Showing posts with label Night Office Bernard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Night Office Bernard. Show all posts

Tuesday, 20 August 2013

St Bernard and the non-scholastic East

Solemnity of Saint Bernard 20th August 2013

Bernard "Like a towering cedar"

Extract from Article in the Bernardine archive.
With acknowledgement to the author.
Sobornost vol. 14:2 1992
  http://www.sobornost.org/other-pubs.html

4. 
St Bemard of Clairvaux and the tradition of the Christian East
G.L.C. FRANK
The suggestion that there is a relationship between St Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) and the Eastern Christian tradition may at first seem somewhat con­trived. Bernard was indeed a church-man deeply embedded in the Latin religious world. He was an ardent papalist and a staunch defender of the Western dogmatic tradition, concerned to preserve both the Church's unity centred in Rome and her received Latin understanding of the Christian mystery. Moreover, he seems to have been oblivious to or uninterested in Byzantine Orthodox theology and spirituality. Bernard was born thirty-six years after the mutual anathemas of pope and patriarch and so lived in a Church already canonically separated from Eastern Christianity.
Despite the ecclesial separation of East and West and despite Bernard's clear com­mitment to Roman theology, I would suggest that in a fundamental way his con­cerns and his responses to the problems he faced reveal a theological mind which still had much in common with the Orthodox East. One should not be unduly sur­prised at this suggestion since the formal canonical act of breaking eucharistic com­munion between Rome and Constantinople did not necessarily mean the breaking apart of the catholic ecclesial mind shared by both East and West. St Bernard was, as Dom Cuthbert Butler puts it, a 'child of the patristic age that was passing away', and the 'last of the Fathers'. 1* These descriptions rightly place Bernard within that delicate moment in the flow of church history when both Easterners and Westerners could still recognise in each other their common catholic tradition despite their separation, had they been willing to do so. It was precisely during the immediate post-schism period, however, that the Orthodox East and the Roman Catholic West were both experiencing a new phase in theological development which was to fur­ther exacerbate the division between them and which was to break down even fur­ther what remained of their common ecclesial mind. This situation constitutes the context for understanding the relationship between Bernard and the Eastern Christian tradition. I would suggest that St Bernard was one of the last major Western medieval theologians who theologised in a manner similar to that of the Christian East. He was, of course, a westerner, living in and thinking out of the Latin Christian tradition, but it was precisely his adherence to the received Latin tradition with its universal dimension which linked it and him to the experience of Eastern Chris­tianity in its Byzantine form.

. . . . . . . . .
...[natures and the Fathers and rote repetition of their words does not lead one to the knowledge of God and enable one to speak and discourse about God. These things are not possible without observance of the commandments and the light of the Spirit which leads to the mystical knowledge of God.26 The heart of Symeon's theology is his attempt, like that of Bernard, to hold together personal experience and orthodox dogma and to assert the necessary place of experience in Christian life and theological reflection:
Believers receive this teaching through signs of many kinds: by enigmas [ ... J, through ineffable mystical energies, through divine revelations, through contemplation of the reasons of creation, and by many other means [ ... ]. In addition, through the sending and the presence of the Holy Spirit, God gives them the same assurance as he gave to the apostles. They are more perfectly enlightened and learn by this light that we cannot conceive of God nor name him [ ... ] that he is everlasting and incomprehensible. Indeed, all knowledge and discernment [ ... J, the adoption as sons l ... ], the apprehension of the mysteries of Christ and of the mystery of his divine oikonomia toward us, in short, all the things which unbelievers do not know but we are able t~ know and utter after receiving the grace of faith, are all taught by the Spirit. 27
In his Catecheses, Symeon expressed it this way:
It is heresy when someone turns aside in any way from the dogmas that have been defined concerning the right faith. But to deny that at this present time there ae some who love God, and that they have been granted the Holy Spirit and to be baptised by Him as sons of God, that they have become gods by knowledge and experience and contemplation, that wholly subverts the Incarnation of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.28

