Of the Active Life we have already spoken, especially from S. Bernard’s forty-sixth sermon on the Canticles. However, I should like to bring forward further quotations from this Saint’s writings, that we may the more carefully avoid vices, and the more ardently cultivate virtues.1 “‘ Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy, break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord,’2 says the Prophet He has put knowledge last, as a picture which cannot be stretched upon a void. Thus there are two conditions which go before it, and give it, as it were, a solid basis. You will come to knowledge assuredly ; if first, through the benefit of hope, ‘reaping in mercy,’ you find peace. You sow to righteousness, if, by the true knowledge of yourself, you have watched in the fear of God, if you have wept, given alms, done works of piety, if you have fasted, if you have smitten your breast again and again with compunction, given Heaven no rest with your cries. This is to sow to righteousness. The seeds, they are the good works, the good movements of zeal ; the seeds, they are the tears. He that goeth,’ says the Psalmist, ‘ on his way weeping, beareth forth good seed.’”3
Speaking in the name of the spouse, who addresses the companions of the Bridegroom, and seeks a kiss, that is, the joy of rapt contemplation, S. Bernard says, “If He has the least care for me, ‘ let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth.’ I am not ungrateful, I love .”4 And again, “For long years I have striven to live in soberness and chastity; I occupy myself in reading, I resist vices, I bow myself in frequent prayer, I watch against temptations, I pass my years in the bitterness of my soul, I study, as much as I am able, to live in peace with my brethren, in submission to those who are set over me, and in all my actions reverence my elders. I covet nothing of another’s, I have spent myself and my goods on others, I have eaten bread with the sweat of my brow, but what has come of it all ? — only habit, no sweetness.” “I have fulfilled all Thy commandments, but my soul is in the midst of them, as earth without water. That my burnt offering may be fat, O, I pray Him to kiss me with the kiss of His mouth.”
“You,” again S. Bernard says,5 “if you impart liberally to your companions the gift which you have received from above, if you have shown yourself on all sides courteous, affectionate, humble, pleasant, tractable, every one will bear testimony that you diffuse around you the odour of most precious perfumes. Whoever not only supports the infirmities of the weak, whether bodily or spiritual, but further, if he can and may, aids them with kindnesses, sustains them with counsel, or does not cease to help them by his prayers, — whoever, I say, bestows such benefits, gives forth a sweet odour, an odour of the best ointments, a balm for its sweetness. Such an one in the midst of a congregation may be pointed at and addressed in these words, ‘ This is a lover of the brethren, and of Israel, ‘ who prayeth mqch for the people, and for the holy city/” 8 “Such are the masters who have fully learnt from the Great Master of all, the ways of life, and teach us to this day. What have we learnt from them, what have they taught us, these holy Apostles ? Not, indeed, the fisherman’s art, or that of tent-making; not, indeed, to read Plato, nor to be conversant with the subtleties of Aristotle ; not always to be learning, without ever coming to the knowledge of the truth. No, they have taught us to live. Do you deem it a small thing, to know how to live? No, it is something great, yea, very great. He has not learnt it who is puffed up with pride, who is stained with self-indulgence, who is labouring under all the plagues of the soul. This is not to live, this is to destroy life, or hasten towards the gates of death. To live well, according to me, is to suffer evil, do well, and persevere to the end. It is vulgarly said, 1 He who eats well, lives well/ But wickedness deceives itself, for he does not live well who does not do good. I think you who are amongst others, live well if you live regularly, sociably, and humbly — regularly, in regard to yourself; sociably, in reference to others ; humbly, before God. Regularly, by walking circumspectly in the presence of God and before others, guarding yourself from sin and from being a ground of offence. Sociably, by loving and being loved, showing yourself kind and affable, bearing patiently and even cheerfully the infirmities of the weak, both moral and corporeal. Humbly, by keeping yourself, after you have discharged your duties, from the spirit of vanity, which is apt to spring from the consideration of their proper accomplishment; by promptly stopping whatever movements of self-complacency you experience.
“Further, we must bear evil aright ; and as there are three kinds of evil, so there are three ways of meeting it There is the evil which you suffer from yourself, the evil which comes from your neighbour, and the evil which is from God. The first is the austerity of penitence, the second is the vexation from another’s malice, the third is the scourge of Divine chastisement. In that which you suffer from yourself, you ought to make a voluntary sacrifice of it ; in that which is from your neighbour, you should manifest patience ; in that which is from God, you should avoid murmuring, and accept it with thankfulness.”6 This, concerning the exercise of the first part of the Active Life, will suffice7
← Chapter 47 · Contents · Chapter 49 →