Sermon 3 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
On the Kiss of the Lord's Foot, Hand, and Mouth, etc.
1. Today we read in the book of experience. Turn to yourselves, and let each one attend to his own conscience concerning the things that are to be said. I would like to discover whether it has been given to any of you ever to say with full conviction: "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth" (Song 1:1). For it is not given to any and every man to say this from the heart; but if anyone has even once received a spiritual kiss from the mouth of Christ, his own experience surely urges him on, and he gladly seeks it again. I think that no one can even know what it is unless he who receives it: for it is a hidden manna, and only he who eats will still hunger. It is a sealed fountain, with which no stranger may share; but only he who drinks will still thirst. Hear one who has experienced it, how he seeks it again. "Restore to me," he says, "the joy of your salvation" (Ps 50:14). Let not, therefore, a soul like mine, burdened with sins, still subject to the passions of its own flesh, which has not yet tasted the sweetness of the spirit, ignorant of and wholly inexperienced in the joys of the interior life, presume to claim this for itself.
2. I shall show, however, to such a soul a place in the way of salvation fitting for it. Let it not rashly rise up to the mouth of the most serene Bridegroom, but let it lie trembling with me at the feet of the most severe Lord, and with the publican, trembling, let it look upon the earth and not upon the heavens (Lk 18:13), lest the face accustomed to darkness, confounded by the luminaries of heaven, be overwhelmed by the glory, and, struck back by the unaccustomed splendors of majesty, be wrapped again in the blindness of a denser darkness. Do not let that place seem vile or contemptible to you, O whatever sort of soul you may be, where the holy sinful woman laid aside her sins and put on holiness. There the Ethiopian woman changed her skin, and restored to a new whiteness, she then confidently and truthfully answered those who reproached her with the word: "I am black, but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem" (Song 1:4). Do you wonder by what art she was able to do this, or by what merits she obtained it? Receive it in few words. She wept bitterly, and drawing long sighs from her inmost depths, she was shaken within herself by wholesome sobs, and vomited forth her bitter humors. The heavenly physician came to her aid most swiftly: for "swiftly runs his word" (Ps 147:15). Is the word of God not a potion? It is indeed, and a strong and powerful one, "searching hearts and reins" (Ps 7:10). For "the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints also and marrow, and is a discerner of thoughts" (Heb 4:12). By the example, therefore, of this blessed penitent, cast yourself down, you too, O wretched one, that you may cease to be wretched; cast yourself down, you too, upon the earth; embrace the feet, appease with kisses, water with tears, by which, however, you wash not him but yourself, and you may become one of the flock of the shorn ones ascending from the washing (Song 4:2); so indeed may you not dare to lift up your face, suffused as it is with shame and grief, until you hear, you also: "Your sins are forgiven you" (Lk 7:37-48); until you hear: "Arise, arise, O captive daughter of Zion; arise, shake yourself from the dust" (Isa 52:1-2).
3. Having thus received the first kiss at the feet, you should not presume at once to rise up to the kiss of the mouth, but there shall be for you a step toward it, a certain other intermediate kiss, which you shall receive in the second place upon the hand: of which receive also such an account. If Jesus says to me: "Your sins are forgiven you," unless I cease to sin, what will it profit? I have put off my tunic; if I put it on again, how much have I advanced? If again I soil my feet, which I had washed, will the washing have availed anything? Filthy with every kind of vice, I lay long in the mire of the dregs; but it will without doubt be worse for one who falls back than for one who lay there. For he who made me whole, I remember, said this to me: "Behold, you are made whole; go, sin no more, lest something worse befall you" (Jn 5:14). But he who gave the will to repent must also add the virtue of continence, lest I repeat what must be repented of, and make my last state worse than my first. Woe indeed to me, even as a penitent, if he should at once withdraw his hand, without whom I can do nothing. Nothing, I say, because neither to repent nor to be continent. I hear therefore what the Wise Man counsels: "Do not," he says, "repeat a word in your prayer" (Sir 7:15). I tremble also at what the Judge threatens against the tree not bringing forth good fruit (Mt 3:10). I confess that for this reason I am not at all content with the first grace, by which I am now penitent for my evils, unless I shall also receive the second, that I may bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and henceforth not return to my vomit.
4. This therefore remains for me first to seek and to receive, before I presume to touch things higher and more sacred. I do not wish to become suddenly the highest; I wish to advance gradually. As much as the impudence of the sinner displeases God, so much does the modesty of the penitent please him. You will appease him more quickly if you keep your measure and do not seek things higher than yourself. The leap from the foot to the mouth is a long and steep one, and the approach is not fitting. For what? Still sprinkled with fresh dust, will you touch the sacred lips? Yesterday dragged out of the mud, today you present yourself before the face of glory? Let the hand be your passage. Let it first cleanse you, let it raise you up. How does it raise you? By giving you grounds for confidence. What is that? The beauty of continence, and fruits worthy of repentance, which are works of piety. These will raise you from the dung heap to the hope of daring greater things. Indeed, in receiving the gift, kiss the hand: that is, give glory not to yourself but to his name. Give it once, and give it again, both for the sins forgiven and for the virtues bestowed. Otherwise see whence you will fortify your brow against these blows: "What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" (1 Cor 4:7).
5. Now at last, having in two kisses a twofold proof of divine condescension, perhaps you will not be confounded in presuming to approach holier things. For as much as you grow in grace, so much are you enlarged in confidence. From this it comes about that you both love more ardently and knock more boldly for that which you feel to be lacking to you. Moreover, to the one who knocks it shall be opened. Now that highest kiss, whatever it may be, of supreme condescension and wondrous sweetness, I believe will not be denied to one so disposed. This is the way, this is the order. First we fall at the feet, and we weep before the Lord who made us for the things that we have done. Second, we seek the hand of the one who lifts us up and strengthens failing knees. Last, when we have obtained these things with many prayers and tears, then at last we perhaps dare to raise our head to that very mouth of glory, trembling and quaking I say, not only to gaze upon it, but even to kiss it; because "a spirit before our face is Christ the Lord," to whom, clinging in the holy kiss, by his condescension we are made one spirit with him.
6. To you, Lord Jesus, to you rightly has my heart said: "My face has sought you; your face, O Lord, I will seek." For you made me hear your mercy in the morning, when, as I lay first in the dust and kissed your reverend footsteps, you forgave what I had lived badly. Moreover, in the progress of the day you gladdened the soul of your servant, when next in the kiss of the hand you also granted the grace of living well. And now what remains, O good Lord, except that now in the fullness of light, in the fervor of the spirit, graciously admitting me also to the kiss of the mouth, you would fill me with joy with your countenance? Show me, O sweetest one, O most serene one, show me where you pasture, where you rest at midday. Brothers, it is good for us to be here; but behold, the trouble of the day calls us away. For those who are now announced to have arrived compel us to break off rather than to finish our welcome discourse. I shall go out to the guests, lest anything be lacking to the duties of that charity of which we speak, lest perhaps it should happen that we too must hear: "For they say, and do not do" (Mt 23:3). In the meantime, pray that God may make the free offerings of my mouth pleasing, for your own edification, and for the praise and glory of his name.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.