We shall start immediately to read the text of the degrees of love, on the love of God. But perhaps before I would just remind you some dates of the life of Saint Bernard. Saint Bernard was born in 1090. And Sito was founded in 1998, so he was eight years old. And the next year it was the victory of the Crusaders in Jerusalem. On the mind of this young boy, nine years old, must have had an impression. And Father Lockei, who is one of the best historians of the Cistercian He ordered the guy who is teaching in Dallas, his common observant Cistercian, and in his book, The Wise Monks, stressed that this impression of the heroism of the time may have influenced the Cistercian of St.

[01:19]

Bernard as regards to austerity of life, sort of heroic heroism. Even in the question of going to pilgrimage to Jerusalem, St. Bernard would say, well, to a monk or a man who entered Clairvaux, he'd say, you took a short cut to Jerusalem. You arrived in Jerusalem here. Clairvaux is Jerusalem. So it was a great event in the time, this victory of the Crusaders. He, John Bernard, enters Cito in 1112 when the situation in Cito was rather bad economically and as regards to recruits. And he enters there with seven members of his own family and I think about 20 of his friends. So, the group was certainly as, there were as many as the community members.

[02:27]

So, after three years, when he was in Sittu, they suggested to him to leave and make foundation with his own monks and his family. And he started on Clairvaux. And then he felt he was sick due to his great austerity. He went very, thrown himself in penance and austerity in a great way, especially physically. And he fell ill. And he regretted very much at the end of his life, this excesses and lack of moderation. Anyway, he was sick for one year, and by the permission of the Bishop of Clairvaux-le-Trois, Bishop of Villers-aux-Champeaux, he was allowed to stay in a sort of hermitage

[03:44]

and there he was visited by his friend William of Sainte-Thierry, the abbot of Sainte-Thierry. They spent one year discussing, exchanging ideas on monastic and spiritual theology. That was extremely fruitful for both of them, especially for St. Bernard, I think, because William Saintier was certainly a better theologian, I mean, a better theologian all his life than St. Bernard. And behind all the theological successes of St. Bernard, especially the condemnation of William of Champeaux and, sorry, Abelard, and the other one, I forgot his name. It was William Saint-Gilles who was behind, and Saint Bernard was simply the advocate for the cause.

[04:48]

Good orator. No more, I think, in theology. Then, in 1125, he wrote his two first treatises. And it's very important to see that These two treatises sum up all his doctrine, monastic doctrine, he has been given to his monks for ten years. It's very often that the first work of any author is very often the best one. Sometimes it's true. I think generally it's true. The first work of a man is the best one. After that he learns much more, and Bernard will improve his style, acquires a lot of knowledge, and reads a lot of others. But you will never manage to do concrete synthesis of his doctrine as he did in his two first short treatises.

[05:58]

It's very interesting to see that. And psychology can be explained that it's the whole experience of a man from his childhood which is poured out and expressed in the first world. It's very daring. When you are young, you are daring, you think that you know everything, and you are more daring and free, and after that you realize that you know very little, and you don't try it anymore. So, sometimes it's a good thing to be imprudent because you say something which is certainly relevant. And that was very good. This is a doctrine he gave for ten years to his monk in Clairvaux in his full enthusiasm of the beginning.

[06:59]

and he put there the essential doctrine, especially in the steps of humility, which will become the basic teaching of the school of Saint Bernard and of Clairvaux and of the Cistercian order. Now, let's start, because if you go on introducing, you can spend a whole week introducing and never read the text. I put on the board the sort of three, four steps, which is a sort of help to the memory. It seems to be almost... Yes, it's almost easy to, it's very easy to remember.

[08:01]

And you have the full circle, you see, love self, man loves himself, love of self, for the sake of self. That's first degree. Second, loves God for the sake of self. And third degree, man loves God for the sake of God. And then eventually, at the end, he loves himself for the sake of God. So we have the full circle when you begin by love self and you end by love self. That's for complete, you have completely purified this love. That's the whole progress. Now, when Cistercian speak of steps or degrees, We have to understand that it's purely systematic, it's a method. There's nothing scientific about it, maybe more or less degrees, but it's easy and generally speaking in the 12th century and for the Middle Ages, they like to put things in order, steps and degrees and because in all ways they were the structure of their mind.

