Vigils Reading

A reading from

ST BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

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Do you not see what heaven the Church possesses within her, and that she

herself, in her universality, is an immense heaven, stretching out “from sea to

sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth?” Consider therefore, to what

you may compare her in this respect, provided you do not forget what I

mentioned a short while ago concerning the heaven of heaven and heavens of

heavens. Just like our mother above, this one, though still a pilgrim, has her own

heaven: spiritual men outstanding in their lives and reputations, men of

genuine faith, unshaken hope, generous love, men raised to the heights of

contemplation.

These men rain down God’s saving work like showers, reprove with a

voice of thunder, shine with a splendor of miracles. They proclaim the glory of

God, and stretched out like curtains over the earth, make known the law of life

and knowledge written by God’s finger into their own lives, “to give knowledge

of salvation to his people.” They show forth the gospel of peace, because they

are the curtain of Solomon. In these curtains then we must discern the likeness

of those heavenly figures whom we have just described as part of the

Bridegroom’s adornment. We must recognize too the queen standing at his

right hand, decked with ornaments similar, though not equal, to his. For

although she is endowed with no small share of glory and beauty even where she

sojourns as a pilgrim, as well as in the day of her strength amid the splendors of

the saints, yet the fullness and perfection of the glory of the blessed crowns her

Bridegroom in a way that is different.

If I do refer to the bride as perfect and blessed, she is not wholly so. In part

she resembles the tents of Kedar; but she is also beautiful, both in that part of

her which already reigns in heaven, and in those illustrious men whose wisdom

and virtues grace her journey through the night, like a heaven spangled with

stars. Hence the Prophet’s words: “The wise leaders shall shine like the bright

vault of heaven, and those who have guided the people in the true path shall be

like stars for ever and ever.”

How lowly! Yet how sublime! At the same time tent of Kedar and

sanctuary of God; an earthly tent and a heavenly palace; a mud hut and a royal

apartment; a body doomed to death and a temple bright with light; an object of

contempt to the proud, yet the bride of Christ. She is black but beautiful,

daughters of Jerusalem: for though the hardship and sorrow of prolonged exile

darkens her complexion, a heavenly loveliness shines through it, the curtains of

Solomon enhance it. If the swarthy skin repels you, you must still admire the

beauty; if you scorn what seems lowly, you must look up with esteem to what is

sublime.

Indeed you must note the prudence, the great wisdom, the amount of

discretion and sense of fittingness generated in the bride by that controlled

interplay of lowliness and exaltation according as occasion demands, so that

amid the ups and downs of this world her sublime gifts sustain her lowliness lest

she succumb to adversity; while her lowliness curbs her exaltation, or good

fortune will bring it toppling down. These poles of her life act so harmoniously.

Though of their nature opposites they will work with equal effectiveness for the

good of the bride. They subserve her spiritual welfare.