Opening Prayer
Lord, I address the Mellifluous Doctor who taught us the sweetness of serving You and the stages by which our love for You grows. I recognize that serving You is not a burden but a yoke that refreshes the soul and provides rest for the weary spirit. Grant me the grace to move beyond loving You for my own sake, arriving at a love that is focused solely on Your own goodness.
I ask for the grace to taste how sweet You are, finding in Your presence a joy that no earthly prosperity can provide. Let my love for You become so stable that I no longer seek anything from You but Yourself. May I eventually reach that fourth and perfect stage of love where even my love for myself is only for the sake of Your glory.
Amen.
Matthew 22:34-40
34But the Pharisees hearing that he had silenced the Sadducees, came together: 35And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: 36Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? 37Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. 38This is the greatest and the first commandment. 39And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
St. Bernard preaches about the “stages of love“. Bernard differentiates loving God for our own interest from loving God for God Himself. The Great Commandment: “Love the Lord with all your heart”, is the narrative of the fourth stage. Bernard reiterates that “Truly He can never leave us, being for us everything that is good“. He lived the narrative of forgetting himself to be one spirit with Him. We often seek some good other than God Himself. Bernard reminds us that all suffering would be easier if we were “absorbed in God”. The spiritual paper cuts of our “perverted will” are healed by “tasting how sweet the Lord is”. We must move beyond needing God to adoring God.
The soul progresses through stages of love, moving from a fleshly love of self toward a mature, disinterested love of God. The transition is complete when we no longer love God for our own interest or necessity, but purely for His sake. In this state of perfect love, we find “true rest,” as the soul is emptied of created vanities and filled with the Creator.
“In the first stage of love, a man loves his own self for the sake of himself… he passes to the third stage, when he loves God no longer on account of his own interest, but for the sake of God himself.”
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Mary and the Magisterium
Serving God is not a burden but a sweetness that brings rest. Mary is the source of this joy of loving hearts, leading us to the fountainhead of all delight.
- Am I "sighing for new possessions" instead of resting in the "true Rest"?
- How can I "move little by little to know God with familiarity"?
Closing Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing the light of God’s mind into my darkness.
Amen.