St Bernard and the non-scholastic East
Bernard of Clairvaux, I would suggest, breathed the same theological air as that of Symeon the New Theologian and the Orthodox East. This is not to say, of course, that he was like the Eastern theologians in all respects. His writings, for example, display little of the apophaticism which dominated Eastern theology from early times. The writings of pseudo-Dionysius, which popularised apophatic theology in the West, did not enter into the Latin theological tradition until the twelfth century, although they had already been translated into Latin in the ninth century by John Scotus Erigena. Nor does Bernard seem to have had a place for the physical body's ex­perience of and participation in God - something clearly maintained by St Syrneon and later emphasised even more strongly by the Eastern hesychasts and St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359).29* 
In this sense, Bernard's mysticism seems to reflect and to be more heavily indebted to platonic philosophy than was the Eastern Chritian spiritual-doctrinal tradition, which - while influenced by platonic ideas - none­theless also continuously criticised platonic philosophy and developed an an­thropology with an emphasis on the whole human being and the participation in God of the body as well as the soul. Nonetheless, St Bernard's fundamental ap­proach and method of theologising was the same as that of the Orthodox East. Both emphasised the intimate connection between reason and experience. Both approaches gave logic an allotted place in theology, but were fundamentally experiential in character. Both theologies had the Church as their context and so were moulded by ecclesial life rather than by an academic and speculative environment.

In his dispute with Abelard, St Bernard won the immediate battle but lost the basic theological conflict underlying the battle. In the West, theology was eventually to develop into the queen of the sciences and as a positive and speculative discipline. Bernard's attempt to maintain the fundamental nature of theology as the mystical experience of God with its subsequent reflection on that experience and on the mysteries of the faith gave way to a scholasticism in which reason and logical disputa­tion came to play the primary role. Mystical theology was not, of course, repudiated entirely in the West. But it came to have a subordinate place in the theologising of the scholastics and it tended more and more to be separated from rational reflection in theology - a tendency which continues to dominate the Western theological scene.

In contrast to this, it was the representatives of mystical theology who won the conflict in the East. Symeon came to be venerated as a saint, not Stephen of Nicomedia. And the Orthodox East perpetuated the experiential theology of earlier centuries. This difference in the way Westerners and Easterners theologised during the so-called Middle Ages meant the further shattering of the early theological mind common to both East and West. By the fourteenth century, if not before, Easterners saw in Latin scholasticism a theology which they regarded as too naturalistic, too philosophical and too much dependent on purely human methods of argument. In this regard, I have no doubt that St Bernard would have concurred with them.

Tuesday, 13 March 2012

Bernard THIRD WEEK OF LENT Year 11 Tuesday


First Reading
From the book of Exodus (32:1-6.15-34)

Second Reading
From the sermon on the Song of Songs by Saint Bernard (Sermo 61, 3-5: Opera omnia 2,150-151)
Although he died before completing them, Bernard's sermons on the Song of Songs from his most important single work. In them he penetrates the mystery of God's love revealed in the incarnation of his Son and in our redemption This extract affirms that members of Christ can never say their sins are too great to be pardoned, for they can claim Christ's merits as their own.

Where can the weak find a place of perfect security and peace except in the wounds of the Savior? There the measure of my security is his power to save. The world rages, the body weighs me down, the devil lays snares for me, but I do not fall because my feet are planted on firm rock I may have sinned gravely. My conscience would be troubled but I would not despair for I would call to mind the wounds of the Lord. He was wounded for our iniquities. What sin is so deadly that it cannot be pardoned by the death of Christ? If I remember this powerful and effective remedy the malignancy of sin can no longer terrify me.
Surely the man was wrong who said: My sin is too great to be pardoned. He was speaking as though he were not a member of Christ and had no share in his merits. A member of Christ can claim Christ's merits as his own, just as a member of the body can claim what belongs to the head. As for me, I confidently take all I lack from the heart of the Lord, for that heart overflows with mercy. It does not lack openings through which mercy may pour out, for they pierced his hands and feet and opened his side with a spear. Through these clefts I may suck honey from the rock and oil from the hardest stone. In other words, I may taste and see that the Lord is sweet.
He was thinking thoughts of peace and I did not know it, for who knows the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor? But the piercing nail has become a key to unlock the door so that I may see the Lord's will And what can I see as I look through the hole? Both the nail and the wound cry out that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. The sword pierced his soul and came close to his heart so that he might be able to feel compassion for me in my weakness.
Through these sacred wounds the secret of his heart lies open, the great mystery of love is revealed, the tender mercy of our God which caused the Dayspring from on high to visit us is manifested Where have your love, your mercy, your compassion shone out more luminously than in your wounds, sweet, gentle Lord of mercy? More mercy than this no one has than to lay down his life for those doomed to death.
My merit comes from his mercy, for I do not lack merit so long as he does not lack pity. And if the Lord's mercies are many, then I am rich in merits. What if I am aware of many sins? Where sin abounded grace abounded all the more. And if the Lord's mercies are eternal, then I will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever. Will I not sing of my own righteousness? No, Lord, I will be mindful only of yours, for it is mine as well. God has made you my righteousness.

