Sermons on the Song of Songs50 Sermon L

Google TWO KINDS OF CHARITY charity, and the sweeter as they are smaller, and the more savoury as more minutely divided. Otherwise, it would be too much against charity to defraud you of charity itself. Therefore, here is my subject: He has set in order charity, in me (ii. 4).

2. There is charity in action, and there is charity in feeling. As concerning the first, I think that it is a law and explicit commandment given to men; but, as relates to the other, who can have it in such perfection as is contemplated by the precept? The one, therefore, is ordered as a command, the other given as a reward. We do not deny, however, that with the grace of God it is possible, even in this life, to attain the commencement, and even some degree of progress in the latter; but we maintain that the consummation of it is reserved for the happiness to come. How, then, has that been commanded, which can by no means be fulfilled by us? Or if you prefer to think that the command given has reference to charity in feeling, this I would not contest, provided that you agree with me in allowing that it is not possible for any man perfectly to fulfil it, nor has it ever been possible. For who would dare to arrogate to himself a success which St. Paul himself confesses that he had not attained? (Phil, iii. 13). Nor did our great Teacher conceal that the weight of this precept exceeded the powers of men; but He has considered it useful to call man's attention by means of this fact to his own weakness, and that he might thus learn towards what object of righteousness to direct his efforts as far as his powers permitted. In commanding, then, things which are impossible [to the unaided strength of men], He has made men, not offenders, but humble: that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be made subject to God. Because by the works of the Laiv no flesh shall be justified before Him (Rom. iii. 19, 20, Douay). We, then, receiving the commandment, and feeling ourselves to come short of it, shall raise our cry to Heaven, and our God shall have pity upon us, and we shall learn in that day that not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us (Titus iii. 5).

3. This is what I would say, provided that we were all of opinion that the charity of the heart and of the feelings was commanded by a distinct law imposed upon us. But the reason which seems to refer the law rather to charity in act is that when the Lord had said:

1 Tract, de Diligendo Deo, x. 29.

3 The opinion of St. Bernard is, that the precept regarding charity relates rather to charity in act, than in feeling. But by charity in feeling he means that lofty and perfect love which is to be found only in the saints and those who are perfect. Again, by charity in act [actualem) he means that which does not consist simply in feeling, but comes forth and shows itself in action; but he did not by any means intend to exclude inward charity from it. ' I do not say,' he declares further on (». 4), 4 that we ought to be without feelings of charity'; on the contrary, charity in act should include charity in thought, which, although it does not as yet refresh the soul with the sweetness of inward deKght, yet it powerfully contributes to fire it with the love of that love itself.' Now it is precisely inward love * with which charity in act is content' («. 6). See on thb subject the Admonition to De Diligendo Deo, Bk. ii.

4. I do not say that we ought to be without feelings of charity, that the heart should be barren and unmoved, and that all we should do is to raise our hands to actions [of charity} I have read among the great and grave crimes, which the Apostle writes, that men commit, this enumerated, that they are without natural affection (Rom. i. 31). But there is an affection which the flesh produces, there is another which reason rules, and a third which is seasoned by wisdom. The first is that of which the Apostle says, that it is not subject to the i~w of God, neither indeed can be (Rom. viii. 7); the second, on the contrary, because it is good, shows itself consentient to the Divine law, and there is no doubt, therefore, that these two arc contrary the one to the other, since the one resists, and the other conforms to [the Divine Will]. As for the third, it is wholly different from each of the former, for it tastes and appreciates fully the sweetness of the Lord (Ps. xxxiv. 8); it banishes the first, and rewards the second. The first is attractive indeed, but dishonourable; the second dry, but steady and strong; but the third full of unction and sweetness. It is, then, by the second that (good) works are done, and in it charity consists; not, indeed, that charity of heart and feeling, which is seasoned with the salt of wisdom, and made fat with an unction from above, so as to bring to the soul the abundance of sweetness which is in God; but rather a certain charity of action, which, though it does not as yet refresh the soul with the sweetness of inward delight, yet powerfully contributes to fire it with the love of that love itself. Let us not love, says St John, in word, nor in tongue, but in deed and in truth (1 John iil 18).

