Opening Prayer
You have called and cried aloud, breaking through my deafness; you have flashed and shone, chasing away my blindness. You have touched me, and now I burn for your peace, for I was looking for you outside myself while you were right within me.
Lord, help me to renounce my old self and choose the Peace that has touched my soul. Retrieve me from my wanderings and let me know you as I am known by you, for your countenance is my only life and my only health.
Amen.
Matthew 13:54-58
54And coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogues, so that they wondered and said: How came this man by this wisdom and miracles? 55Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brethren James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude: 56And his sisters, are they not all with us? Whence therefore hath he all these things? 57And they were scandalized in his regard. But Jesus said to them: A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house. 58And he wrought not many miracles there, because of their unbelief.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
St. Bernard of Clairvaux evaluates the four stages of love. First, man “loves himself for himself“. We often start at stage two—loving God because “He is necessary to me“. The “spiritual paper cuts” of our daily needs often pull us back to “interest-based” prayer. With the third stage as: “loving God for God Himself“. Bernard differentiators “fleshly love” from the “stable” love found by “tasting how sweet the Lord is”. The narrative of grace is one of absorption altogether in God. St. Bernard notes that the fourth stage—”loving oneself only for God“—may be “impossible” in this life, but we must stretch our desire. What stage of love are you in today?
Love for God matures through four distinct stages, beginning with a fleshly self-love and eventually reaching the point where one loves even themselves “only for the sake of God”. This “perfect love” is a state of being “absorbed altogether in God”, a goal that finds its ultimate consummation in the joy of heaven. This realization prevents anyone from feeling discouraged by their initial selfish motives for prayer, reframing them as necessary first steps on a ladder toward total union.
“Spiritual love grows in four stages: first loving oneself for one’s own sake, then loving God for one’s own benefit, then loving God for His sake, and finally—the most perfect stage—loving oneself only for the sake of God.”
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux
Mary and the Magisterium
St. Bernard of Clairvaux outlines the stages of love, culminating in the fourth stage: “loving oneself only for the sake of God“. While Bernard found this stage nearly “impossible” for mortals, Mary achieved it from the moment of her conception. She forgot herself, was “absorbed altogether in God”, and became “one spirit with Him”. Her spiritual journey is the model for the “climbing soul” who seeks to be intoxicated with the fullness of the house of God.
- Am I currently in the stage of "loving God for the sake of my own interest"?
- How can I "taste how sweet the Lord is" through meditation and obedience today?
Closing Prayer
Lord, draw me to Yourself by grace so that I may find You sweet and kind.
Amen.
