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On Loving God (Volume 13) (Cistercian Fathers Series) Paperback – March 1, 1995

by Bernard of Clairvaux (Author), Robert Walton OSB (Translator), Emero Stiegman (Introduction)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 99 ratings
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Saint Bernard's On Loving God is one of his most delightful, and most widely read, works. It stands in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, but it carries patristic teaching into the Middle Ages and into the cloister. Its famous affirmation that God is to be loved without limit, sine modo, is taken directly from the letters of Saint Augustine. While the tract is not an example of scholastic theology, it shows a typically twelfth-century love of logic and an unexpectedly precise use of terminology. In his analystic commentary, Emero Stiegman not only introduces readers to the abbot of Clairvaux's thought, but carefully analyses his language, his logic and his theology. In doing so, he demonstrates the vital importance of reading medieval authors on their own terms, without superimposing on them categories favored by later generations, even our own.
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  1. Print length
    226 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Liturgical Press
  4. Publication date
    March 1, 1995
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0879071141
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0879071141
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Saint Bernard's On Loving God is one of his most delightful, and most widely read, works. It stands in the tradition of the Fathers of the Church, but it carries patristic teaching into the Middle Ages and into the cloister. Its famous affirmation that God is to be loved without limit, sine modo, is taken directly from the letters of Saint Augustine. While the tract is not an example of scholastic theology, it shows a typically twelfth-century love of logic and an unexpectedly precise use of terminology. In his analystic commentary, Emero Stiegman not only introduces readers to the abbot of Clairvaux's thought, but carefully analyses his language, his logic and his theology. In doing so, he demonstrates the vital importance of reading medieval authors on their own terms, without superimposing on them categories favored by later generations, even our own.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Liturgical Press; 50521st edition (March 1, 1995)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 226 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0879071141
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0879071141
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 99 ratings

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Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

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4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
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Top reviews from the United States

Sheila D. Rogers
5.0 out of 5 stars Classical Christianity
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2022
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Classical Christianity for the ages. Appreciate the depth of insight. Well.translated with easy to read paragraphs. Buy it and see
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Robert March
5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshingly Contemporary Explanation of Love
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2016
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There is a pop song by Lord Huron that goes "Yes I know that love is like ghosts - few have seen it but everybody talks." Bernard offers this incredibly level headed and profound treatise to those of us who are wondering what love is anymore anyway. Much of the contemporary jabber about love fails to explain our poor experiences with it. Not so here. His four levels of love move from self interest (where most of us are and stop) through to a beautiful and self forgetful form of love for ourselves that is rooted in a love of God and follows His affections for others. There is a breathtaking panorama painted for those who read this to the end - a life lived in love is beautiful indeed - and Bernard reminds us that this reality is sure to come to fruition.
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hike
5.0 out of 5 stars Thank God for short good books about Loving God.
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2016
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Very quick read for a very influential book. St. Bernard is a Christian mystic and one of the prominent figures of the Middle Ages. This book is short and sweet. Short because it was written and coped by hand (no printing press let alone computers and word processors) and Sweet because it shows the path on loving God and contains a surprising simple list on the degrees of love that anyone can understand. Everybody can benefit from this book, IMHO.
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Julian P. Weber
4.0 out of 5 stars Brief Summary and Review - Great Read!
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2009
The reason for loving God is God Himself; and the measure of love due to Him is immeasurable love. Nothing is more reasonable, nothing is more profitable. If one seeks for God's claim upon our love here is the chiefest: Because He first loved us (I John 4:19). (Chapter 1)

Man must seek in his own higher nature for the highest gifts; and these are dignity, wisdom and virtue. By dignity I mean free-will, whereby he not only excels all other earthly creatures, but has dominion over them. Wisdom is the power whereby he recognizes this dignity, and perceives also that it is no accomplishment of his own. And virtue impels man to seek eagerly for Him who is man's Source, and to lay fast hold on Him when He has been found. Pride only, the chief of all iniquities, can make us treat gifts as if they were rightful attributes of our nature, and, while receiving benefits, rob our Benefactor of His due glory. (Chapter 2)

