Lenten Weekday

REND YOUR HEARTS,
BUT KEEP YOUR GARMENTS WHOLE

From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux

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If you grieve for your sin or your neighbor’s, you do well, and this sadness
leads to salvation. If you rejoice at the gifts of grace, this is a holy joy and a true
joy in the Holy spirit. You must rejoice in the love of Christ with your brothers,
in their successes and grieve with them in adversity, as it is written: Rejoice with
those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.

This does not mean that we should value lightly the physical turning. As
we know, it is no small support for the spiritual. That is why when the Lord had
said “with all your heart” here, he immediately added “with fasting”, for that is
of the body. Yet I would have you warned, my brothers, that that means not only
abstaining from food, but from all fleshly lusts and all bodily pleasures; indeed
you must fast from vices far more than from food. But there is a bread from
which I do not wish you to fast lest you faint on the way; if you do not know
what it is, I am speaking of the bread of tears. The text goes on, with fasting,
with weeping, and with mourning. It demands mourning of us by way of
repentance for our former way of life; it demands weeping with desire for future
beatitude. You do not have sufficient cravings for the joys to come if you do not
beg for them every day with tears; if your soul does not refuse comfort until they
come, then you know too little of them.

Let the Spirit rend your heart with his sword, which is the Word of God;
let him rend it and speedily shatter it into many fragments. There is no way to
turn to the Lord with all your heart except your heart be rent. Listen to one
whom God found to be after his own heart. My heart is ready, O God, my heart
is ready, he says – ready for both adversity and prosperity, ready for what is
low and what is lofty; ready for whatever you command. Who is faithful as David
in his going out and coming in? He used to say of sinners, Their heart is curdled
like milk, but I have meditated on your law. This is the reason for hardness of
heart and obstinacy of mind, that someone does not meditate on the law of the
Lord but on his own will.

Let us rend our hearts, dearly beloved, but keep our garments whole. Our
garments are our virtues; love is a good garment, obedience is a good garment.
Happy is the one who cares for these garments that he may not walk naked.
Happy are those whose sins are covered; love covers a multitude of sins. Let
us rend our hearts, as was said before, that we may keep our garments whole,
as was our Savior’s tunic. The rending of the heart not only keeps the garment
whole, but also makes it long and of many colors, like the coat the holy patriarch
Joseph gave the son whom he loved more than the others. From this comes
perseverance in virtue, from this the many-colored unity of a beautiful way of
life.

We may also take this rending of the heart in another way; if the heart is
wicked it may be rent by confession; if hard, by compassion. Is not an ulcer rent
so that the diseased matter may flow out? Is not the heart rent to overflow in
compassion? Both rendings are expedient, that the poison of sin may not be
hidden in the heart, and we may not shut off our compassion from our
neighbor’s need, that we may receive mercy from Our Lord Jesus Christ, who is
over all, blessed forever.

3 Bernard of Clairvaux – Sermons for Lent – Cistercian Fathers Series – #52 – Collegeville, MN –
pg. 34.