Vigils Reading
January 23
ON THE THRESHOLD
OF CONTEMPLATION
From a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux
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My brethren, I beseech you, be on your guard all the time, for this is the
hour of battle… Let us stand firmly at our post. Let us lean with all our strength
on the invincible rock which is Christ, in accordance with these words from the
scriptures: “He set my feet on a rock, and ordered my goings”. Thus set up and
fortified, let us apply ourselves to contemplation: we shall see what is said to us
and what we should answer to him who reproaches us.
The first stage of contemplation…is that we should ceaselessly consider
the Lord’s wishes as to what pleases him, what he wants. For we all make many
mistakes. Our want of simplicity bruises the honesty of his will, and this
prevents us from unifying ourselves, from cleaving to him. So let us humble
ourselves beneath the mighty hand of the Most High God and hasten to lay our
wretchedness before the eyes of his mercy, saying, “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall
be healed; save me, and I shall be saved”, and again, “Lord, be merciful to me,
heal my soul, for I have sinned against you’.
When the eye of the heart has been purified by this kind of thought we no
longer live with a heart full of bitterness but in the joys which are found in the
Spirit of God. And now we consider no longer what is God’s will for us, but what
this will is in itself. For God wills life, and nothing is better or more profitable
than to conform to his will. That is why the eagerness with which we try to
preserve our life should be directed, as far as possible, into never swerving from
the path which brings us to God’s will…
Let us recall how gentle the Lord is, how good he is in himself. With the
prophet let us ask to see the Lord’s will, let us ask him to bring us, no longer to
our hearts but to his temple, “to behold the fair beauty of the Lord, and to visit
his temple”. And in addition let us say with him, “My God, my soul is vexed
within me: therefore will I remember you”.
These two things embrace the content of the whole spiritual life: at the
sight of ourselves we are troubled and contrite, and in fear of our salvation;
while in contemplating God we find relief, and the joy of the Holy Spirit brings
us consolation. On one side, fear and humility; on the other, hope and love.