To them that long for the presence of the living God, the thought of Him is sweetest itself: but there is no satiety, rather an ever-increasing appetite, even as the Scripture bears witness, 'they that eat me shall yet be hungry' (Ecclus. 24:21). 'Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood hath eternal life' (John 6:54). That signifies, whoso honors My death and after My example mortifies his members which are upon the earth (Col. 3:5) shall have eternal life, even as the apostle says, 'If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him' (II Tim. 2:12). (Chapter 4)

'What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits towards me?' (Ps. 116:12). Reason and natural justice alike move me to give up myself wholly to loving Him to whom I owe all that I have and am. But faith shows me that I should love Him far more than I love myself, as I come to realize that He hath given me not my own life only, but even Himself. 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy might' (Deut. 6:5). Why should he not love Him with all his being, since it is by His gift alone that he can do anything that is good? It was God's creative grace that out of nothingness raised us to the dignity of manhood; and from this appears our duty to love Him, and the justice of His claim to that love. (Chapter 5)

For since our love is toward God, who is infinite and immeasurable, how can we bound or limit the love we owe Him? (Chapter 6)

The hunger of man's heart cannot be satisfied with earthly things. Love is an affection of the soul, not a contract. It is spontaneous in its origin and impulse; and true love is its own satisfaction. It has its reward; but that reward is the object beloved. For whatever you seem to love, if it is on account of something else, what you do really love is that something else, not the apparent object of desire. St. Paul did not preach the Gospel that he might earn his bread; he ate that he might be strengthened for his ministry. What he loved was not bread, but the Gospel. True love does not demand a reward. So, all the more, one who loves God truly asks no other recompense than God Himself; for if he should demand anything else it would be the prize that he loved and not God. If you wish to attain to the consummation of all desire, so that nothing unfulfilled will be left, why weary yourself with fruitless efforts, running hither and thither, only to die long before the goal is reached? Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God. Even as the Preacher saith, and the fool discovereth, 'He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver' (Eccles. 5:10). But Christ saith, 'Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled' (Matt. 5:6). Righteousness is the natural and essential food of the soul, which can no more be satisfied by earthly treasures than the hunger of the body can be satisfied by air. If you should see a starving man standing with mouth open to the wind, inhaling draughts of air as if in hope of gratifying his hunger, you would think him lunatic. But it is no less foolish to imagine that the soul can be satisfied with worldly things which only inflate it without feeding it. The motive for loving God is God Himself. Our love is prepared and rewarded by His. No one can seek the Lord who has not already found him. (Chapter 7)

The First Degree of Love - Wherein man loves God for self's sake. Now a man cannot love his neighbor in God, except he love God Himself; wherefore we must love God first, in order to love our neighbors in Him. This too, like all good things, is the Lord's doing, that we should love Him, for He hath endowed us with the possibility of love. (Chapter 8)

The Second and Third Degrees of Love - Let frequent troubles drive us to frequent supplications; and surely, tasting, we must see how gracious the Lord is (Ps. 34:8). Whosoever loves God aright loves all God's creatures. Such love is pure, and finds no burden in the precept bidding us purify our souls, in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren (I Peter 1:22). The third degree of love, we have now seen, is to love God on His own account, solely because He is God. (Chapter 9)

The Fourth Degree of Love - Wherein man does not even love self save for God's sake. God has made all for His own glory (Isa. 43:7), surely His creatures ought to conform themselves, as much as they can, to His will. In Him should all our affections center, so that in all things we should seek only to do His will, not to please ourselves. And real happiness will come, not in gratifying our desires or in gaining transient pleasures, but in accomplishing God's will for us: even as we pray every day: 'Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven' (Matt. 6:10). It is therefore impossible to offer up all our being to God, to yearn altogether for His face, so long as we must accommodate our purposes and aspirations to these fragile, sickly bodies of ours. Wherefore the soul may hope to possess the fourth degree of love, or rather to be possessed by it, only when it has been clothed upon with that spiritual and immortal body, which will be perfect, peaceful, lovely, and in everything wholly subjected to the spirit. And to this degree no human effort can attain: it is in God's power to give it to whom He wills. Then the soul will easily reach that highest stage, because no lusts of the flesh will retard its eager entrance into the joy of its Lord, and no troubles will disturb its peace. (Chapter 10)

