When was on loving god written

Bernard of Clairvaux. Summary Read this work. What is love? In his text On Loving God , St. Bernard surveys the four types of love that Christians experience as they grow in their relationship with God: loving one's self, selfish love, loving God as God, and loving one's self in God. Wikipedia - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Download M4B 41MB. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux - On Loving God is one of the best-known and most influential works of Medieval Christian mysticism.

Summary by Kirsten Ferreri. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws. If frequent troubles drive us to frequent prayer, surely we will taste and see how gracious the Lord is.

Such love is pure, and finds no burden in the command that tells us to purify our souls, obeying the truth in unfeigned love of our brothers. Such love is thankworthy, because it is spontaneous. It is pure, because it is shown not in word nor tongue, but in deed and truth. The third degree of love, we have now seen, is to love God on His own account, solely because He is God. Your righteousness stands like the strong mountains, God.

When will my soul, raptured with divine love and utterly self—forgetting, like a broken vessel, long only for God, and, joined to him, be one spirit with him? I would consider anyone who experiences such rapture in this life to be blessed and holy. To lose yourself even for an instant, as if you were emptied and lost and swallowed up in God —— this is not human love; it is heavenly.

But if a poor mortal sometimes feels that heavenly joy for one ecstatic moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness and the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are insistent, the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty. What a shame! Help me! Who shall save me from the body of this death? And you cannot love your neighbor unless you love God.

God must be loved first in order that we may love our neighbor in God. God, therefore, who makes everything that is good, makes himself to be loved. He does it as follows: first, God blesses us with his protection.

When we live free from trouble we are happy, but in our pride we may conclude that we are responsible for our security. Then, when we suffer some calamity, some storm in our lives, we turn to God and ask his help, calling upon him in times of trouble. This is how we who only love ourselves first begin to love God. We will begin to love God even if it is for our own sake.

We love God because we have learned that we can do all things through him, and without him we can do nothing. In the first degree of love we love ourselves for our own sake. In the second degree of love we love God for our own sake, chiefly because he has provided for us and rescued us.

But if trials and tribulations continue to come upon us, every time God brings us through, even if our hearts were made of stone, we will begin to be softened because of the grace of the Rescuer. Thus, we begin to love God not merely for our own sakes, but for himself.

In order to arrive at this we must continually go to God with our needs and pray. In those prayers the grace of God is tasted, and by frequent tasting it is proved to us how sweet the Lord is. When we begin to feel this, it will not be hard to fulfill the second commandment: to love our neighbor. For those who truly love God in this way also love the things of God.

Also, it becomes easier to be obedient in all of the commands of God. This love is pure because it is disinterested i.