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Chapter 50SermC.1.50

Sermo 50

The Feast of Love

Bernard explains why he sets before his hearers the leftovers of yesterday's teaching, since love's gifts must be shared or they are lost, and love has established its order in him.

Perhaps you're expecting me to move on to the next passage, thinking the little verse we were just discussing had been fully explained. But I'm working on something else: I still have something to set before you from the leftovers of yesterday's feast, which I had gathered up so they wouldn't go to waste. They'll be lost, however, if I don't serve them to anyone at all: for if I try to keep them for myself alone, I myself will be the one who's lost. So I don't want to cheat your appetite, which I know all too well — especially since these come from the dish of love: the more refined they are, the sweeter; the more minute, the more savory. Otherwise, to withhold from love would be altogether too much a defrauding of love itself. And so here I am: love has established its order in me.✦

Commanded Love and Given Love

Bernard distinguishes active love, which is commanded for merit, from affective love, which is given as a reward belonging to future blessedness, and shows that the law's impossible command humbles us.

Love is at work in action, and it's also alive in affection. Now concerning the love that belongs to action, I think the law was given to human beings and the commandment shaped for them; for who could ever possess the love of affection in the way that it is commanded? So the love of action is commanded for merit, while the love of affection is given as reward. We don't deny that its beginning, growth, and even the present life can be experienced by divine grace; but we firmly hold that its completion belongs to future blessedness. How, then, could what was commanded to be fulfilled have been fulfilled in no way at all? Or if you prefer to think the commandment was given about affective love, I won't argue the point — as long as you agree with me that this is something no one in this life could or can bring to fulfillment. For who would dare to claim for himself what Paul himself confesses he has not grasped? The teacher of the commandment wasn't unaware that its weight exceeds human strength; but he judged it useful for people to be reminded of their own insufficiency from this very fact, and to know clearly toward what goal of justice they must strive with all their strength.

Mercy, Not Merit

When we feel the weight of the commandment we cry out to heaven, and God saves us not by our works of righteousness but according to his mercy.

So by commanding the impossible, he hasn't made people into lawbreakers, but into the humble, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may submit itself to God; because by works of the law no one will be justified before him.✦✦ Indeed, when we receive the commandment and feel our offense, we will cry out to heaven, and God will have mercy on us; and on that day we will know that it wasn't by the works of righteousness that we did that he saved us, but according to his own mercy.✦✦

Love Commanded in Deed

Bernard argues from scriptural commands to love enemies and to keep Christ's words that the love God commands is expressed in concrete action, not merely in feeling.

And I would say this much: if we agree that the law was given to shape our affections, But that this applies to actual deeds seems to come through most clearly from the fact that when the Lord had said, "Love your enemies," he immediately adds the concrete action: "Do good to those who hate you."✦✦ Likewise Scripture says: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink."✦✦ And here you have it stated in terms of action, not of feeling. But listen again to the Lord commanding even the love owed to himself: "If you love me," he says, "keep my words."✦✦ And here too we are sent to concrete works through the observance of the commandments laid on us. After all, it would have been pointless to insist on the outward deed if the love were already present in the heart. So you are therefore bound to accept this as well: that you are commanded to love your neighbor as yourself, even though it is not stated so explicitly.✦✦

The Law of Nature and the Golden Rule

The law of nature already prescribes love in the golden rule: do not do to another what you would not want done to yourself, and do to others what you want them to do to you.

Then again, wouldn't you think it enough to fulfill this commandment about loving your neighbor, if you kept it perfectly? After all, what the law of nature rightly prescribes to every person is just this: Don't do to another what you wouldn't want done to yourself.✦ And likewise this other saying: Whatever you want people to do to you, do to them.✦

Three Kinds of Affection

Bernard distinguishes fleshly affection, reason-governed affection, and wisdom-seasoned affection, commending active love in deed and truth over mere feeling.

