We
complain about the materialism of today’s society, and the lack of meaningful
commitment in today’s people, but St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153), in De
Diligendo Deo, wrote of the same problems:
They waste
their energies in unrewarding efforts; yet they accomplish nothing, for,
setting their affections on created things, they try them all in turn before
they dream of trying God from whom all things proceed. Suppose they did get everything they wanted,
what would happen then? One treasure
after another would fail to satisfy, and then the only object of desire left
would be the Cause of all. It is our
nature’s law that makes a man set higher value on the things he has not got
than upon those he has, so that he loathes his actual possessions for longing
for the things that are not his. And
this same law, when all things else in earth and heaven have failed, drives him
at last to God, the Lord of all, whom hitherto alone he has not had.
It is,
however, a practical impossibility to make such trial of all other things
before we turn to God. Life is too short,
our strength too limited, the number of competitors for this world’s goods too
great; so long a journey, such unfruitful toil, would wear us out. We want to satisfy all our desires, and find
we cannot get possession of all desirable things. Much wiser would we be to make the choice not
by experiment but by intelligence; for this we could do easily and not without
result...Indeed God gives us reason for this very purpose, that it may guide
the senses in their choice and see to it that they be not satisfied except by
that which reason has approved....There will therefore be no ascent to God for
you, the gift of reason will have been bestowed on you in vain if, like the
beasts, you let yourself be guided by your senses, while reason looks on. They run indeed whose steps are not
controlled by reason, but not along the track...How can they win, seeing they
want the prize only when they have tried all else and failed? Theirs is an endless road, a hopeless maze,
who seek for goods before they seek for God.
Or is it
that he is writing about me....or even you?
Yours
& His,
DED
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