Bernard

TOUCHED BY FAITH

 

An Introduction to St Bernard’s Sermon 28 on the Song of Songs

Fr. Charles Cummings, OCSO

 

The most read and quoted Cistercian mentor of the twelfth century is St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). Biographies of Bernard are readily accessible, and that information need not be repeated here. In addition to a modern study, consider reading his first biography, called the Vita Prima, by William of St-Thierry.

Our selection, Sermon 28, presents only one of Bernard’s eighty-six sermons on the Canticle of Canticles. These sermons are perhaps his best-known work and have influenced spirituality down through the centuries with their emphasis on affectionate love between Jesus and the individual soul. Sermon 28 is about the beauty of the divine glory of Jesus, the Bridegroom, that can be appreciated only by faith because it is obscured by blackness. In 28 sermons he has reached verse 5 of the Canticle, “I am black but beautiful . . . like the curtains of Solomon.”  Sermon 28 is the fourth of four sermons on blackness and beauty, one of which was interrupted by a moving lament for Bernard’s brother Gerard. 

One of the first things we notice when we read St. Bernard is his phenomenal recall of scriptural texts. The wording of one quotation suggests a different verse that he also quotes, sometimes forming a chain of scriptural quotations. His primary source for spiritual wisdom is the Bible. He interprets the Bible by letting the Bible interpret itself. This reliance on scripture is not because Bernard is incapable of thinking for himself but because he sincerely believes that God speaks to us in the written words of sacred scripture. The version he knew was the Vulgate translation.

 One of Bernard’s favorite ways of reading the Bible is by means of allegory. There are many examples in Sermon 28. “Blackness” can mean different things at different times. It can refer to the human flesh of the incarnate Son of God, discolored by his external wounds and bruises and concealing the inner beauty of his divine image. There is the blackness of “endurance of penance,” and also the “blackness of compassion,” and “the blackness of persecution” (SC 28:12). Bernard is a virtuoso in allegorical exegesis. We need to be willing to go along with his interpretations if we wish to profit from his spiritual wisdom.

One of his teachings in this sermon is that in the spiritual life hearing has priority over seeing, because “faith comes from hearing” (Rom 10:17). Truth enters the heart more through the ear than the eye; the eye is not dependable for seeing truth until it is purified by faith. Hence the psalmist can say, “Hear, O daughter, and see” (Ps 44 [45]:11). Bernard teaches, “The hearing, if it be loving, alert, and faithful, will restore the sight” (SC 28:7). 

Worth noting also is that Bernard is expounding what is now called “the way of beauty,” an approach with roots in St. Augustine. Beauty, as Pope Francis notes in The Joy of the Gospel, is “capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy” (#167). According to St. Bernard, it is the splendor of the risen Christ that attracts the human heart through faith, hope, and love. Referring to the beauty of Mary Magdalene’s faith and the beauty of his own risen splendor, Jesus says to her, “In your beauty you will touch my beauty” (SC 28:10). Bernard may have inspired St. John of the Cross, another proponent of the way of beauty, who writes a hymn to beauty in his Spiritual Canticle: “I shall see you in your beauty, and you will see me in your beauty” (36 #5).

Reading Bernard is often challenging and often rewarding. 

 

 

An “Application” Of St Bernard´s Sermon 28 On The Song Of Songs

Sr Maria Gonzalo, OCSO

 

I totally identify myself with Mary Magdalene as she encounters the risen Christ, in the Gospel of John (cf. Jn 20:11-18).  “Delay torments her love” (SC 28:13).  “They have taken away my Lord” (Jn 20: 13), this is all she knows. Her own anxiety blinds her and keeps her from recognizing the one she is searching for. Ah, but only he could pronounce her name in that way: “Mary”.  His word brings her back to her senses, to her own center; Rabounni ̶ now she can be sent to his brothers. Perfect, just perfect!

There was only one little thing that did not quite match: “Do not hold on to me” (Jn 20:17).  Why? Aren´t these the words of the Song of Songs: “I held him, and would not let him go” (Song 3:4)? On the other hand, was this not my own experience? Each time I thought I had found him–well, he had found me, he would vanish, leaving me with an even greater desire. . . Oh, why? Why? Why? Yes, I have read some exegetical explanations, but they did not do it for me.  When I read Bernard´s words, though, a new path opened. When he said: “‘Do not touch me,’ he meant: depend no longer on this fallible sense; put your trust in the word, get used to faith” (SC 28:9).

“Learn to receive with greater confidence, to follow with greater security, whatever faith commends to you” (SC 28:9).  As we can see in the Gospel, Jesus had no trouble at all with being touched or touching others. In fact, he did it to the astonishment of many, breaking the laws of ritual purity. This is something different.  Bernard got it right, I believe.  It is an invitation to go beyond: “Faith cannot be deceived. With the power to understand invisible truths, faith does not know the poverty of the senses; it transcends even the limits of human reason, the capacity of nature, the bounds of experience” (SC 28:9).  It is a new way of touching, of holding on to him –“he could be touched, but by the heart, not by the hand; by desire, not by the eye; by faith, not by the senses” (SC 28:9). 

Growth is needed, not to be accused by these words: “for her there was no consolation from faith, even God´s promise was not sure” (SC 28:8).  Jesus has accommodated himself to our senses so many times (cf. SC 28:9), but if we want to see him as he is, the eye must be cleansed by faith (cf. SC 28:5). “I shall be worthy to see if before seeing I shall have been found obedient . . . ‘The Lord opened my ears and I did not disobey or turn back in defiance’” (SC 28:6). Usually what we see or touch feels much more certain than what we hear. We are more in control.  Hearing, though, opens up a different dimension: we have to wait, attune our ears to the voice of another; trust that it will come; remember his words, his tone, not to be confused by other voices.  This attitude guides us beyond the surface, behind the curtains of a reality “borne within itself by faith, as if wrapped in a covering and kept under seal” (SC 28:9).

Mary Magdalene was blinded by her previous experiences of the Lord.  She needed to let go to be able to see the much greater reality he wanted to grant her.  Somehow, like the ten lepers (cf. Lk 17:11-19), she needed to go to her brothers so that she could be cleansed on the way, and then come back to him in gratitude.  Sent in obedience, his word will never fail her.  She would not lose him, but find him everywhere, even behind soiled curtains (cf. SC 28:11); if only she would humbly recognize: “This is the pasture I have known and frequented in following you as my shepherd; but tell me also about those secret places that I do not know” (SC 33:7).

“Although you have not seen him, you love him” . . . (1 Pt 1:8); these words always touch my heart. I want to see him.  I want to hold on to him.  And yet the way seems to be that of not seeing, of not holding on, but being led by the voice of the Shepherd; he enkindles the night with love and desire.

“Become beautiful and then touch me; live by faith and you are beautiful.  In your beauty you will touch my beauty all the more worthily, with greater felicity” (SC 28:10).