I'm not saying this so that we should be without affection, moving only our hands to works with a dry heart. I've read, among the great and serious evils of humanity that the Apostle writes about, this one also counted: namely, being without affection.✦ But there is the affection that the flesh generates, and there is the affection that reason governs, and there is the affection that wisdom seasons. The first is the one the Apostle says is not subject to God's law and cannot be; the second, he declares to be in harmony with God's law, since it is good; and there's no doubt that the contentious and the harmonious are far apart from each other.✦ The third, however, stands far apart from both of them — it both tastes and savors, because the Lord is sweet — eliminating the first and rewarding the second.✦ For the first is sweet but shameful; the second is dry but strong; the last is rich and sweet. So through the second, works are accomplished, and in it charity resides — not that affectual charity which, seasoned with the salt of wisdom, grows rich and brings the mind a great abundance of the Lord's sweetness; but rather a certain actual charity, which, even if it doesn't yet sweetly refresh with that sweet love, nevertheless fiercely kindles by the love of love itself. Let us not love, he says, in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.✦

The Cautious Middle Path of Love

Active love and affectual love must be distinguished and ordered rightly: active love attends to lower needs, while affectual love prefers higher things, so that in a well-disposed mind the love of God precedes all else.

You see how cautiously the middle path walks between a vicious love and an affectionate one, distinguishing equally from both this active and saving love. In this love, a lying tongue receives no falsehood, and again, a mind that is merely affected does not demand the taste of wisdom. In work, he says, and in truth let us love — namely, that we are moved to work well more by a certain vivid impulse of truth than by the savory affection of that love. He has ordered love in me. Which of these do you think it is? Both — but in reverse order. For active love prefers lower things; affectual love, higher things. For in a well-disposed mind there is no doubt — for example — that the love of God is set before the love of man; and among people themselves, the more perfect before the weaker, heaven before earth, eternity before time, the soul before the flesh.

When Necessity Reverses the Order

In practice the order of love is often reversed, as charity pulls the soul from prayer, reading, and even the Mass to serve the neighbor's need, since necessity knows no law.

And yet, in a well-ordered practice, the opposite order is often found — or even always. When it comes to caring for a neighbor, we're urged on more strongly and occupied more often. We assist weaker brothers with more diligent care, and we direct our attention to the peace of earth more than to the glory of heaven — both by right of our shared humanity and by necessity itself. Amid the restlessness of temporal cares, we're scarcely allowed to feel anything about eternal things. With our body's weakness set before us and the care of the soul laid aside, we serve it almost without pause. And finally, for those same weaker members of ours we surround an even greater honor, following the Apostle's words — doing this in a certain way by treating the word of the Lord, of which you have the saying: The last will be first, and the first last.12 After all, when a person at prayer is speaking with God — who would doubt it? Yet how often are we led away and torn from that place — by love itself commanding it — because of people who need our work or our words?3 How often does peaceful rest yield piously to the clamor of affairs? How often is the book set down with a good conscience, so that our hands may toil at work? How often, to administer earthly matters, do we justly set aside even the solemn celebration of the Mass itself? The order is reversed — but necessity knows no law.

Active Love Serves, Affective Love Orders

Active love carries out the master's command impartially according to need, whereas affectual love is the one that sets the order from the very first.

Therefore, active love carries out its own order according to the master of the house's command, beginning with the lowest (ibid. , 8). Assuredly it is both loving and just, showing no partiality toward persons, considering not the value of things but the needs of people.

Tasting God, Self, and Neighbor

Bernard describes how the soul that loves God with its whole being is set ablaze, comes to know itself as nothing apart from God, and thereby loves the neighbor as itself.

But not so with affective love: it's the one that sets the order from the very first. For there is a wisdom by which each thing truly tastes according to what it is: so that, for example, what has greater worth by nature, the greater affection also perceives as greater; lesser things, less; and the least, least of all. And truth produces the order of love; but love claims the order of truth for itself. For love is truly genuine in this: that those who are more in need receive first; and again, truth shows itself lovely in this, if we maintain with affection the order that reason points out. You, then, if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength; and, leaping beyond with a more fervent affection the very love of love in which active love finds its contentment — that divine love nearest to which this step is — received in the fullness of the spirit, you are wholly set ablaze: God himself becomes your taste, though not worthily, entirely as he is (for that is certainly impossible for any creature), but at least as your capacity to taste allows. Next, you'll also know yourself as you are, when you perceive that you have absolutely nothing from which to love yourself, except insofar as you belong to God: for you have poured out entirely into him the whole source from which you love. You'll know yourself, I say, as you are, by the very experience of your own love and the affection you bear toward yourself: you'll find nothing in yourself worthy of being loved, except on account of him, without whom you yourself are nothing.