[09:16]

Now, let's start the first text here on page one. Love is a natural affection, one of four. They are well known. There is no need of mentioning them by name. the man who edited this text thought it was all the same better to name them, to mention them by name in case you forgot them. They are Love, Fear, Joy and Sorrow, the first fundamental classic Greek passion of the soul. It would therefore be just that what is natural should serve its own author before all others. And in the very first line you have twice the name natural. It's a natural affection and therefore it would be natural that this passion which is being given by God in the creation should serve its own author.

[10:34]

And here you have immediately, this sort of puts you, this passage, continual passage between philosophy, revealed truth, and philosophy. You see, there's great freedom there. To remember that we are before the scholastics, and wisdom is one thing. reason and revelation without very much distinction. And so we shall see again, nature and grace will not be distinguished, clear-cut distinction, which we will have after the scholastics and Thomas especially. We have to remember that always. So, one of the proofs of that is, thou shalt love the Lord thy God. Normally, A man, since he has this natural affection in him, this natural impulse, this natural longing and passion, this love should be first of all directed to God, the author of nature.

[11:46]

But since nature is rather weak and feeble, it is impelled at the beginning of necessity to serve itself first. It's a very important statement here, that nature is rather weak and feeble. And therefore, as the nature is not very strong, it has to use this passion of love for itself, because it has not too much, not too much to spare. So the kernel of love I'll just speak of carnal love. Carnal love is simply love of self. It's not sexual love, it includes it, but it's simply the love of self, which is not spiritual. Spiritual is the love of God, or the love of the spirit. Now, this carnal love, it is instinctive love, this natural love, by which before all things man loves himself for his own sake,

[12:56]

that is written first, that which is natural, afterward, that which is spiritual. It's a text continuously quoted by Saint Bernard, First Corinthians, chapter 15. And it is not imposed by command, but implanted in nature. It's a natural thing. Now, In all this speech, all this passage, Saint Bernard is dealing with the nature of man and inspired by the Stoic system, Stoic method, Stoic doctrine of nature, sequinatura, to follow the nature. Follow the nature and nature is a good guide. That was the teaching of the Stoics. And the idea is this, if you really, if you are content with what you need, then you will be able to share with the sharers of your nature, fellow men.

[14:12]

But if this love as is its want, begins to be too precipitate or too lavish, and is not at all satisfied with the riverbed of necessity, overflowing rather widely, it will be seen to invade the fields of pleasure. At once it overflows, it's held in check by the commandment that opposes itself to it, so shall thy neighbor as thyself. So the limitation of my overflowing desire and pleasure is my neighbor, you see. It happens very justly indeed that the share in nature should not be excluded from a part in grace as well, especially in that grace which is inborn in nature itself. For Thomas now he is completely lost because grace which is inborn in nature. See, it's the grace in nature.

[15:15]

I've always remembered that Saint Bernard speaks here of men in grace and sin. It's only a scholastic and a very late scholastic in the 16th century who tried to imagine a pure homo, pure man, you see. It would be almost, it's a fiction. It never existed. Pura natura. Never existed, never will exist. It's a man. would be outside the history of salvation or even outside creation. It was pure fiction, theological fiction, in order to explain the gratuity of grace. It must be long to start that. In order to admit that God gives his grace gratuitously, man cannot exact it. Humanity cannot demand this grace, therefore you have to imagine a possibility of a natural man who would have a natural destiny, but it's purely fictitious.

[16:26]

There's only one destiny, it's hell or heaven, and there is one origin, which is the grace of God and the sin. So we are all in this natural world which includes, I suppose, grace and the fall. Therefore, the whole dialectic here is between myself, what I need, and what the other need. And ideally speaking, it would be, man would be happy and perfect if he would be capable of just choosing what he needs and leave the rest or give the rest to the sharers of his own nature. Unfortunately, it is not the case. So at the end of the page, I think what you take away from your soul's enemy, that is my pleasure, my concupiscence, my lust and all that, desire of acquiring more than I need, you will find no burden to bestow upon the share of your nature.

