St Bernard on Interior Simplicity
Cistercian life sets men apart from the world and purifies their souls. Our souls must be led to perfect union with God, by the recovery of our lost likeness to Him.
The fall and. redemption of man, become for St Bernard, matters of cardinal importance. It is in the finest sermons, on the Canticle of Canticles, that St Bernard enters most deeply into this subject. These are a preparation for the great discourses on the mystical marriage.
It is here that we find him introducing the topic of simplicity.
The soul was created in God's image and likeness. St Bernard's treatment of the fall can be summed up in this; man lost his likeness to his Creator, but retained the image, ingrained in and inseparable from the essence of his soul.
To understand all that is implied by this is to possess the key to the mystical theology of St Bernard. The tragedy of fallen man is the constant selfcontradiction generated within him by the confronting of the essential image of God in his soul with the lost likeness that has been disfigured by sin.
Now one of the ways in which St Bernard describes the divine image in the soul is to say that it consists in three things:
1. Man’s natural simplicity,
2. His natural immortality, and
3. His inborn freedom of will.
Now the true greatness of man consists not only in his own essential simplicity, but also in his ability to rise to a participation in the infinitely perfect simplicity of the Word. We too can be raised to such a state that to live will be perfect and unutterable delight. Life and joy will become in our souls identical.
This greatness, of course, was not lost in the fall. Without the redemption, this capacity would have remained forever unfulfilled, but it would have remained. What was lost was not the soul's greatness but its rectitude, its uprightness, its justice. To put it in other words, when Adam fell, he ceased to be true to his own nature. It became impossible for him, without grace, to be true to himself or fit for union with God. Bernard tells us that this power for union with God is the most glorious property of human nature.
God made us what we are, in his image. However, he did not make us more than this. The human soul is only made ad imaginem, in the image, a copy of the image. It is not the image itself (Imago), for only the Word, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is that.
Satan, however, tempted Eve to desire what man was not made to desire, that is, divinity, not by participation but independently of God's free gift. It is in this sense that eritis sicut diu, You will be as god, is to be taken. Eve was tempted to think human beings could become gods by natural right.
This pride was the birth of sin and the immediate ruin of our simplicity. It caused our fall into servitude to sin and death. How was our simplicity lost? Not by being destroyed. St Bernard is always careful to insist that human nature was in no way harmed, in its essence, by the fall. The tragedy is that God's good work is overlaid by the evil work of our own wills. Hence, our simplicity was not taken from us but concealed under the disfigurement of a duplicity, a hypocrisy, a living lie that was not natural to us or part of our nature. Yet it would inevitably cling to us as a kind of hideous second-nature. However, God sent his beloved Son to deliver us by his death on the Cross.
The purpose of the Rule of St Benedict and the Cistercian Usages is to keep man in an atmosphere where he will be constantly running into occasions where he will be brought face to face with the truth about himself. He will be compelled to recognize his misery without God. God will free the divine image within him from all the sordid appetites and evil habits that cling to us.
However, this purification is only the beginning. The Father looks down from heaven into the loving soul that seeks him and sees there the likeness to his Son reappearing.
As the simplicity of the concealed image begins to be freed from the dark crust of sin, God instantly pours more love into the soul.
He raises it up towards himself ever more and more, until finally, by faithful correspondence to grace, the perfect image is restored.
The soul is now utterly purged of all the 'fear' that is inseparable from 'unlikeness' to God. From then on, the way to heaven is nothing but confidence and love. St Bernard does not hesitate to promise, as the normal term of the Cistercian life of simplicity, a perfect union of wills with God, by love.
He calls it the mystical marriage.
Adapted and simplified from Cistercian Studies No9
‘Thomas Merton on St Bernard’. Feast of St Bernard, 2014
Ever hear of St. Bernard of Clairvaux? We can’t afford to forget this incredible man whose feast is this Wednesday, August 20 (Which is also the birthday of our own Dr. Italy!). After all, when he decided to enter religious life, he brought 35 relatives along with him, arriving at the door of the monastery all together on horseback. If you’d like to see that kind of vocations surge, seek the intercession of St. Bernard and read this piece that reveals the passion that drove him to found over 40 monasteries full of new priests and brothers.