1 ' Where, then, are these to be kept?* says St Bernard in Sermon V. for Advent, n, 2. No doubt in the heart, as he there explains; but they ought to be to the heart what food is to the body, and ' pass not only into the affections, bit also into the character and actions of life.* TWO KINDS OF CHARITY 5. Do you observe how cautiously he proceeds, between love which is vicious and love which is only in feeling, distinguishing from each of these the real and saving charity? He does not admit in it the feigned love of a false tongue; nor, again, does he demand the lofty and consummate enjoyment of active wisdom. Let us love, he says, in deed and in truth; that is to say, let us be moved to the doing of good works rather by the powerful impulse of truth and fact than by a feeling of emotional charity. He has set in order charity in me. Which of these two kinds of charity? Each of them, in fact, but in a reverse order. For charity in act chooses rather (for its sphere) the lower sphere of life, while that of thought and feeling chooses the higher. There is, for example, no doubt that in a right-thinking soul the love of God is preferred to the love of man, heaven to earth, eternity to time, the soul to the body. And yet in well-regulated action the opposite order is frequently, or almost always, found to prevail. For we are both more frequently occupied, and more busily, with cares for the temporal good of our neighbour, and among our brethren we assist with more diligent assiduity those who are more infirm; we apply ourselves, by the right of humanity and the necessity of the case, more to promote the peace of the earth than the glory of heaven; in our anxiety about temporal interests we scarcely permit ourselves to think anything about those which are eternal; in sickness our bodily pains and weakness occupy us almost without ceasing, and the care of our soul is laid aside; and, lastly, we surround our weaker members, according to the saying of the Apostle, with more abundant honour (1 Cor. xii. 23), and thus we fulfil, after a fashion, that saying of the Lord: The last shall be f. st, and the first last (Matt xx. 16). Who doubts that a man, when he is in prayer, is speaking with God? and yet how often are we withdrawn, and, so to speak, torn away, from prayer, and that at the very dictate of charity, because of those who are in need of our assistance or our advice! How often does holy quiet give place, and that from a pious motive, to the tumult'of business affairs! How often do we with a good conscience lay down the manuscript we are reading, to go and perspire over manual labour! How often, in order to carry out our worldly occupations, do we (and that very justly) temporarily supersede even the Celebration of the solemnities of the Holy Eucharist I A preposterous order in which to act; but necessity has no law.

1 Among the Cistercians the Daily Services {Sacra) used at one time to be intermitted during the harvest. On which account Philip Augustus, having heard that among the monks of Barbeaux, * at the period of harvest, the brethren used to sojourn in their farmhouses, and thus on account of their temporal interests the celebration of mass was omitted,' is said to have given an order that thenceforth mass should be celebrated every day, in the morning, for the soul of his father, who was buried there. There are letters on this subject in De Re DiplomaticAy Bk. vi., p. 603. As to St. Bernard himself, we learn from his * Life/ by Geoffrey (Bk. v., c. 1), that he scarcely ever omitted to offer the holy sacrifice Mown to his last illness' (Mabillon's note).

2 Necessitas non habet legem. This is said in the dictionaries to be a ' Maxim of Law,' but I have not been able to trace it to any one author.—Ed.

