse who has deserved to be prevented with the blessing of such exceeding sweetness! Happy the Spouse to whom it has been given to experience an embrace of such surpassing delight! This spiritual embrace is nothing else than a chaste and holy love, a love sweet and pleasant, a love perfectly serene and perfectly pure, a love that is mutual, intimate, and strong, a love that joins two, not in one flesh, but in one spirit, that makes two to be no longer two but one undivided spirit, according to the testimony of St. Paul, where he says, "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." And now, concerning these questions, let us rather listen to her whom the unction of grace and frequent experience have quickly qualified to be our instructress in all the ways of love divine. But perhaps we had better hold over this point and deal with it in a special sermon. For we should only spoil what is excellent matter by attempting to compress it within the few moments now available at the conclusion of to-day's discourse. And so with your permission I will make an end here where the sequence of thought does not warrant it, so that we may reassemble to-morrow in good time and with eager minds to consider the pure delights which the holy and happy soul deserves to experience with the Word and from the Word, her heavenly Bridegroom, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Footnotes

1. It will be observed that St. Bernard's spiritual marriage seems to have very little in common with the spiritual marriage described by St. Teresa in the last book of her Interior Castle, under the name of the "Seventh Mansion." Here there is no mention at all of what the holy Carmelite regards as inseparable concomitants of this culminating grace, interior locutions, uninterrupted recollection, transformation of the faculties, permanent vision of the Deity, etc. It may be remarked, however, hat St. Bernard is not giving us here a history of his own soul, but practical instructions as to how we are to dispose ourselves for the reception of the divine favours. He does not tell the soul what God will do for her, but only what she must do for God. And after all, is there any higher perfection possible to man than the perfect conformit^-^ of his will with his Creator's? — (Translator.) ↩

2. "Magna res amor." The finest passage of the Imitation of Christ (Bk. III. ch. v.) opens with the words "Magna res est amor." — (Translator.) ↩

3. St. John of the Cross likewise makes the spiritual marriage to consist essentially in that perfection of charity which manifests itself in' a complete conformity of the human will with the divine. He says, "The spiritual marriage of the soul and the Son of God now remains to be accomplished. This is, beyond all comparison, a far higher state than that of espousals; because it is a complete transformation of the soul into the Beloved; and because each of them surrenders to the other the entire possession of themselves in the perfect union of love, wherein the soul becomes divine, and by participation, God, so far as it is possible in this life. I believe that no soul ever attains to this state without being confirmed in grace in it, for the faith of both is confirmed.... Hence it follows that this is the very highest state possible in this life. As by natural marriage there are two in one flesh, so also in the spiritual marriage between God and the soul, there are two natures in one spirit and love, as we learn from St. Paul, who makes use of the same metaphor, saying, ' He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.' So when the light of a star, or of a burning candle, is united to that of the sun, the light is not that of the star, nor of the candle, but of the sun itself, which absorbs all other light in its own" {Spiritual Canticle, Stanza xxii. 119, 120, Lewis's Translation). — (Translator.) ↩