Loving the Enemy, Hating the Godless

The neighbor is loved as oneself because both belong to God; the enemy is loved in hope that he may come to love God, but the one who is finally God's enemy is to be hated according to the psalm.

Now the neighbor, whom you truly must love as yourself, that he too may taste according to what he is — for you, and for himself — will assuredly taste nothing other to you than you do to yourself, since this person is what you are: he is, after all, a human being. So if you do not love yourself except because you love God, consequently you love all who likewise love him as yourself. Furthermore, an enemy — since they are nothing, because they do not love God — truly cannot love you as yourself, you who love God; you will, however, love them so that they may come to love. But loving someone so that they may love is not the same as loving because they love. Therefore, so that he too may taste according to what he is, he will taste for you — not, to be sure, what he is, since that is certainly nothing — but what he may perhaps yet become. For what he is amounts to almost nothing, since it still hangs in uncertainty. Indeed, when it is settled that someone will never return to the love of God, you must taste them as nothing — not almost nothing now, but nothing at all — since what is nothing will be nothing forever. With that one exception — the one who is now not only not to be loved but is even to be held in hatred, according to the psalm: 'Have I not hated those who hate you, Lord, and wasted away over your enemies?'

A Question and a Portrait of Ordered Love

Bernard asks who is wise enough to understand these things and then paints the portrait of the truly wise person who loves God above all, neighbor for God's sake, enemy in hope, and all else in right order, using the world as though not using it.

As for the rest, love allows that some small measure of affection be denied to no one—not even to the most hostile person—in this ambitious sphere. Who is wise and will understand these things? Give me a person who above all things loves God with their whole being; who loves themselves and their neighbor to the extent that they love God; who loves their enemy as someone who may perhaps one day come to love; who loves their fleshly parents with natural affection, for the sake of nature; who loves their spiritual teachers more generously still, for the sake of grace; and who, in this way, directs an ordered love toward everything else that belongs to God — looking down on earth, lifting their eyes to heaven, using this world as though they didn't use it, and discerning with an inward taste of the mind between what is to be used and what is to be enjoyed, so that they treat passing things as passing, caring for them only as far as necessary and in the way that is necessary, while embracing eternal things with an eternal longing: give me, I say, such a person, and I will boldly call them wise — one to whom all things truly taste as they really are, and who has the right to glory in truth and confidence and say, because love has been set in right order within me.✦

Longing for the Homeland

Lamenting that such ordered love is rare, Bernard weeps for the exile who sees the homeland of truth but cannot enter, and prays that Wisdom would direct our actions and affections until we can glory in right-ordered love.

But where is that person, or when will these things be? What do I say weeping? How long will we smell and not taste, gazing toward our homeland without grasping it, sighing and greeting it from far off?✦✦ O truth, homeland of exiles, end of exile? I see you, but I'm not allowed to enter, held back by the flesh, and I'm not worthy to be admitted, defiled by sins. O Wisdom, who reaches from end to end with strength in instructing and sustaining all things, and who arranges all things sweetly in blessing and ordering our affections! Direct our actions, as our temporal necessity demands; and arrange our affections, as your eternal truth requires, so that each one of us may be able to glory securely in you and to say, because love has been set in right order within me.✦ For you are the power of God and the wisdom of God, Christ the bridegroom of the Church, our Lord, God blessed above all things forever.✦✦

Amen

The sermon closes with a single 'Amen.'

Amen.

Read the original Latin

Vos forsitan exspectatis tractari sequentia, explicitum putantes versiculum, qui novissime tractabatur. Verum ego aliud molior: habeo enim quod adhuc vobis apponam de fragmentis hesterni convivii, quae mihi collegeram ne perirent. Peribunt autem, si nulli apposuero: nam si voluero ea habere solus, ipse peribo. Nolo proinde vestram illis, quam bene novi, fraudare ingluviem: praesertim cum sint de ferculo charitatis, eo dulcia quo subtilia; eo sapida quo minuta. Alioquin contra charitatem est valde nimis de ipsa charitate fraudare. Itaque hic sum: Ordinavit in me charitatem.

