Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Saints

for her who bore Him, and (what is certain to all) who loved Him above all, who could tell? Happy indeed is Mary, and manifoldly happy, whether when she receives the Saviour or when she is received by the Saviour: in both is the dignity of the Virgin Mother to be wondered at; everywhere the condescension of the Majesty to be embraced. Jesus entered, it says, into a certain village, and a certain woman received Him into her house (Luke 10:38). But we must give ourselves rather to praises, since this day is owed festal proclamations. Yet because the words of this reading furnish us with abundant matter, tomorrow too, when we come together, what has been given from above must be shared without envy, so that in the memory of so great a Virgin not only may the affection of devotion be stirred, but our manners also may be built up to progress in our way of life, to the praise and glory of her Son our Lord, who is over all things God blessed for ever. Amen.

SERMON II. On the house to be cleansed, adorned, and filled.

1. Jesus entered into a certain village, and a certain woman named Martha received Him into her house (Luke 10:38). Fittingly enough, it seems to me, the prophet's exclamation may be taken up in this place: O Israel, how great is the house of the Lord, and how vast the place of His possession! (Bar. 3:24.) Is it not vast, in comparison with which the most spacious breadth of this earth is called a village? Is not that fatherland vast, and that region beyond all reckoning, when the Saviour, coming from it as He entered the world, is said to enter a village? Unless perhaps someone thinks that by "village" is to be understood nothing other than the court of the strong man armed, the prince of this world, whose vessels a stronger one came upon him to plunder (Luke 11:21–22). Let us hasten, brethren, to enter into that amplitude of blessedness where no one crowds another, so that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and breadth, the height and depth (Eph. 3:18). Nor let us despair of this, since He Himself, the dweller in the heavenly fatherland, and its creator too, did not shun the narrowness of this little village of ours.

2. But why do we speak of His entering into a village? He entered even into the narrowest lodging of a virgin's womb. And so a certain woman received Him into her house. Happy woman, who was found worthy to receive, not now the spies at Jericho, but rather the most mighty despoiler himself of that fool who truly changes like the moon; not the envoys of Jesus the son of Nave, but rather the true Jesus himself, the Son of God. Happy, I say, the woman whose house, when the Saviour was received, was found clean indeed, but plainly not empty. For who would call her empty whom the angel greets as full of grace? And not this only; he declares besides that the Holy Spirit will come upon her. To what end, do you think, unless to fill her even to overflowing? To what end, unless that, already full for herself by the Spirit's coming, by the same Spirit's coming upon her she might become overfull and overflowing for us too? O that those spices, that is, the gifts of graces, might flow upon us, so that of so great a fullness we might all receive! She indeed is our mediatrix; she it is

through whom we have received Thy mercy, O God; she it is through whom we too receive the Lord Jesus into our houses. For each of us too has a village of his own, and a house of his own; and Wisdom knocks at the door of each: if anyone opens to her, she will come in and sup with him. There is a common proverb, which is in the mouths of many, and still more in their hearts: He keeps a good village, they say, who guards his body. Yet the Wise Man says not so, but rather: With all watchfulness keep your heart, for out of it life proceeds (Prov. 4:23).

3. Be it so, however; let us yield to the multitude: let him guard a good stronghold who has guarded his body. But surely we must ask what sort of guard is to be set over this stronghold. Does that soul seem to you to have rightly guarded the stronghold of its body whose members, as though a conspiracy had been formed, have handed over the mastery to its enemy? For there are those who have made a covenant with death and struck a pact with hell (Isa. 28:15). The beloved grew fat, it says, and kicked; he grew fat, he grew stout, he was enlarged (Deut. 32:15). This plainly is the guarding that is praised by sinners in the desires of their flesh. What do you think, brethren? Must we yield to the multitude in this matter too? God forbid! Let us rather question Paul, as a vigorous captain of the spiritual warfare. Tell us, Apostle, what is the guarding of your stronghold? I, he says, so run, not as at an uncertainty; so I fight, not as one beating the air. For I chastise my body and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway (1 Cor. 9:26–27). And in another place: Let not sin, he says, reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its lusts (Rom. 6:12). A useful guarding indeed, and happy the soul that so guards its body that the enemy never claims it for himself. For there was a time when that wicked one had subjected this stronghold of mine to his tyranny, commanding all its members with full power. How much harm he did in that time, the desolation and want still present show. Alas! he left in it neither the wall of continence nor the outwork of patience. He laid waste the vineyards, reaped the crops, rooted up the trees: for even this eye of mine was plundering my soul. In short, had not the Lord helped me, my soul had well-nigh dwelt in hell. But I mean the lower hell, where there is no confession, whence no one is granted to go out.