[17:39]

Your love will then be both temperate and just. If what is taken from your own pleasures is not denied to a brother's need, does carnal love, the love of self, the egoistic love of self, is made to belong to our neighbor when it is extended to the common good? The social, I mean, I speak of a socialist amour, amour social, or more socialist. And it's been pointed out that this is very close to the communist or Marxist idea. I gave a talk in Kalamazoo last year on friendship, on friendship in a lot of reverse, trying to explain this stoic idea which is behind the doctrine. And someone remarked after the lecture that That was a Marxist idea, so a long debate started between, comparison between Marxism and Saint-Hilbert of Rivaux, and that was rather amusing.

[18:49]

But certainly, there is some deep, real comparison possible, and you know very well that Thomas Merton was working very much on that line, and his last talk in Bangkok was on communism and monasticism. Both monks and the Marxists take a critical attitude towards the world and its structures. And to change the situation, Marxists start with changing the external structures of the society, and monks, Buddhist or Christian monks, start with the problem within man himself, to change this heart. Thomas Merton believed that a Marxist idea was only possible in a monastery. It's true. Because you cannot just share with other people without a certain notion of charity, means renouncing things.

[19:58]

If you let just your heart go as it is, it's impossible. always want more, and therefore that's the, well, all the history of humanity is there. Middle East, it's always want more, and then war, and so on. So the ideal, and there's the Christian ideal, of the fathers, and John Chrysostom exposed that, that all the richness of the world belongs to all men. That's Marxism. But unfortunately that is not possible because the heart of man is not capable of renouncing his interest, his egoism, his... He wants more than he needs. And he always wants more than he needs. So that is the idea. And in order to be able to do that, to be capable to renouncing in favor of my neighbor, of what I don't want, you need a transcendent principle.

[21:16]

some point of reference for both of you which will agree that some principle is greater. Otherwise, you are bound to think that you are yourself the most important thing in the world. Why not? There is no higher principle or higher being. I don't see any reason why I should think that somebody else is greater than me or I should care for him and so on. French author, Marot, philosopher and French author, great friend of the Gaul and minister of culture in France, wrote recently, he is not a believer, he has been flirting with Marxism for a long time, and he wrote pretty lately that the main problem in the next century

[22:22]

will be to know whether an horizontal love or sharing and communication is possible without a transcendent principle. Very clear. Without a transcendent belief. And he believes that the transcendence for him is heart, beauty, and culture. So that's three. we are very close to the problem here with St. Bernard. Now, St. Bernard says, in order, and it's very interesting to see his point of view, in order the creature may not know, may not be proud and in his pride allocate to itself the benefits it has received from its creator. The same maker, that's the middle of the page two, Miculona, the same maker in his high and solitary counsel wills that man should be arrest with struggle.

[23:30]

because you see that God wants that, wanted that. So it's not only the fault of man, but it's normal condition of man that he should be arrested with trouble. Now, this trouble should be taken very seriously and very deeply. It's not only a headache or a broken leg. Troubles mean here the human condition. This limitation we always feel, this continual longing for something else, the desire in the heart of man, perfection, which never, never achieved here below. Happiness, happiness never, perfect happiness doesn't exist on Earth, and it's a very good thing. to be convinced of that, and to tell people, you are not going to be perfectly happy here. Otherwise, they always imagine that it is possible, and then feeling frustrated all the time, saying that the neighbor is perfectly happy, and if he has the same house, or second car, and all that.

[24:42]

Then I've described that very well in the circuitus impiorum, the circuit of the impious, always trying to accumulate things and acquire things, and believe always that he will be perfectly happy if he acquires that. And he says that if man would be capable of trying everything, he wouldn't necessarily go to God, because he will have the proof that there is no way of satisfying his heart. Unfortunately, the time is short, and it's always the hope that the next thing will give him happiness or the next year or something. So, it is very deep, and it's not only in acquiring things, but this deep longing of the heart in satisfaction inside. That is trouble. So, when man has failed, and God has come to his assistance, while man is being delivered by God, God, as is fitting, may be honoured by man.