Est charitas in actu, est et in affectu. Et de illa quidem quae operis est, puto datam esse legem hominibus, mandatumque formatum: nam in affectu quis ita habeat, ut mandatur? Ergo illa mandatur ad meritum, ista in praemium datur. Cuius initium quidem, profectumque vitam quoque praesentem experiri divina posse gratia non negamus; sed plane consummationem defendimus futurae felicitati. Quomodo ergo iubenda fuit, quae implenda nullo modo erat? Aut si placet tibi magis de affectuali datum fuisse mandatum, non inde contendo, dummodo acquiescas et tu mihi, quod minime in vita ista ab aliquo hominum possit, vel potuerit adimpleri. Quis enim sibi arrogare id audeat, quod se Paulus ipse fatetur non comprehendisse? Nec latuit praeceptorem, praecepti pondus hominum excedere vires; sed iudicavit utile ex hoc ipso suae illos insufficientiae admoneri, et ut scirent sane, ad quem iustitiae finem niti pro viribus oporteret.

Ergo mandando impossibilia, non praevaricatores homines fecit, sed humiles, ut omne os obstruatur, et subditus fiat omnis mundus Deo; quia ex operibus legis non iustificabitur omnis caro coram illo. Accipientes quippe mandatum, et sentientes delictum, clamabimus in coelum, et miserebitur nostri Deus: et sciemus in illa die, quia non ex operibus iustitiae quae fecimus nos, sed secundum suam misericordiam salvos nos fecit.

Atque hoc dixerim, siquidem consenserimus affectualem legem fuisse mandatam. Sed actuali id potius convenire inde vel maxime apparere videtur, quod cum dixisset Dominus: Diligite inimicos vestros, mox de operibus infert: Benefacite his qui oderunt vos. Item Scriptura: Si esuriet inimicus tuus, ciba illum; si sitit, potum datu. Et hic de actu habes, non de affectu. Sed audi item Dominum etiam de sui dilectione mandantem: Si diligitis me, inquit, sermones meos servate . Atque hic quoque ad opera mittimur per iniunctam observantiam mandatorum. Supervacue autem de opere monuisset, si in affectione iam fuisset dilectio. Sic te ergo necesse est et illud accipere, quod iuberis diligere proximum tuum sicut te ipsum, etsi non ita aperte expressum sit.

An non denique satis tibi esse iudices ad implendum istud de proximi dilectione mandatum, si id perfecte observes, in quo omni homini recte de lege naturae praescribitur: Quod tibi non vis fieri, alii ne feceris? Et item illud: Quaecunque vultis ut faciant vobis homines, et vos facite aliis.

Neque hoc dico, ut sine affectione simus, et corde arido solas moveamus manus ad opera. Legi inter alia, quae scribit Apostolus magna et gravia hominum mala, hoc quoque annumeratum, sine affectione scilicet esse. Sed est affectio quam caro gignit; et est quam ratio regit, et est quam condit sapientia. Prima est, quam Apostolus legi Dei dicit non esse subiectam, nec esse posse; secunda, quam perhibet e regione consentientem legi Dei, quoniam bona est; nec dubium distare inter se contentiosam et consentaneam. Longe vero tertia ab utraque distat, quae et gustat, et sapit quoniam suavis est Dominus, primam eliminans, secundam remunerans. Nam prima quidem dulcis, sed turpis; secunda sicca, sed fortis; ultima pinguis, et suavis est. Igitur per secundam opera fiunt, et in ipsa charitas sedet, non illa affectualis, quae sale sapientiae condita pinguescens magnam menti importat multitudinem dulcedinis Domini; sed quaedam potius actualis, quae etsi nondum dulci illo amore suaviter reficit, amore tamen amoris ipsius vehementer accendit. Non diligamus, ait, verbo, neque lingua, sed opere et veritate.

Vides quomodo caute medius incedit inter vitiosum atque affectuosum amorem, ab utroque pariter hanc distinguens actualem et salutiferam charitatem? Nec linguae mentientis in hac dilectione recipit fictum, nec rursum afficientis exigit sapientiae gustum. Opere, inquit, diligamus et veritate: quod videlicet moveamur ad bene operandum magis quodam vividae veritatis impulsu, quam sapidae illius charitatis affectu. Ordinavit in me charitatem. Quam putas harum? Utramque, sed ordine opposito. Nam actualis inferiora praefert, affectualis superiora. Etenim in bene affecta mente non dubium, verbi causa, quin dilectioni hominis Dei dilectio praeponatur, et in hominibus ipsis perfectiores infirmioribus, coelum terrae, aeternitas tempori, anima carni.