4. Yet even then it lacked neither a prison nor a hell. For, caught at the very beginning of that most wicked conspiracy and treason, it was consigned to prison custody nowhere else than in its own house, and handed over to no other torturers than those of its own household. For its conscience was its prison; its torturers were reason and memory, and these indeed cruel, harsh and merciless, but far less so than those roaring ones made ready for the prey, to whom it was even now about to be handed over. But blessed be God, who has not given me as a prey to their teeth. Blessed, I say, be the Lord, who has visited and wrought redemption. For when

the evil one was hastening to hand her over to the lower prison [another reading adds: and to the torturers], and indeed to burn the castle itself with everlasting fires, so that a fitting retribution might be made even to perjured members, a stronger one came upon him. Jesus entered into the castle, Who, binding the strong man, plundered his goods, so that the things that were before for dishonour He might make for honour. He broke the gates of brass and shattered the bars of iron, leading the prisoner out of the prison house and the shadow of death. Now his going out is in confession. For this is the broom by which the prison is swept and adorned, and thereafter, with certain rushes of the regular observances, beautifully green, he returns from the prison into the house. The woman therefore now has her house, she has where she may receive Him to Whom she stands indebted for such great benefits. Otherwise woe to her, if she refuses to receive Him, if she does not detain Him, if she does not constrain Him to stay with her, since it is towards evening. For he who was cast out before, returning, finds the house swept indeed and adorned, but empty.

For her house is left to the woman desolate, which [another reading: because] she neglected to make worthy of the Saviour's lodging. How so, you ask? Can a house swept by the confession of former sins, and adorned by the observance of the regular institutes, still be judged unworthy to be a dwelling of grace, of the Saviour's entry? It can, without doubt, if, cleansed only on the surface and strewn, as was said, with green rushes, it is full of mud within. For who would think the Lord is to be received into the whitewashed tombs of the dead, which appear beautiful outwardly, but within are filled with all filth and corruption? Suppose indeed that at some time, as though delighted by that very surface, He begins as it were to set His foot there for the first time, granting to one who is of this kind some first grace of His visitation: will He not at once spring back in indignation? will He not flee, crying out: I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no substance? (Ps. 68:3) For the appearance of virtue, and not its truth, is as it were a quality, not a substance. Nor indeed can the thin surface of an outward way of life bear His entry; since He penetrates all things, and His dwelling is in the innermost hearts. But if the spirit of discipline in no way dwells in a body manifestly subject to sins, He not only turns aside from the feigned man, but even flees and withdraws far from him (Wis. 1:5). Or is it anything other than an accursed feigning, if you shave off sin at the surface and do not root it out within? Be sure that it will sprout more abundantly, and the evil guest [another reading: enemy] who had been cast out will enter the house, swept but empty, with seven more wicked than himself. For the dog that has returned to its vomit will be far more hateful than before; and he becomes manifoldly a son of Gehenna who, after the forgiveness of his sins, falls again into the same filth, like the washed sow in her wallowing in the mire.

Do you wish to see the house swept, adorned and empty? Look at the man who has confessed and abandoned the manifest sins that go before to judgement, and now moves only his hands to the works of the commandments,

with a heart utterly dry, led by a kind of habit, plainly like the heifer of Ephraim, taught to love threshing. Of the outward things, which avail for little, he passes over not one iota or one tittle; but he swallows a camel while he strains out a gnat. For in his heart he is a slave of his own will, a worshipper of avarice, greedy of glory, a lover of ambition; cherishing within either all these vices or each of them singly: and iniquity lies to itself, but God is not mocked. For you may see at times a man so cloaked that he deceives even himself, paying no heed at all to the worm that feeds on his inward parts. For the surface remains, and he thinks all is safe with him. Strangers, says the prophet, have devoured his strength, and he knew it not (Hos. 7:9). He says: Because I am rich and need nothing: whereas he is poor, wretched, and miserable (Rev. 3:17). For you may see the corruption that lay hidden in the sore boil up when occasion is found, and the tree that was cut down, not rooted out, sprout into a denser wood. If we wish to avoid this danger, we must lay the axe to the roots of the trees, not to the branches. Let not bodily exercise alone be found in us, which avails for little: but let godliness be found, which is profitable for all things, and spiritual exercise.

A woman, it says, named Martha, received Him into her house! and she had a sister named Mary. They are sisters, and they ought to share one dwelling. The one is busied about much serving, the other is intent on the Lord's words. To Martha belongs the adorning, but the filling to Mary. For she is free for the Lord, so that the house may not be empty. But to whom may we attribute the sweeping? For if we find this too, the house in which the Saviour is received will be both clean, and adorned, and not empty. Let us give it to Lazarus, if it seems so to you as well. For to him also, by right of brotherhood, this house is common with his sisters. I mean Lazarus, four days dead and already stinking, whom the voice of power raises from the dead, so that he may be seen quite fittingly to bear the figure of the penitent. Let the Saviour therefore enter the house, and visit it often, which the penitent Lazarus sweeps, Martha adorns, and Mary, given to inward contemplation, fills.

But perhaps someone may ask too curiously why in the present Gospel reading no mention at all is made of Lazarus. I think indeed that not even this is at odds with the likeness proposed. For the Spirit, wishing a virginal house to be understood, not unfittingly kept silence about penitence, which always accompanies evil. For far be it that this house should be said ever to have had any defilement of its own, so that the broom of Lazarus would therefore be sought in it. And if she contracted the original stain from her parents; yet Christian piety forbids us to believe her less sanctified in the womb than Jeremiah, or not more filled with the Holy Spirit than John: for she would not be honoured at her birth with festal praises, if she were not born holy. Lastly, since it is in every way established that Mary was cleansed from the original contagion by grace alone, inasmuch as even now in baptism