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Chapter 34SermC.1.34

Sermo 34

The Bride Reproved and Called to Humility

The bride is sternly corrected for her bold desire, and the faithful are taught that true advancement comes only through humility.

If you do not know yourself, fairest among women, go out, follow the flocks of your companions, and feed your kids near the shepherds' tents. Once, holy Moses, because he presumed so much on the grace and familiarity he had found with God, aspired to a great vision, so much so that he said to God: If I have found grace in your eyes, show me yourself.✦ He received, however, a far lower vision in place of that one, yet from it he could still eventually arrive at the very one he wanted.✦ The sons of Zebedee too, walking in the simplicity of their hearts, dared to ask for something great, but they were nonetheless reduced to the very degree they had to ascend.✦ And so now the bride, because she seems to demand a great thing, is indeed restrained by a sterner response, but a clearly useful and faithful one. For anyone striving for higher things must think humbly of himself, lest, while he is lifted up above himself, he falls away from himself, unless he has been firmly established in himself through true humility. And because the greatest things are least obtained without the merit of humility, therefore whoever is to be advanced is humbled by correction, and earns advancement by humility.✦ So when you see yourself being humbled, consider it a sign of good, absolute evidence of approaching grace.

God Resists the Proud, Gives Grace to the Humble

Drawing from both testaments, Bernard shows that God humbles the righteous in order to exalt them, as seen in the testing of Job.

For just as the heart is lifted up before a fall, so it is humbled before true exaltation. Surely you read in both testaments — that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Did not God first humble his servant Job with many searching and pressing questions, even though he intended to reward Job's great and well-tested patience with such generous blessing — and in this way prepare the way for that blessing?✦

David's Example of Humble Endurance

David's patient acceptance of Shimei's curse illustrates how God uses others' malice to humble and purify the soul.

But it is not enough for God to humble us through himself, if we then do not receive it willingly — unless we also understand that when he does this through another, it is the same. So accept this striking example from the matter itself, drawn from holy David. At one point a curse came to him from a servant, but he did not feel the mounting injury, because he had already sensed the grace. What do I have to do with you, and what with you, you sons of Zeruiah? O truly a man after God's own heart, who thought he should rather let himself be avenged than grow angry at the one insulting him! That is why he spoke with a clear conscience: If I have repaid those who returned evil to me, then let me fall, empty-handed, at the hands of my enemies.✦ So he forbade the one cursing him from being restrained, counting curses as gain. And he adds: The Lord sent him to curse David.

The Prophet's Secret Vision of God's Action

David, as a prophet, perceived God's hidden hand even in blasphemy, and so could say it was good to be humbled.

He was altogether after God's own heart — the one who carried out God's sentence from God's own heart. A slanderous tongue raged, and he paid attention to what God was doing in secret. The slanderer's voice fell on his ears, and his mind turned toward blessing. Was God in the blasphemer's mouth? Far from it! But he used it to humble David. Nor did it escape the Prophet — the one to whom God had revealed the uncertain and hidden things of his wisdom — and so he says: "It is good for me that you humbled me, so that I may learn your just decrees."✦1

Humility, Not Humiliation, Sets Us Right

Bernard distinguishes humiliation from humility, showing that only willing, patient humility earns grace, while bitter complaining forfeits it.

You see, do you not, that humility is what sets us right before God? I said humility — not humiliation.2 How severely are those brought low who are not humble! Some are humiliated with bitterness, some patiently, and some even willingly. The first are guilty, the next are free of blame, and the last are righteous. Although innocence is indeed a share of righteousness, its fulfillment belongs to the humble person — the one who can say: It was good for me that you humiliated me.✦3 Someone who endures unwillingly cannot say this — much less someone who complains. We promise grace to neither of these when they are humiliated — even though the two are far apart: the one indeed possesses his soul through patience, but the other perishes in his complaining.4

Willing Humility Alone Earns Grace

God gives grace not to the humbled but to the humble; only joyful, willing humility merits exaltation, while forced patience lacks grace.

