Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Saints

time nor strength seems to be ours. Justice is now honoured rather in outward show: either none or few suffer persecution for it. Happy, however, are they, if any there are, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, so that [alias, where] no one may persecute them. But if the tribulation be manifold, then too one must exult the more manifoldly, looking not at the hardships which are seen, but at the rewards which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen, eternal. Blessed shall you be, He says, when men hate you, and when they separate you, and cast you out, and speak every evil against you falsely, for My sake. Rejoice in that day, and exult: for behold, your reward is plentiful in heaven, far more plentiful than the labour is on earth. Yet what does it mean that the same promise was made to the poor and to the martyrs, unless that voluntary poverty is truly a kind of martyrdom? Blessed is the man, says the Prophet, who has not gone after gold nor hoped in treasures of money. Who is he, and we will praise him? For he has done wonderful things in his life (Sir. 31:8, 9). What is more wonderful, or what martyrdom is heavier, than to hunger amid feasts, to be cold amid many costly garments, to be pressed by poverty amid riches, which the world offers, which the evil one displays, which our own appetite desires? Shall he not deservedly be crowned who has so striven, casting off the world that makes promises, mocking the enemy that tempts, and, what is more glorious, triumphing over himself and crucifying itching concupiscence? Finally, the kingdom of heaven is promised to the poor and to the martyrs alike for this reason: that by poverty indeed it is bought, but in suffering for Christ it is received without any delay.

SERMON II. On the state of the saints before the resurrection.

1. Since today, most beloved, we celebrate the festive memory of all the Saints, most worthy of all devotion, I think it worth while, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to make a sermon to your charity on their common happiness, in which they already enjoy a blessed rest, and on the future consummation which they await; in such a way, indeed, that I follow not the conjectures of my own opinion but the authority of the divine books, lest I seem to prophesy from my own heart; but I will rest, as far as I can, on the testimonies of the Scriptures. For, by the Lord's gift, the usefulness of this sermon will be threefold: that, having learned, even in some part, of the happy reward of the saints, we may be eager henceforth to cleave to their footsteps with more abundant solicitude, and to sigh with more fervent desire for their fellowship, and also to commend ourselves to their patronage with readier devotion. For it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptance, that those whom we attend with solemn veneration we should also follow by a like manner of life; that to the blessedness of those whom we proclaim most blessed we should run with all eagerness; that by the patronage of those whose praises delight us we should be lifted up. Nor indeed is the festive memory of the saints found to bear little fruit, [since] languor, tepidity,

and error, driving them away: since by their intercession our weakness is helped, by the consideration of their blessedness our negligence is roused, and our ignorance too is instructed by their examples. Therefore, since I do not doubt that you have been perfectly instructed to imitate the footsteps of the saints by today's reading of the holy Gospel and by the sermon of the Lord Himself, a ladder being set up, indeed, before your eyes, by which the whole choir of the saints whom we venerate today ascends; and since I am not unaware that almost the whole time of this night and day has been spent in religious devotion imploring their suffrages: I will now attempt to say something, however slight, of their happiness, as He Himself shall grant, Who now both magnifies and glorifies those whom He first called and justified.

2. We read in the Prophet: Turn, my soul, into your rest, for the Lord has done good to you; for He has rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling (Ps. 114:7, 8); and in another psalm: Our soul has been rescued like a sparrow from the snare of the fowlers (Ps. 123:7). Many similar things too I seem to have found in the course of the divine Scriptures: words of men who rejoice, not without much wonder, that they have been set free, words of perfect security and immense happiness, a voice of thanksgiving and gladness, which, to my mind, does not at all befit those who still dwell in houses of clay and eat their bread in the sweat of their face. For which of them will boast that he has a chaste heart? who would dare to boast that the snare is broken, that his feet are delivered from falling, when the Apostle cries out against it, saying: Let him who stands see that he does not fall? (I Cor. 10:12.) Whence he says also of himself: Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:24.) And in another place: Brethren, he says, I do not reckon that I have laid hold of it. But one thing: forgetting the things that are behind, and stretched out towards those that are before me, I press on towards the prize (Phil. 3:13, 14), etc. And likewise: I, he says, so run, not as at an uncertainty; so fight, not as one beating the air; but I chastise my body and bring it into servitude, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself become reprobate (I Cor. 9:26, 27). This plainly is the trumpet of warfare, these the words of a vigorous leader fighting bravely. For the former words seem rather those of one triumphing, or at least not yet triumphing, but returning now from battle with the victory, and awaiting with a glad and secure conscience the coming day of the great triumph.