6. Not so with charity in feeling; that commences always with the first things. For wisdom sets upon all things the value which is really theirs; thus, for example, that which is in its nature the more valuable receives from it the greater measure of attention; those which have less value receive less, and those which have less still, least of all. It is truth, then, that determines this order of charity; but it is charity that adopts it. For the true charity consists in this, that those whose needs are greatest receive first; and, again, charitable truth is manifest, in preserving in our affections that order which is founded in the reason. If, then, you love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy strength (Matt. xxii. 37), rising in the earnestness of that affection above that love of love, with which actual charity is content, and receiving in all its fulness the Divine love (to which that other love serves only as a step), are wholly fired and pervaded by it, assuredly you have a knowledge of God, although you cannot know Him adequately or as He is (which is a thing impossible to any creature), but at least such a knowledge of Him as you are capable of receiving here below. Then you shall have a true knowledge of yourself also, when you attain a perception of the fact that you have nothing whatever in yourself to deserve love, except in so far as you belong to God, and because you have poured out upon Him all the affection you can command. You well know yourself, I repeat, as you really are, when by experience of your own love, and of the affection which you bear to your own self, you find nothing in yourself that merits your love, except it is on account of Him without whom you yourself have no existence at all.

7. Now, as to your neighbour, whom you are bidden to love as yourself, you shall know him also as he is, provided that he does not appear to you as other than you appear to yourself; for he is that which you are; he is man, as you. Since, then, you love yourself only because you love God, it follows that you love as yourself all those who love God as you love Him. As for an enemy, he is, as it were, nothing, since he has no love for God; you cannot, therefore, love him as you love yourself, who do love God; but you will love even him that he may learn to love God. For it is not the same thing to love a person so that he may love God, and to love him because be does this. In order, then, that you may know him as he really is, you must consider, not that which he is at the present moment (for he is nothing), but that which he may perhaps some day be, which is next to nothing, as long as the matter is still in doubt. Further- 1 In certain MSS. the word amoris is wanting. But it is not at variance with the thought of St. Bernard, who, in treating of charity in act (n, 4), says, *it powerfully contributes to fire the soul with the love of that love itself.' TWO KINDS OF CHARITY more, if there be one who will clearly never return to the love of God, you must look upon him, not as almost nothing, but as nothing at all, inasmuch as throughout eternity he is nothing. With the exception, then, of such a person as he, who is not merely not to beloved, but who is, besides this, to be held in hatred, according to that saying of the Psalmist: Do I not hate them, O Lord> that hate Thee and am not I griejted with them that rise up against Thee? (Ps. cxxxix. 21) charity, which is jealous in this respect, does not allow that you should refuse to any man, even to your most bitter enemy, some small measure of affection. Whoso is wise will ponder these things.

8. Give me a man who, before all things, loves God with all his being; who loves both himself and his neighbour in the same degree in which each loves God; who loves his enemy as one who may perhaps at some time in the future turn to the love of God; who loves his relatives according to the flesh very tenderly, on account of nature, but his spiritual parents, that is, those who have instructed him, more abundantly on account of grace, and thus his love for all other things whatsoever is regulated by his love for God; who despises the earth, and looks upward to the heaven; who uses this world as not abusing it, and knows how to distinguish, by a certain inward faculty of soul, between things which are to be chosen and loved, and those to be merely used, so that things transitory are made use of as they pass for temporary need, and as long as the need requires, while things eternally enduring are embraced with lasting joy: show me, I say, a man such as this, and I will boldly pronounce him wise, since he takes things for what they truly are, and is able with truth and confidence to boast: He hath set in order charity in me. But where is such an one to be found, and when shall it be thus with him? This I ask weeping: how long shall we perceive this fragrance without tasting it? how long look forward to our heavenly home, without attaining it, sighing for it while beholding it from afar? O Truth, fatherland of exiled souls, and end of their exile! I descry thee, but am unable to enter in; I am detained in the flesh, I am defiled by my sins, I am not worthy to be admitted. O Wisdom, whose powerful guidance extendest from the beginning to the end of all things, establishing and controlling them; who disposest all with admirable gentleness, ordering, blessing, and gladdening all affections, direct our actions according as our temporal necessities require, and dispose our affections as thy eternal truth demands; so that each of us may be able securely to glory in Thee, and say: He has set in order charity in me. For Thou art the Power of God and the Wisdom of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom of the Church, God above all, Blessed for ever. Amen.