[25:55]

Because the sun called upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorify me. That is the idea. Does it come to pass in these ways that a man, an animal and carnal by nature, who knew how to love no one except himself, may begin, even for his own sake, to love God too, because in him, beyond a shadow of doubt, as he has often learned from experience, he can do all things. There is this very dense sentence here. Man knew how to love no one except himself. That is the first experience. It's very deep. And it's an experience. And also, he has learned that he cannot love himself perfectly, properly, without the help of somebody else.

[27:09]

And this help has to come from beyond humanity. A man cannot help him at this level of deep desire, deep limitation. And therefore, a man loves God, but still for a while for his own sake, not for himself. It is, however, a sort of prudence to know what you are able to do by yourself and what with God helps. This is a Stoic principle, literal. Pictatus and Seneca very often quote that. It doesn't speak. It is a sort of prudence to know what you are able to do by yourself and what with the help of another or the help of God. And therefore, if tribulation assails you again and again, and on this account there occurs an effort repeated to turn on towards God, and as often there follows deliverance obtained from God

[28:20]

Is it not true that even though the breast weighs of steel and the heart of stone in one so many times rescued, it must of necessity be softened at the grace of the rescuer so that man may love God, not merely for his own sake, but for God himself? That's the third degree. From the occasion that arises, from frequent needs, It is necessary that man should frequently, in repeated intercourse, go to God, who in such intercourse is tasted, and it is by tasting that it is proved how sweet is the love." Psalm 33. It's a very often quoted verse here, you see, the taste of the love, the taste of sweet is the love, which is a spiritual experience. to avoid the term mystical or contemplative, spiritual deep experience.

[29:23]

Now, you see very well the reasoning or the movement. You cannot achieve your perfection or your happiness or your fulfillment of your personality of your being by yourself. Therefore, you call to help, the help of the grace of God, you may experience that often he has helped you, and this experience you very often better see in the past than in the present. all our history, we can see that God has done something for us, that we were not able to do it by ourself. And from this experience, this repeated experience, you begin to see that God is good in himself. And that is love of God for God.

[30:25]

And the fourth degree of love is—and then I'd say, I don't know if many I've experienced that perfectly, meaning a stable state, you may have that from time to time. You are so united with God as your creator, benefactor, giving you grace and happiness that you cannot love yourself independently of God. When you love yourself, you love God. That is the state of the souls in heaven, where God will be all in all, so we shall love ourself, or God in ourself. But some time to time, in a sort of ecstasy or a transport of joy, you can love yourself. united so closely to God that you love both, if you like, together. I mean, you love God in you, in yourself, as participating in God.

[31:37]

At the bottom of page 3, you have, beginning there, chapter 12, Saint Bernard wrote these same treatises before. I remember well, a while ago, I wrote a letter to the Holy Carthusian Brethren, to a geek, Geek the Carthusian, who wrote the Scala Crossalium, the scale of the clusters, and in it, among other matters, I discussed these very grades of love. Then you have on that page another system, you see another symbolism of these three degrees, or three qualities of love. Men, the servant, who fears, the isling, who desires things for his own sake, and the third, the son, who loves his father. Only the charity which is found in the sun seeketh not a horn."

[32:47]

In the middle of the page there. And the idea is, of course, renouncing your horn. A bit slower there. At times they chant expressions of kindness. Even a servant, to be sure, sometimes does the work of God, but because he does not it freely, He is known still to remain in his harmless. Even the Highling does the work of God, but because he does not do it without a compense, he is convicted of being carried away by his own stupidity. And truly, where there is something of one's own, there is distinction between one person and another. Where there is a distinction between one person and another, there is a corner. and we have to be sure there is a corner, there without doubt there is dirt and moldiness. It's a corner of cupidity, wanting a little corner for oneself, not to be in peace there.