But even if someone incurs wrath, that does not earn grace either; because God gives grace not to the humbled, but to the humble. The humble person is the one who turns humiliation into humility — the one who can say to God, 'It is good for me that you have humbled me.' To no one at all is what he endures patiently a good thing; it is plainly a burden. Yet we know that God loves a cheerful giver. That is why, when we fast, we are told to anoint our head with oil and wash our face — so that our good work may be seasoned with a certain spiritual joy, and our sacrifice may be rich. For only a joyful and wholehearted humility earns the grace that goes with it. Whatever humility is forced or wrung out — such as that of the patient person who keeps their composure — this humility, I say, even though it preserves life through patience, will still have no grace, because it comes with sorrow. For it is not fitting for such a person to claim the Scripture's words, 'Let the humble glory in his exaltation' — since they are not humbled willingly, and not gladly.

Glorying in Weakness and the Rule of Exaltation

Paul's example of glorying in weaknesses shows that only willing humility is exalted, and the material of humility must be received with a joyful conscience.

Do you want to see someone who glories in humility, and is truly worthy of glory? Gladly, he says, will I glory in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.✦ It is not a matter of bearing one's own weaknesses patiently, but of glorying in them, and glorying willingly, proving to oneself that it is good to be humbled, and that this is not enough to fully possess one's soul as one humbled patiently, unless one also receives grace as one humbled willingly. Listen here to a general rule: Everyone who humbles himself, it says, will be exalted.✦ This means, surely, that not every humility is to be exalted, but only the kind that comes from willingness, not from sadness or from necessity. For not everyone who is exalted, by contrast, must be humbled, but only the one who exalts himself will be humbled, and that on account of willing vanity. So then, not the one who is humbled, but the one who humbles himself willingly, will be exalted, and that on account of the merit of his willingness. Grant that the material of humility may be administered by another, for instance, reproaches, losses, punishments; nevertheless, for that reason one will not rightly be said to be humbled by another rather than by himself, who has decided to undergo all these things with a silent and joyful conscience, for the sake of God.

Return to the Bride and a Prayer for Protection

Bernard acknowledges the digression on humility, returns to the bridegroom's words, and closes with a Christological doxology.

But where are we going? Patiently, as I see it, you are bearing with the digression in the sermon on humility and patience; but let us go back to the place we digressed from. For that came up for us from the occasion of the reply, in which the bridegroom judged that the bride, presuming too grandly, ought to be restrained, and not toward foolishness for her; but so that, truly from it, an occasion of more probable and greater humility might be given, through which she might be made worthier of higher things, and more capable of those very things she was seeking.5 Nevertheless, because we are still at the very doors of the present chapter, let us begin the start of its discussion from the beginning of another sermon, if it pleases, especially lest the bridegroom's words be recounted with weariness or heard with it. Which may he himself avert from his servants, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God over all, blessed forever.✦ Amen.

Read the original Latin

Si ignoras te, o pulchra inter mulieres, egredere, et abi post greges sodalium tuorum, et pasce haedos tuos iuxta tabernacula pastorum. Olim sanctus Moyses, quoniam multum praesumebat de gratia et familiaritate, quam invenerat apud Deum, aspirabat ad quamdam visionem magnam, ita ut diceret Deo: Si inveni gratiam in oculis tuis, ostende mihi te ipsum. Accepit autem pro ea visionem longe inferiorem, ex qua tamen ad ipsam quam volebat, posset aliquando pervenire. Filii quoque Zebedaei in simplicitate cordis sui ambulantes, magnum aliquid et ipsi ausi sunt, sed ad gradum nihilominus sunt reducti, per quem fuerat ascendendum. Ita et modo sponsa, quoniam rem grandem postulare videtur, reprimitur sane austeriori responsione, sed plane utili et fideli. Oportet namque humiliter sentire de se nitentem ad altiora, ne, dum supra se attollitur, cadat a se, nisi in se firmiter per veram humilitatem fuerit solidatus. Et quia nisi humilitatis merito maxima minime obtinentur, propterea qui provehendus est, correptione humiliatur, humilitate meretur. Tu ergo cum te humiliari videris, habeto id signum in bonum omnino argumentum gratiae propinquantis.

