Dear Everyone,

A blessed Holy Week to everyone who is celebrating. Thank you for journeying through Lent with me this year and thanks to all who joined me in the podcast chat a week ago. I really enjoyed our discussions and I’m very grateful to Pam and Leslie for hosting the chat and contributing some really interesting questions.

Last week, we were to read Chapters 12 and 13, and this week we are wrapping things up by reading Chapters 14 and 15. In these final chapters, St. Bernard continues to emphasize God’s love, focusing on our roles as children of God, and then finally, on the four degrees of love.

The four degrees of love represent an ascent, culminating in the fourth degree which is in the next life. In these four degrees you see something like Jacob’s ladder – a ladder that reaches to heaven, composed of different rungs that one must climb. This is where St. Bernard distinguishes himself as a contemplative. He’s attuned to the spiritual development necessary to achieve the fourth degree of love and rather than keep this insight to himself, he shares it with others. It’s probably this passage, along with the final paragraph, that prompts Dante to include St. Bernard as a guide to the higher heavens of the Paradiso.

In the final paragraph of the work, St. Bernard describes his vision of heaven. Rather than continue beyond the description, St. Bernard simply stops. But the last line is not an end; it’s an invitation to go back, to re-read, to reflect, and to continue climbing the ladder. As he points out, “I know not whether it would be possible to make further progress in this life to that fourth degree and perfect condition wherein man loves himself solely for God’s sake.” Certainly, if St. Bernard doesn’t know the answer to this question, I doubt anyone else does, either. But his humility is also a call to reflection, a call to seek the answer, a call to continue climbing the ladder …

Thank you for climbing the Lenten ladder with me this season. I pray you have a Blessed Easter and that our Jewish friends have a Happy Passover.

Thank you for reading,

SR

www.sylvainreynard.com

Dear Everyone,

Now we are embarking on the fifth week of Lent. This past week we read Chapters 8 and 9 from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, but I will leave my remarks to the chat that is scheduled for Sunday, March 22nd at 2PM Eastern (Toronto). We’ll be hosted by the All Things SR podcast in their Mixlr chatroom. I hope you will join me. Feel free to post comments on last week’s readings or this week’s readings below.

This week, we will be readings Chapter 10 and 11. I look forward to our discussion either below in the comments or in the chat on Sunday.

Thank you for reading with me. Peace be with you all,

SR

www.sylvainreynard.com

Dear Everyone,

I apologize for being late to post this week. I hope you have been enjoying the third week of our readalong. We have read Chapters 4-5, and beginning Wednesday, March 4th, should have begun Chapters 6-7.

In Chapter 4, St. Bernard surprises us by quoting from the book of Psalms and the book of Wisdom, focusing our attention on the marriage imagery of these passages. While St. Bernard shies away from the obvious eroticism of them, he uses the references to stress God’s love for us. St. Bernard also emphasizes how the believing soul “rests sweetly the contemplation of Him.” The connection between love and contemplation (and rest) is an interesting one. Every Lent, I strive to spend more time in contemplation but like many, I struggle to do so. There are a lot of distractions in life and a lot of things that compete for our attention (including eroticism). Resting in contemplation is often set aside.

St. Bernard begins Chapter 5 with a reference to the contemplation of “what has been said,” inviting the reader to approach the work as a contemplative one. Then he describes again the great love that God has for us and how his love has bestowed dignity on humanity. St. Bernard writes, “In the first creation He gave me myself, but in His new creation He gave me Himself, and by that gift restored to me the self that I had lost.” Like many contemplatives, St. Bernard is able to express profound insights in a language that belies their profundity. I’ll be continuing to reflect on this particular insight as I journey through Lent and I invite you to share your reflections in the comments below.

Thank you for continuing to journey with me this Lent. I look forward to Chapters 6 and 7, and to chatting with you in the podcast chatroom of the All Things SR podcast on Sunday, March 22nd. I’ll post more details soon.

Peace be with you all,

SR

www.sylvainreynard.com

Dear Everyone,

Today we embark on the second week of our Lenten Readalong, which allows me to post some reflections on the first week.

We began by reading the first three chapters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s “On Loving God.” St. Bernard devotes the first chapter to explaining why it is we should love God – because He first loved us. St. Bernard quotes numerous Scriptures that describe God’s love, the Incarnation, and the Crucifixion.

In Chapter 2, St. Bernard again expresses why human beings should love God and he describes the three highest gifts that we should seek from God: dignity, wisdom, and virtue. I was struck by this chapter in particular this week because each year I approach Lent as an opportunity to develop and to deepen spiritual discipline in my own life. Seeking the gifts of dignity, wisdom, and virtue are part of that spiritual discipline, intrinsic dignity is something all human beings share. St. Bernard links dignity with free will and the ability to reason, pointing out that human dignity is unique among all creatures. This Lent I will be reflecting on the dignity of all human beings as part of my Lenten practice and I invite everyone to do the same. I will also be focusing on the development of wisdom and virtue, gifts that can be received from God and used for the benefit of humanity and other creatures. I welcome your comments and reflections below.

As we embark on the second week of Lent, let’s read chapters 4-5. I’ll post a new reflection next week.

Thank you for reading along with me. I hope you will continue to experience a blessed Lent.

Peace be with you all,
SR

www.sylvainreynard.com