It was love that motivated His self-emptying, that led Him to become a little lower than angels, to be subject to parents, to bow His head beneath the Baptist’s hands, to endure the weakness of the flesh, and to submit to death even upon the cross. –Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
Satisfy your hunger…
Suppose you saw a starving man inhaling great deep breaths, filling his cheeks with wind to stay his hunger; would you not call him mad? And it is just as mad to think that blowing yourself out with earthly goods can satisfy your hunger.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
The work of a prophet…
Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a scepter but a hoe.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
If things always went…
If things always went wrong, no one could endure it; if they always went well, anyone would become arrogant.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
The more I pray…
The more I contemplate God, the more God looks on me. The more I pray to him, the more he thinks of me too.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)
The spiritual life…
These two stages sum up the whole of the spiritual life: when we contemplate ourselves we are troubled, and our sadness saves us and brings us to contemplate God; that contemplation in turn gives us the consolation of the joy of the Holy Spirit.
–Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)