Sermon 84 on the Song of Songs — Bernard of Clairvaux
That the Soul Seeking God Has Been Anticipated by Him: and What That Seeking Is, in Which It Has Already Been Anticipated by Him.
1. "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves" (Song 3:1). It is a great good to seek God. I consider this second to none among the goods of the soul. It is first among gifts, last among advances. It is added to by no virtue, and it yields to none. To which would it be added, when none precedes it? To which would it yield, which is rather the consummation of all? For what virtue can be ascribed to one not seeking God, or what limit to one seeking God? "Seek his face always," it says (Ps 104:4). I think that not even when he has been found will there be a ceasing from seeking. God is sought not by steps of the feet, but by desires. And assuredly a blessed finding does not extinguish holy desire, but extends it. Surely the consummation of joy is not the consumption of desire? It is rather oil to it: for desire itself is the flame. So it is. Joy will be fulfilled; but of desire there will be no end, and therefore neither of seeking. But consider, if you can, this zeal of seeking without want, and desire without anxiety. Assuredly presence excludes the one, and abundance the other.
2. Now see why I have said these things first. It is so that every soul among you that seeks God, lest it twist a great good into a great evil for itself, may know that it has been anticipated in this, and was sought before it was seeking. For thus from great goods not the least evils are accustomed to arise, when, made distinguished by the good things of the Lord, we use his gifts as if they were not given, and do not give glory to God. So indeed those who seemed greatest on account of the grace received are reckoned least before God on account of the glory not rendered back. But I spare you. I have used more modest words, "greatest" and "least"; but what I feel I have not expressed. I wrapped the distinction; I myself will lay it bare: I ought to have said "best" and "worst." For truly and without doubt, each one is worst to the degree that he is best, if he ascribes to himself that very thing by which he is best. This indeed is the worst thing. But if someone should say: "Far be it! I acknowledge, by the grace of God I am what I am" (1 Cor 15:10); yet strives to capture petty glory for the grace he has received; is he not a thief and a robber? Let him who is of this sort hear: "Out of your own mouth I judge you, wicked servant" (Lk 19:22). What is more wicked than a servant usurping for himself the glory of his lord?
3. "In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves." The soul seeks the Word, but one that was first sought by the Word. Otherwise, once having gone forth or been cast out from the face of the Word, its eye will not return to see good things, unless it is sought again by the Word. As if indeed our soul were anything other than a spirit going and not returning, if it were left to itself. Hear the fugitive and the wanderer, what she laments and what she asks: "I have gone astray," she says, "like a sheep that has perished: seek your servant" (Ps 118:176). O man, you wish to return? But if the matter rests in the will, why do you cry for help? Why do you beg from elsewhere for what you have in abundance yourself? It is plain that she wills, and cannot: she is a spirit going and not returning, even if that one is further gone who does not even will. Although I would not say that the soul which desires to return and asks to be sought is altogether abandoned or forsaken. For whence does this will come to her? From this, unless I am mistaken: that she has already been visited and sought by the Word. Nor was this seeking idle, which produced the will without which there could be no return. But it does not suffice to be sought once: so great is the languor of the soul, and so great the difficulty in returning. For what if she wills? The will lies prostrate where the ability does not support it. For: "To will is present with me," he says, "but how to perform what is good I do not find" (Rom 7:18). What then does the one whom we brought in from the psalm seek? Nothing other, plainly, than to be sought: which he would not seek unless he had been sought; and again he would not seek if he had been sought sufficiently. And this too he asks: "Seek," he says, "your servant"; that he who gave the willing may also give the performing according to good will.
4. Yet to me it does not seem that the present passage can apply to a soul of this kind, which has not yet received the second grace, willing indeed, but not able to approach him whom her soul loves. For how can what follows there apply to her, to rise and go about the city, and through the streets and squares to seek the beloved (Song 3:2), she who herself needs to be sought? Let her do this who can: only let her remember that she was sought first, just as she was also loved first; and that from this comes both what she seeks and what she loves. Let us also pray, dearest brothers, that these mercies may quickly anticipate us, because we have been made exceedingly poor: which I do not say of all of you. For I know that very many of you walk in the love with which Christ loved us, and in simplicity of heart seek him. But there are some, which I say with sadness, who have given us no sign yet in themselves of this so salutary anticipation, and therefore neither of their own salvation: men loving themselves, not the Lord; and seeking the things that are their own, not the things that are the Lord's.
