From a sermon by St. Bernard, abbot
| I love because I love, I love that I may love |
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Love
is sufficient of itself, it gives pleasure by itself and because of
itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause
outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in its
practice. I love because I love, I love that I may love. Love is a great
thing so long as it continually returns to its fountainhead, flows back
to its source, always drawing from there the water which constantly
replenishes it. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the
soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the
Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it
be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return; the
sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who
love him are made happy by their love of him.
The Bridegroom’s love, or rather the love which is the
Bridegroom, asks in return nothing but faithful love. Let the beloved,
then, love in return. Should not a bride love, and above all, Love’s
bride? Could it be that Love not be loved?
Rightly then does she give up all other feelings and
give herself wholly to love alone; in giving love back, all she can do
is to respond to love. And when she has poured out her whole being in
love, what is that in comparison with the unceasing torrent of that
original source? Clearly, lover and Love, soul and Word, bride and
Bridegroom, creature and Creator do not flow with the same volume; one
might as well equate a thirsty man with the fountain.
What then of the bride’s hope, her aching desire, her
passionate love, her confident assurance? Is all this to wilt just
because she cannot match stride for stride with her giant, any more than
she can vie with honey for sweetness, rival the lamb for gentleness,
show herself as white as the lily, burn as bright as the sun, be equal
in love with him who is Love? No. It is true that the creature loves
less because she is less. But if she loves with her whole being, nothing
is lacking where everything is given. To love so ardently then is to
share the marriage bond; she cannot love so much and not be totally
loved, and it is in the perfect union of two hearts that complete and
total marriage consists. Or are we to doubt that the soul is loved by
the Word first and with a greater love?
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