Nam sicut ante ruinam exaltatur cor, ita ante exaltationem humiliatur, Sane utrumque legis, Deum scilicet et superbis resistere, et humilibus dare gratiam Nonne denique servum suum Iob, cum post insignem triumphum, tantam et tam probatam ipsius patientiam larga remunerandam benedictione censeret, prius in multis et districtis percunctationibus humiliare curavit, et sic parare viam benedictioni.

At parum est cum per se ipsum humiliat nos Deus, si tunc libenter accipimus, nisi quando et per alium hoc facit, sapiamus similiter. Quamobrem accipite huius rei mirabile documentum de sancto David. Aliquando maledictum est illi et a servo; at ille nec cumulatam iniuriam sensit, quia praesensit gratiam. Quid mihi, ait, et vobis, filii Sarviae? O vere hominem secundum cor Dei, qui se ulciscenti, potius quam exprobranti succensendum putavit! Unde et secura conscientia loquebatur: Si reddidi retribuentibus mihi mala, decidam merito ab inimicis meis inanis. Vetuit ergo prohiberi maledicum conviciantem, quaestum aestimans maledicta. Et addit: Dominus misit illum ad maledicendum David.

Prorsus secundum cor Dei, qui de corde Dei ferebat sententiam. Saeviebat lingua maledica, et ille intendebat quid in occulto ageret Deus. Vox maledicentis in auribus, et animus inclinabat se ad benedictionem. Nunquid in ore blasphemi Deus? Absit! Sed eo usus est ad humiliandum David. Nec latuit Prophetam; quippe cui incerta et occulta sapientiae suae manifestaverat Deus, et ideo dicit: Bonum mihi quod humiliasti me, ut discam iustificationes tuas.

Vides quia humilitas iustificat nos? Humilitas dixi; et non: Humiliatio. Quanti humiliantur, qui humiles non sunt? Alii cum rancore humiliantur, alii patienter, alii et libenter. Primi rei sunt, sequentes innoxii, ultimi iusti. Quanquam et innocentia portio iustitiae est, sed consummatio eius apud humilem; qui autem dicere potest: Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me, is vere humilis est. Non potest hoc dicere qui invitus tolerat; minus, qui murmurat. Neutri horum promittimus gratiam, quod humiliatur: etsi sane longe hi duo a se differant, et alter quidem in patientia sua possideat animam suam, alter in suo murmure pereat.

Sed enim etsi unus iram, neuter tamen gratiam promeretur; quoniam non humiliatis, sed humilibus Deus dat gratiam. Est autem humilis, qui humiliationem convertit in humilitatem, et ipse est qui dicit Deo: Bonum mihi quod humiliasti me. Nemini prorsus, quod patienter fert, bonum est, sed plane molestum. Scimus autem quod hilarem datorem diligit Deus. Unde et cum ieiunamus, iubemur caput nostrum ungere oleo, et faciem lavare, ut nostrum scilicet opus bonum spirituali quodam gaudio condiatur, et holocaustum nostrum pingue fiat. Etenim sola gratiam, quam praefert, meretur laeta et absoluta humilitas. Quae enim coacta fuerit vel extorta, qualis utique est in viro patiente illo qui possidet animam suam; haec, inquam, humilitas, etsi vitam obtinet propter patientiam, propter tristiam tamen gratiam non habebit. Non enim congruit ei, qui eiusmodi est, illud Scripturae: Glorietur humilis in exaltatione sua; quoniam non sponte humiliatur, neque libenter.