Attamen in bene ordinata actione saepe, aut etiam semper, ordo oppositus invenitur. Nam et circa proximi curam et plus urgemur, et pluries occupamur; et infirmioribus fratribus diligentiori sedulitate assistimus; et paci terrae magis quam coeli gloriae iure humanitatis et ipsa necessitate intendimus; et temporalium inquietudine curarum vix aliquid sentire de aeternis permittimur; et languoribus nostri corporis, postposita animae cura, pene continue inservimus; et ipsis denique infirmioribus membris nostris abundantiorem honorem, iuxta sententiam Apostoli, circumdamus : per hoc quodam modo facientes verbum Domini, de quo habes: Erunt novissimi primi, et primi novissimi. Orantem denique hominem cum Deo loqui quis dubitet? Quoties tamen inde charitate iubente abducimur et avellimur, propter eos qui nostra indigent opera vel loquela? quoties pie cedit negotiorum tumultibus pia quies? quoties bona conscientia ponitur codex, ut operi manuum insudetur? quoties pro administrandis terrenis, iustissime ipsis supersedemus celebrandis missarum solemniis? Ordo praeposterus: sed necessitas non habet legem.

Agit ergo suum actualis charitas ordinem iuxta patrisfamilias iussionem, incipiens a novissimis (ibid. , 8). Pia certe et iusta, quae non sit acceptrix personarum; nec pretia consideret rerum, sed hominum necessitates.

At non ita affectualis: nam a primis ipsa ducit ordinem. Est enim sapientia, per quam utique quaeque res sapiunt prout sunt: ut, verbi gratia, quae pluris natura habet, pluris quoque ipsa affectio sentiat, minora minus, minima minime. Et illum quidem ordinem charitatis veritas facit; hunc autem veritatis charitas vindicat sibi. Nam et vera in hoc est charitas, ut qui indigent amplius, accipiant prius: et rursus in eo chara apparet veritas, si ordinem tenemus affectu, quem illa ratione. Tu ergo si diligas Dominum Deum tuum toto corde, tota anima, tota virtute tua; et amorem amoris illum, quo contenta est charitas actualis, affectu ferventiori transiliens, ipso cominus divino amore, ad quem is est gradus, accepto in plenitudine spiritu, totus ignescas: sapit tibi profecto Deus, etsi non digne omnino prout est (quod utique impossibile est omni creaturae), certe prout tuum sapere est. Deinde sapies etiam ipse tu tibi prout es, cum te senseris nil habere prorsus, unde te ames, nisi in quantum Dei es: quippe qui totum unde amas, in illum effuderis. Sapies, inquam, tibi prout es, cum ipso experimento amoris tui, et affectionis quam ad te ipsum habebis, nihil dignum te esse invenies, quod vel a te ipso ametur, nisi propter ipsum, sine quo ipse es nihil.

Iam vero proximus, quem vere te oportet diligere tanquam te ipsum, ut tibi et ipse sapiat prout est, haud aliud profecto sapiet tibi, quam tu tibi, qui hoc est quod tu: est enim homo. Qui itaque te non diligis, nisi quia diligis Deum; consequenter omnes qui similiter diligunt eum, diligis tanquam te ipsum. Porro inimicum hominem, quoniam nihil est, pro eo quod non diligit Deum; non potest quidem diligere tanquam te ipsum, qui Deum diligis; diliges tamen ut diligat. Non est autem id ipsum, diligere ut diligat, et diligere quia diligit. Proinde ut tibi et ipse sapiat prout est, sapiet tibi, non quidem quod est, qui utique nihil est; sed quod futurus forsitan est. quod est prope nihili, quippe quod adhuc pendet sub dubio. Etenim de quo constat quod ad amorem Dei non sit deinceps rediturus, sapiat tibi necesse est, non prope iam nihil, sed nihil ex toto, utpote quod in aeternum nihil est. Illo igitur excepto, qui non modo iam non diligendus, insuper et odio habendus est, secundum illud: Nonne qui oderunt te, Domine, oderam, et super inimicos tuos tabescebam?

De caetero nulli vel inimicissimo homini negari quantulumcunque affectum charitas sane in hac parte ambitiosa permittit. Quis sapiens, et intelliget haec?

