Vigils Reading

A reading from

ST BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

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“In all things give thanks to God.” If you can credit yourself with wisdom

or with virtue, realize that the credit is due rather to Christ, who is the Power

and the Wisdom of God.

“Who is so mad,” you say, “as to presume otherwise?” Actually nobody.

Even the Pharisee gives thanks, although his justice merits no praise from God.

And if, as the Gospel points out, his act of thanksgiving does not increase his

grace, why is this so? Because the pieties that our mouths proclaim will not

justify the pride of our heart in the sight of him who is repelled by the arrogant.

“God is not mocked, O Pharisee. What do you have that was not given to

you?” “Nothing,” he says, “and therefore I offer thanks to the giver.” But if there

is really nothing, then you had no antecedent merit to warrant your reception of

the things of which you boast. And if you admit this, then in the first place it is

futile to give yourself airs at the expense of the publican who does not possess as

much as you because he has not received as much…

When you despise others, however, you betray the inner reality of your

condition, you are speaking from a double heart, with one lending your tongue

to a lie, with the other usurping the honor due to truth. Never would you judge

the publican more despicable than yourself if you did not consider that you are

more honorable than he. But how will you reply to the principle laid down by the

Apostle: ‘Honor and glory to the only God?’ How reply to the angels who in their

teaching distinguish between what God reserves for himself and what he is

willing to share with men? Their song is: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and peace on earth to men of good-will.’

Do you not perceive that the Pharisee, in offering thanks, honors God with

his lips but in his heart pays tribute to himself? And so, through force of habit

more than by intention or inclination, you will hear people of all sorts

pronouncing words of thanks… For instance, when the thief has bagged the loot

for which he has planned, he celebrates in the privacy of his hide-out and says:

“Thank God!”… The murderer will brag and express his thanks for the

overthrow of a rival, for having had revenge on an enemy. And the adulterer will

utter an irreverent “Thank you God,” as he capers with delight on having gone to

bed at last with the woman he has long pursued.

It is clear then that God will listen only to the thanks that spring from a

pure and genuine simplicity of heart. I say “pure heart,” because when those

who boast of their evil conduct presume to thank God for it, they bring him

down to the level of their own profligacy and make him share in their wicked

pleasures. God says to people of this kind: “Do you really think I am like you? I

charge, I indict you to your face.”