[33:54]

But charity converts souls whom she makes free agents. So you are going to see the same system if you repeat it, page 6, chapter 15. It's simply the same system which is on the board, but perhaps even better, again because it was written before, the first inspiration, it is very, very dense here. Because we are, nevertheless, because we are carnal and are born of the occupations of the flesh, it follows as a necessary consequence that our desire for personal gratification or love should have its source in the flesh. This is a very, very basic principle of Saint Bernard. He will use this principle for devotion to the humanity of Christ.

[34:57]

and for the incarnation. But if it is directed according to the right order of things, the right order of things, ordinatio, redirected, ordained, advancing by several degrees under the guidance of grace, it will at last be consummated by the Spirit because that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural. First, therefore, man loves himself for his own sake, for he is flesh, and he can have no taste for anything except in relation to himself. This is a very solid foundation. It's a common experience. And when he sees that he cannot subsist of himself, he cannot realize this goal, He begins to see God through faith as something, as it were, necessary for him and to love him.

[36:00]

These steps is very difficult for men today, especially today perhaps, to realize that we cannot be fully men fully happy or fully oneself without the help of something beyond possibility of the human nature of what we can achieve or we can achieve with progress or intelligence. It requires some deep reflection to know our limitation. Thus he loves God according to the second degree, but for his own sake, not for himself. But when in truth, on account of his own necessity, he has begun to worship and come to him again and again by, and this is very important because that's the monastic exercises, to him again and again by meditating, reading, by prayer, and by being obedient, cogitando,

[37:12]

legendo, orando, obediendo, quodam familiaritate, polatim, by a sort of familiarity, polatim, slowly, by degree, he becomes known to him, through experience, In this sort of familiarity, God becomes intimate, little by little, and consequently, he grows sweet, and by tasting how sweet is the Lord, he passes the third degree, so that he loves God, not for his own sake, but for himself. So, see here, the whole progress, or the whole process, is based on an experience. Experience of your limitation, of your need, experience of the sweetness of the Lord because you have been frequenting, frequentando. So, it's a… Gilles Saint, he said that you, it's in French,

[38:24]

that you become intimate with God, that you become familiar with Him, and that is the way of an experience. So, the important thing here in this text, even clearer than the first one, is that it is by the monastic discipline that you go to God. Because all men do have this experience of to be incapable of realizing themselves, unhappy, always feeling the limitation of their joy or happiness, the weakness of human nature, the experience of time, experience of decay and so on, passing things. But the monk takes the step, obliges himself freely to put himself in a situation where he will be forced by the condition he has chosen to call on God.

[39:45]

This is very important, because this is the justification of the closed soul's life, the life in the closed. Otherwise, it's so easy to, and it's quite natural, again, when you feel really this deep longing, this deep desire for perfection, or for help from God, to say, well, that's... I'll manage it myself. If you feel uneasy, you can find some kind of distraction. And that's what most people do. If you find this longing for something else, for the absolute, instead of really stopping at that and say, well, I cannot acquire that by myself, God will give it to me, and ask him prayer and meditation, and by forcing yourself to be here,

[40:54]

Well, you go, you have so many opportunity then to change your mind, to have, go out, have a whiskey or two or more, and forget about it. And the next morning you start again. And go on like that. Most men, human life is that. Always thinking that, never facing the situation, never facing the tragedy of men. and monks are supposed to do that, and they wanted it. They put themselves in this situation for themselves to do it, because they know that they are weak, like everybody else, and they will find this this occasion very easily of distraction, or the Pascal divertissement, Pascal analyzed that very, very cleverly, see, the divertissement, the distraction, you avoid.

[42:04]

Pascal said, this is very painful for men, so he decided not to think about it, avoid the problem, and so forth, so many things. Everything he feels in himself is an unsatisfaction. He says, well, avoid the problem. And he says, well, perhaps I'll find something and forget and distract myself. And you are in the world, it's easy, and man is always tempted to find an easy solution. but you will never be happy and satisfied. because he refused to face the problem and see what he can do by himself and what he cannot do by himself. And eventually, if he has the grace to believe that there is power, there is power behind human forces and human possibility to recur to God and ask for his help and his grace.

[43:14]

This is first. This afternoon, this evening, we shall read Degrees of Humility, which is another way of exposing the same basic human and Christian problem.

[43:29]

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