3. For what does the brave soldier, the faithful servant, say when he has returned from battle? Turn now, he says, my soul, into your rest. For while you were serving the Lord as a soldier in the body of death, there was no rest, both because of the labour of the contest and because of the danger of an outcome still uncertain. On one side the tumult of temptations stirred you, on the other the fear of giving way troubled you more heavily. Yet, brethren, the soldier of Christ had glory even then, though he did not have rest. For that vigorous and most brave soldier, of whom we made mention a little before, says: This is our glory, the testimony

of our conscience (II Cor. 1:12). This testimony of conscience I do not think is to be understood as though the conscience bore witness to itself. For not he who commends himself is approved, but he whom God commends (II Cor. 10:18). The testimony of conscience in which the Apostle glories, then, is not one that the conscience gives, but one that the Spirit of truth speaks within it, bearing witness to our spirit that we are sons of God (Rom. 8:16). For it is the testimony of a conscience not giving it but receiving it. For when truth applauds, when justice attests, it is without doubt the voice of God commending and of the Holy Spirit bearing witness; as if, to a soldier fighting manfully, his king, for whose love and honour he fights, standing near, should gladly applaud, praise his brave deeds, cry out that victory is near, and promise rewards already prepared and an eternal crown. In this testimony the approved and vigorous soldier glories indeed; yet he by no means rests, but fights all the more keenly and manfully. And so, while they still serve as soldiers, the elect of God do rejoice, but only from the firstfruits of the Spirit, Who both helps their weakness by His power and consoles their faint-heartedness by His attestation. Whence also the Apostle of whom we were speaking says: The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17).

4. But now, the time of warfare being finished, the saints have joy in their spirit as well, until that day comes on which they merit to enter into the joy of their Lord, to have joy in their very body too. For so we have it in the Psalm: The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, is sealed upon us; Thou hast given gladness in my heart? From what? Plainly from what follows: From the fruit of their corn, their wine and their oil (Ps. 4:7, 8). For such a soul has heard the voice of one saying: Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates (Prov. 31:31). Whence John too is bidden to write in the Apocalypse that blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Why blessed? For from henceforth now, says the Spirit, they may rest from their labours (Rev. 14:13). Whence also in that very psalm of which we were speaking a little before, there is joined to the words we set out above: In peace in the selfsame I will sleep and rest (Ps. 4:9). And of the works we have in the Apocalypse: For their works follow them (Rev. 14:13). But to what end do they follow, unless that they may praise them in the gates? To what end do they follow, unless that they may be multiplied from their fruit, and that, receiving of the fruit of their hands, the calves may be fattened which, by the prophetic testimony, we know are to be laid upon the altar of the Lord when the walls of Jerusalem shall be rebuilt? (Ps. 50:20, 21.) For that meanwhile they are beneath the altar and not upon it, let him teach us whose testimony has been made exceedingly credible, who, as he writes in the Apocalypse, heard their very voices beneath the altar itself (Rev. 6:9, 10). Still, then, sealed

is the light of the Lord's countenance upon them: and though it is not full, they nevertheless have much gladness in their heart, until that day comes on which He will fill them with gladness

with His countenance. Meanwhile, I say, those souls turn into their rest, until the day comes on which they may merit to enter into the rest of the Lord. Still

do their works praise them in the gates, until that comes when every man shall have praise from God. You see, brethren, how great is the unity of the Scriptures, how with one sense and almost the same words they speak of the blessedness of souls.

5. Now let none of you suppose it some small rest or gladness that belongs to those who, wholly free from every trouble, recall their years in the sweetness of their soul; who rejoice for the days in which they were humbled, for the years in which they saw evils; when with pleasant wonder and wonderful pleasure they consider the dangers they have escaped, the labours they have endured, the contests they have won; and in return for all these await, with sure and undoubting faith, the blessed hope and the coming of the glory of the great God and their Saviour, Who will raise up and refashion their bodies, conformed to the brightness of His own body.

6. How great is their happiness, how immense their gladness! for indeed they exult with a threefold joy: in the remembrance of virtue accomplished, in the bestowal of present quiet, in the sure expectation of the consummation to come. For of that consummation to come we have their voice at the end of that psalm of which we were speaking above. For each of the souls to whom it has already been given to come to this rest says: In peace in the selfsame I will sleep and rest; for Thou, O Lord, hast singularly settled me in hope. Singularly, I say, in hope, no longer between hope and fear, in which before, not without solicitude and anxiety, I wavered a great deal. So too of the present rest of the saints we have it written in another psalm: Turn, my soul, into your rest, for the Lord has done well by you. Well, I say, He has done, though not yet best. Hear, then, how well: For He has rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from falling (Ps. 114:7, 8): that is, He has wholly freed it from all sin and from the punishment of sin, and from the fear and the danger of falling back as well. This is the soul's sweetest bed, which it no longer washes or wets with any tears, since God shall wipe away every tear from its eyes. This is the couch on which it is no longer pricked, nor turned about in its distress while the thorn is fixed in it. For it has gone out from that land which sprouted thorns and thistles for it. This plainly is the bed of the soul, which is no longer turned over in its infirmity; for all things that belonged to infirmity have passed away together. This, I say, is the soul's sweetest and most wholesome rest: a conscience clean, quiet, secure. Let the purity of its conscience, then, be the mattress of the blessed soul, let tranquillity be its pillow, let security be its coverlet: that on this bed it may meanwhile sleep delightfully and rest happily.

7. Now of the remembrance of virtue accomplished you have their words plainly in the hundred and twenty-third psalm, which I also recalled above. For they consider, and recall with much wonder, from what snares and from how great dangers they have merited to be freed by divine help, and exulting in the Lord they say: Had not the Lord been with us, let Israel now say, had not the Lord been with us,