Monday, 6 June 2011

Bernard "No one who loves God need have any doubt that God loves him" Cue by Google



Night Office
Seventh Week of Easter Monday Year I
First Reading
From the first letter of John (4:1-10)
1 John 4:9; John 3:16
Responsory
God showed his love for us
by sending his only Son into the world
- so that all who believe in him may have eternal life, alleluia
God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son.
- So that all who believe in him may have eternal life, alleluia


Second Reading
From a letter of Saint Bernard (Ep. 107, 8-9: PL 182, 246-247)
This letter was written to Thomas, Provost of Beverley in England In the following extract Bernard teaches that the death of Christ and the gift of the Spirit is a twofold proof of God's love for us. The Spirit empowers us to return that love.

Bernard of Clairvaux: In Christ We See the Object of Our Love, by the Spirit We are Empowered to Love Him.

No one who loves God need have any doubt that God loves him. God gladly returns our love, which was preceded by his own How could he be reluctant to love us in response to our love for him, when he already loved us before we ever loved him at all? Yes, I say, God loved us. We have a pledge of his love in the Spirit and a faithful witness to it in Jesus - a double and irrefutable proof of the love God bears toward each one of us.  
*x10 times ‘love’

Christ died. and so deserves our love. The Spirit moves us by his grace and so enables us to love. Christ gives us the reason the Spirit gives us the power. The one sets before us the example of his own great love, the other gives us the love itself. In Christ we see the object of our love, by the Spirit we are empowered to love him. We can say then that the former supplies the motive for charity, the latter the volition. x6

How shameful it would be to see God's Son dying for us without being moved to gratitude! Yet this could easily happen if the Spirit were lacking. Now, however, the love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given us, and so we love him in return for his love, and by loving him we deserve to be loved still more. If while we were still his enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. how much more, now that we are reconciled. shall we be saved through his Son's life! God did not spare his own Son. but gave him up for us all, how could he fail to accompany such a gift with everything else we need? x4

We possess, then. a double token of our salvation. the twofold outpouring of blood and Spirit. Neither is of any profit to us without the other. The Spirit is only given to those who believe in the Crucified. and faith is only effective when it works through love. But love is the gift of the Spirit The second Adam (I mean Christ) became not merely a living being but also a life giving spirit. As a living being he died; as a life-giving spirit he raises the dead The mortal principle in him cannot help me without the life—giving principle. The flesh is of no avail, it is the Spirit that gives life. And to say that the Spirit gives life is only another way of saying that the Spirit justifies us by rectifying our relationship with God. Since the death of the soul is sin (as Scripture says: The soul that sins shall die), it is beyond dispute that the life of the soul is justice or righteousness, because, again as Scripture says, The just shall live by faith. x2

And who are the just? Are they not those who pay their debt of love to the God who loves them? Now it is impossible for them to do this unless they have received in faith the Spirit's revelation of God's eternal plan for their future salvation. That revelation is none other than an infusion of spiritual grace, through which, as we mortify the works of the flesh, we are made ready for the kingdom which flesh and blood cannot possess. In the one Spirit we receive both the audacity to believe ourselves loved and the power to love in return, so that God’s love for us may not go unrequited. x5