Da mihi hominem, qui ante omnia quidem ex toto se diligat Deum; se vero et proximum, in quantum diligunt ipsum; inimicum autem, tanquam aliquando forsitan dilecturum; porro parentes carnis suae germanius, propter naturam; spirituales vero eruditores suos profusius, propter gratiam; atque in hunc modum ad caetera quaeque Dei ordinato intendat amore, despiciens terram, suspiciens coelum, utens hoc mundo tanquam non utens, et inter utenda et fruenda intimo quodam mentis sapore discernens, ut transitoria transitorie, et ad id duntaxat quod opus, et prout opus est curet, aeterna desiderio amplectatur aeterno: talem, inquam, da mihi hominem, et ego audacter illum sapientem pronuntio, cui nimirum quaeque res revera sapiunt prout sunt, et cui in veritate atque securitate competit gloriari, et dicere, quia ordinavit in me charitatem. Sed ubi ille, aut quando ista? Quod flens dico, quousque odoramus, et non gustamus, prospicientes patriam, et non apprehendentes, suspirantes, et de longe salutantes? O veritas exsulum patria, exsilii finis? video te, sed intrare non sinor carne retentus, sed nec dignus admitti, peccatis sordens. O Sapientia, quae attingis a fine usque ad finem fortiter in instituendis et continendis rebus; et disponis omnia suaviter in beandis et ordinandis affectibus! dirige actus nostros, prout nostra temporalis necessitas poscit; et dispone affectus nostros, prout tua veritas aeterna requirit, ut possit unusquisque nostrum secure in te gloriari et dicere, quia ordinavit in me charitatem. Tu es enim Dei virtus et Dei sapientia, Christus sponsus Ecclesiae, Dominus noster, super omnia Deus benedictus in saecula.

Amen.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.17.5 — My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.
  2. ↩Rom.3.19-Rom.3.20 — Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world held accountable to God." Tighter rhythm; avoids repeating "speaks" and keeps the legal force. Rom.3.20 — For by works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
  3. ↩Jas.2.10 — For whoever keeps the whole law but stumbles in one point has become guilty of all of it.
  4. ↩Titus.3.5 — not by works of righteousness that we ourselves had done, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of renewal and rebirth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit,
  5. ↩Luke.18.13 — But the tax collector, standing far off, was not even willing to lift his eyes to heaven, but kept beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner.'
  6. ↩Luke.6.27 — But I say to you who are listening: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.
  7. ↩Luke.6.35 — But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.
  8. ↩Rom.12.20 — But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on his head.
  9. ↩Prov.25.21 — If your enemy is hungry, feed him bread; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
  10. ↩John.14.15 — If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
  11. ↩John.14.23 — Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'
  12. ↩Lev.19.18 — You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
  13. ↩Matt.22.39 — And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
  14. ↩Matt.7.12;Luke.6.31 — Therefore, whatever you want people to do to you, do also to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets. Luke.6.31 — And just as you want people to do to you, do the same to them.
  15. ↩Matt.7.12 — Therefore, whatever you want people to do to you, do also to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets.
  16. ↩Rom.1.31 — senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
  17. ↩Rom.8.7 — Because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, for it is not able to do so—
  18. ↩Ps.34.8 — The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them.
  19. ↩1John.3.18 — Little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and truth.
  20. ↩1Cor.13.5 — It does not dishonor others, it does not seek its own, it is not easily provoked, it does not keep a record of wrongs.
  21. ↩2Cor.5.2-2Cor.5.4 — Indeed, in this body we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven. 2Cor.5.3 — since, when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 2Cor.5.4 — For indeed, while we are in this tent, we groan under the weight of it — because we do not wish to be unclothed, but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
  22. ↩Heb.11.13-Heb.11.16 — By faith these all died, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar and having greeted them, and having confessed that they are strangers and exiles on the earth. Heb.11.14 — For those who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. Heb.11.15 — And if they had been remembering that country from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. Heb.11.16 — But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
  23. ↩1Cor.13.5 — It does not dishonor others, it does not seek its own, it is not easily provoked, it does not keep a record of wrongs.
  24. ↩1Cor.1.24 — but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
  25. ↩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 ↩The last will be first, and the first last — echoing Matt. 20:16 / Mark 10:31.
  2. 2 ↩iure humanitatis: 'by right of our shared humanity' — the bond of human solidarity as a claim on charitable action.
  3. 3 ↩charitate iubente: love itself becomes the agent that pulls the contemplative away — charity's legitimate interruption of prayer.

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