Saint Bernard on the Love of God
Overview
On the Love of God addresses the reasons we ought to love God and the manner and different degrees of this love. St. Bernard teaches that God Himself is the motive of our love for him and that nothing is more reasonable and nothing more profitable than loving him. He then lays out the degrees whereby the soul proceeds from loving God for its own sake to loving the self only for God.
Top Highlights
“Two things there are that move us to love God for Himself: nothing is more reasonable; nothing is more profitable.” (Page 3)
“I should say that God Himself is the motive of our love to Him, and that the measure of due love is to be without measure.” (Page 3)
“The soul hath reached for ever the fourth degree of love, when she loves only God, and loves Him supremely; when she loves for no gain, for Himself alone; so that He is her reward, the eternal recompense of those who love Him, and shall love Him for ever.” (Page 52)
“We must by no means esteem ourselves to be less than God has made us. But with still greater care we must avoid that other ignorance which makes us attribute more to ourselves than we possess; which we do when we mistakenly impute to ourselves the gifts we may be conscious of.” (Pages 8–9)
“Happy is he who can rise to the fourth degree of love, and loves himself only for God’s sake.” (Page 43)
- Title: On the Love of God
- Author: St. Bernard of Clairvaux
- Translators: Marianne Caroline and Coventry Patmore
- Publisher: London: Burns and Oates
- Publication Date: 1884
- Pages: 222
St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a French abbot and had a hand in the reforming Cistercian order.