Vis autem videre humilem recte gloriantem, et vere dignum gloria? Libenter, inquit, gloriabor in infirmitatibus meis, ut inhabitet in me virtus Christi. Non dicit patienter se ferre infirmitates suas; sed et gloriari, et libenter gloriari in illis, probans etiam sibi bonum esse, quod humiliatur; nec sufficere omnino, ut possideat animam suam tanquam patienter humiliatus, nisi et gratiam accipiat tanquam sponte humiliatus. Generalem vero hinc audi regulam: Omnis qui se humiliat, ait, exaltabitur. Significat profecto, non omnem exaltandam esse humilitatem, sed eam tantum, quae de voluntate venit, non ex tristitia, nec ex necessitate. Nec enim per contrarium omnis qui exaltatur, humiliandus erit; sed tantum qui se exaltat, humiliabitur, nimirum ob voluntariam vanitatem. Ita ergo non qui humiliatur, sed qui sponte se humiliat, exaltabitur; utique ob meritum voluntatis. Esto enim quod humilitatis materia per alium ministratur, verbi gratia, probra, damna, supplicia; non tamen idcirco recte ab alio, quam a semetipso humiliatus ille dicetur, qui illa omnia tacita et laeta conscientia, causa Dei subeunda decreverit.

Sed quo progredimur? Patienter, ut sentio, sustinetis excessum in verbo de humilitate et patientia; sed revertamur ad locum, de quo digressi sumus. Id namque incidit nobis ex occasione responsi, quo grandia praesumentem sponsam reprimendam censuit sponsus, et non ad insipientiam illi; sed ut sane ex eo probabilioris et maioris humilitatis daretur occasio, per quam dignior potiorum, atque eorum ipsorum quae petebat, capacior efficeretur. Verumtamen quia adhuc in ianuis sumus praesentis capituli, discussionis eius initium principio, si placet, sermonis alterius ordiamur, praesertim ne verba sponsi vel recenseantur cum taedio, vel audiantur. Quod ipse avertat a servis suis Iesus Christus Dominus noster, qui est super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula. Amen.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Exod.33.13 — And now, if I have found favor in your eyes, please make known to me your ways, so that I may know you, in order that I may find favor in your eyes. And see that this nation is your people.
  2. ↩Exod.33.18-Exod.33.23 — And he said, 'Please, let me see your glory.' Exod.33.19 — And he said, 'I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim the name of the LORD before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.' Exod.33.20 — And he said, 'You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.' Exod.33.21 — And the LORD said, "See, there is a place beside me, and you shall stand upon the rock." Exod.33.22 — And when my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Exod.33.23 — And I will remove my hand, and you will see my back, but my face will not be seen.
  3. ↩Matt.20.20-Matt.20.23 — Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to him with her sons, kneeling before him and asking something of him. Matt.20.21 — He said to her, "What do you want?" She said to him, "Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom." Matt.20.22 — But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" They said to him, "We are able." Matt.20.23 — He said to them, "You will indeed drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant; it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father."
  4. ↩Jas.4.6;1Pet.5.5 — But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' 1Pet.5.5 — Likewise, younger people, submit to the elders. And all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
  5. ↩Jas.4.6;1Pet.5.5 — But he gives greater grace. Therefore it says, 'God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.' 1Pet.5.5 — Likewise, younger people, submit to the elders. And all of you clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
  6. ↩Ps.7.4 — LORD my God, if I have done this—if there is wrong in my hands—
  7. ↩Ps.119.71 — It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
  8. ↩Ps.119.71 — It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
  9. ↩2Cor.12.9 — And he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So most gladly I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
  10. ↩Luke.14.11;Luke.18.14;Matt.23.12 — For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Luke.18.14 — I tell you, this one went down to his house justified rather than that one; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Matt.23.12 — Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.
  11. ↩Rom.9.5 — whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩iustificationes tuas rendered as 'your just decrees' (Ps 119:71 Vulgate); the term carries the force of God's righteous ordinances or commandments.
  2. 2 ↩The contrast between humilitas and humiliatio distinguishes the virtue of humility from the experience of being humiliated; the two are often conflated.
  3. 3 ↩'Bonum mihi quia humiliasti me' echoes Psalm 119:71 (Vulgate 118:71); final scriptural resolution deferred to later stage.
  4. 4 ↩The phrase 'promittimus gratiam, quod humiliatur' is compressed; sense appears to be that neither the unwilling nor the complaining person receives the grace promised to the truly humble.
  5. 5 ↩Translation of 'probabilioris' retains the comparative 'more probable' (i.e., more likely to prove genuine), preserving the Latin's rhetorical force rather than flattening to a generic positive.

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