The fourth degree of love is attained for ever when we love God only and supremely, when we do not even love ourselves except for God's sake; so that He Himself is the reward of them that love Him, the everlasting reward of an everlasting love. (Chapter 11)

To love our neighbor's welfare as much as our own: that is true and sincere charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned (I Tim. 1:5). Whosoever loves his own prosperity only is proved thereby not to love good for its own sake, since he loves it on his own account. Such a man would praise God, not because He is goodness, but because He has been good to him. One praises God because He is mighty, another because He is gracious, yet another solely because He is essential goodness. The first is a slave and fears for himself; the second is greedy, desiring further benefits; but the third is a son who honors his Father. He who fears, he who profits, are both concerned about self-interest. Only in the son is that charity which seeketh not her own (I Cor. 13:5). The law of the Lord is an undefiled law, converting the soul' (Ps. 19:7) to be of charity; because charity alone is able to turn the soul away from love of self and of the world to pure love of God. Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. Neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives. Love is at once God and the gift of God, essential love imparting the quality of love. Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled. Since all things are ordered in measure and number and weight, and nothing is left outside the realm of law, that universal law cannot itself be without a law, which is itself. So love though it did not create itself, does surely govern itself by its own decree. (Chapter 12)

Love is never without desire, but it is lawful desire. So love perfects the law of service by infusing devotion; it perfects the law of wages by restraining covetousness. By God's grace, it will come about that man will love his body and all things pertaining to his body, for the sake of his soul. He will love his soul for God's sake; and he will love God for Himself alone. (Chapter 14)

At first, man loves himself for his own sake. That is the flesh, which can appreciate nothing beyond itself. Next, he perceives that he cannot exist by himself, and so begins by faith to seek after God, and to love Him as something necessary to his own welfare. That is the second degree, to love God, not for God's sake, but selfishly. But when he has learned to worship God and to seek Him aright, meditating on God, reading God's Word, praying and obeying His commandments, he comes gradually to know what God is, and finds Him altogether lovely. So, having tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is (Ps. 34:8), he advances to the third degree, when he loves God, not merely as his benefactor but as God. Surely he must remain long in this state; and 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. (Chapter 15)
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A Catholic Endures
5.0 out of 5 stars A Father of the Church on Loving God
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2021
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While sometimes difficult to understand, but upon reading over the sentence again, and reading the explanation St Bernard provides for us lay persons; I am able to realize the meaning. I truly appreciated this succinct understanding presented by this most holy saint for loving God. Most verbiage is very clear.
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Bob
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2012
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Superb book. I only wish that I had read it in the quiet of my home instead of the noise and distractions of an airport and airplane. Bernard clearly and logically explains why we ought to love God as he masterly weaves Scripture quotations from St. Paul and the Song of Songs into his text. By itself, the Song of Songs makes little sense. Bernard, however, sheds light on this book by exposing its deep mystical meanings within the contexts of our love for God and God's love for us and His church.
15 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Mellow
Reviewed in the United States on July 13, 2017
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Lightweight and somewhat interesting.
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Ronald E Abrahams
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2017
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Some very good points.
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Top reviews from other countries

Ian Acheson
3.0 out of 5 stars Overly Complex Expression of Love
Reviewed in Australia on March 8, 2020
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I didn't enjoy this very short book after the first chapter. In all there are 14 chapters, each one, two or three pages in length.

Perhaps I'm a little simple in my thoughts on love but Bernard dove into a level of detail that I didn't;t really comprehend nor warm too. I soon found I was skimming large sections of it looking for some gems but for me they were few and far between.

I guess it just wasted my type of read. Clearly I'm an exception judging by the other reviews so best not take my word for it.
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Triona Harvey
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 6, 2014
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Excellent!
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