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| All the photos on this post are from Iowa |
Sometimes, seeking after perfection seems selfish to some. But, the only way you can really, truly minister to others is by becoming one with Christ and letting Him work through you.
Anything else is worthless.
Bernard teaches us that the first sign of God's love in us is that we love other people. This selfless love grows and grows, until like Christ, we embrace the Cross.
The second sign of God's love in us is the absence of fear. Love casts out fear. Love replaces fear with confidence. The old selfish love of the slave who lives in fear is replaced by the unselfish love of a son or daughter. This I learn from Bernard and his many commentators.
The third sign that God's love dwells in us is that we become totally absorbed by God. This absorption finds its fulfillment in heaven, in the final union of the glorified body being one with the glorified soul at the end of time. Bernard speaks of these things in his treatise On the Love of God IX, 26.
He gives us the steps, the steps all the Doctors of the Church so far have given us, one by one.
Meditation, on the Scriptures, our sins, in the purgative state. Spiritual reading may accompany this. Through this, our intellect is purged and cleansed of bad things. The imagination is purified. With this comes a clarity of intellect and a strengthening of the will.
This is the first stage and cannot be skipped. Purification and Purgation involve the first dark night of the soul.
Then, after the long time of purgation, slowly one learns obedience and God makes known His Will for us.
Sometimes this is in an epiphany and sometimes little by little does He disclose this to each one of us. This is the Illuminative State when knowledge of God becomes infused and virtue flows out of one easily. One may still sin, but venially, and those venial sins begin to disappear, leaving one with the imperfections of character, which must be changed.
Then, beyond self-interest, with no thoughts of the self, love of God is released in our empty hearts.
Bernard says, just like many others, "To attain this degree of affection is to be deified." On the Love of God
"The will is a rational impulse which rule the sense and the appetites,. Whenever the will is in control, it has reason as its helper and, to some degree, as its servant. Not that the will is in variably influenced by reason, but it can never act independently of it. Frequently it acts according to reason and at the same time against reason, that is to say with the help of reason, though disregarding the advice and conclusions offered by reason. The children of the world have the cunning to usurp to themselves the liberty to do evil, when they allow themselves to be guided by the wisdom of the flesh." This is from Of the Degrees of Humility and Pride I, 2.
"....(the) natural affections seem, in some way, to melt into and become entirely transformed into the will of God." On the Love of God
To be continued...