5. "I sought," she says, "him whom my soul loves." Indeed the kindness of him who anticipates provokes you to this, who both sought you first and loved you first. You would by no means seek unless first sought, just as you would not love unless first loved. Not in one blessing only, but in two have you been anticipated: in love and in seeking. The love is the cause of the seeking; the seeking is the fruit of the love and its assurance. You have been loved, lest you should suspect that you were sought rather for punishment; you have been sought, lest you should complain that you were loved in vain. Each of these two sweet discoveries, so gracious, both gave boldness and drove away shame and persuaded the return and moved the affection. Hence the zeal, hence this ardor of seeking him whom your soul loves; because indeed you could not seek unless first sought, nor can you now, being sought, fail to seek.
6. But do not forget whence you have come here. And so that I may rather transfigure to myself the things that are said (for this is safer): are you not, O my soul, the one who, having left your former husband, with whom it had been well for you, made your first faith void, going after your lovers? And now, having fornicated with them as long as it pleased, and perhaps also being despised by them, do you dare, shameless and brazen-faced, to wish to return to him whom you proudly spurned? What? Worthy of hiding-places, you seek the light, and you run to the bridegroom, more worthy of blows than of kisses? It would be a wonder if instead of a bridegroom you do not meet a judge. Happy is the one who shall hear his soul responding to these things: I do not fear, because I love; which, if I were not loved at all, I would by no means do. Therefore I am also loved. Let the beloved fear nothing. Let those who do not love tremble. Why should they not constantly suspect hostility? But I, loving, cannot doubt that I am loved, no more than I can doubt that I love. Nor can I fear the face of one whose affection I have felt. In what? In this, that he not only sought such a one as me, but also moved my affections, and thereby made me certain of his seeking. Why should I not respond in the seeking, when I respond in the affection? Will he who is sought be angry, he who even when spurned kept silence? Rather, he will not repel the one seeking him, who even seeks the one spurning him. The spirit of the Word is gracious, and brings me gracious tidings, intimating and persuading concerning the zeal and desire of the Word, which assuredly cannot be hidden from that spirit. It searches the deep things of God, being aware of the thoughts that he thinks, thoughts of peace and not of affliction. Why should I not be encouraged to seek, having experienced clemency and being persuaded of peace?
7. Brothers, to be persuaded of this is to be sought by the Word; to be fully persuaded is to be found. But not all receive this word. What shall we do for our little ones? I mean those who are still beginners among us, yet not foolish, since they hold the beginning of wisdom, being subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Whence, I say, do we give them assurance that these things are so with the bride, when they themselves have not yet perceived such things taking place within them? But I send them to one whom they ought not to disbelieve. Let them read in the book what they do not discern in another's heart, and therefore do not believe. It is written in the prophets: "If a man puts away his wife, and she, departing, takes another man, shall he return to her again? Shall not that woman be polluted and contaminated? But you have fornicated with many lovers: yet return to me, says the Lord, and I will receive you" (Jer 3:1). These are the words of the Lord: it is not lawful to withhold belief. Let them believe what they do not experience, so that by the merit of faith they may sometime attain the fruit of experience. I think it has been sufficiently declared what it means to be sought by the Word, and what this necessity is, not for the Word, but for the soul; except that she who has experienced it knows these things both more fully and more happily. It remains that in the following discourse we should teach thirsty souls to seek him by whom they have been sought, or rather that we should learn this from her who is here presented seeking him whom her soul loves, the Bridegroom of the soul, Jesus Christ our Lord, who is God blessed above all things forever. Amen.
Translated from the Latin by AI. Source: Migne, Patrologia Latina 183.