On Loving God (Version 2)

In the winter of 1126, a monk asked Bernard of Clairvaux a question that has haunted spiritual seekers for nine centuries: how should a person love God, and how much? What follows is neither dry theology nor mystical rapture but something far more dangerous: a rigorous, passionate argument that God must be loved without limit, sine modo, even if such love costs everything. Bernard proceeds with the precision of a medieval logician and the ardor of a man who has tasted divine sweetness. He maps the soul's progression through four degrees of love, from the selfish comfort of loving God for blessings received, through the pure gift of loving God for God's own sake, to the mysterious final stage where the self is loved only for God's glory. Each step strips away another comfortable self-deception. This is spiritual direction that refuses to let its reader stay comfortable. What makes this treatise endure is its radical refusal to make love of God instrumental. Bernard will not let us use God as a means to happiness, however holy that happiness claims to be. The love he demands is gratuitous, excessive, unreasonable by any worldly measure. For readers willing to be disturbed rather than merely consoled, this twelfth-century monk still speaks across the ages with devastating clarity.