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Today’s wisdom comes from Bernard of Clairvaux. He was raised in a wealthy Christian family in the early 1100s in France. He joined a Benedictine monastery, and then revised the Rule to create the Cistercian order of monasteries. His greatest writings concern the nature of the love of God. He wrote an extended meditation on the spiritual dimension of the Song of Songs, the Bible’s only love poem. To Bernard, to love is a human being’s highest calling. Today’s reading comes from his essay, “On the Love of God:”

 

“Love is a going forth of the soul, not a contract….True love seeks no reward, but it merits one; it is very certain that no one proposes to pay for love, although it’s not only deserves its recompense, but shall surely have it… One does not give money to a starving man to encourage him to eat, no more than to a tender mother to induce her to breastfeed her child, to get a vinedresser to protect his vines, or a householder to rebuild his fallen house. Far less does he who loves God need to be urged by the promise of a recompense which is other than God himself; otherwise, it would be the reward he loved, not God. “ ( Ch VII)

 

Bernard suggests that the love of God is spontaneous, not a duty or a requirement. It grows out of a natural understanding of our deep reliance on God for our being. This may seem impossible to those who have been taught that their primary calling is to be self-interested, a common trait in our times. Indeed, there seems to be an inverse relationship between self interest and the capacity to love others. A mother disregards her own needs when she breastfeeds her hungry child; through this selfless love a greater whole is created. The love of God is its own reward. For this reason, Bernard often compared the love of God to the intertwining of two lovers who lose themselves in each other. You never know what monks are thinking about in those cells….. Peace.

 

 

-Rev. Stephen Milton, Lawrence Park Community Church, Toronto

 

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