Devotion to Jesus and the revelation made to San Bernardo
Saint Bernard, Abbot of Chiaravalle, asked in prayer to Our Lord which one
had been the greatest pain suffered in the body during his Passion. He was answered: “I had a wound on my shoulder, three fingers deep, and three bones discovered to carry the cross: this wound gave me greater pain and pain than all the others and is not known by men.
But you reveal it to the Christian faithful and know that any grace they will ask of me by virtue of this plague will be granted to them; and to all those who for love of it will honor me with three Pater, three Ave and three Gloria a day I will forgive venial sins and I will no longer remember mortals and will not die of sudden death and on their deathbed they will be visited by the Blessed Virgin and will achieve grace and mercy ”.
Most beloved Lord Jesus Christ, most gentle Lamb of God, I poor sinner, I adore and venerate Your Most Holy Plague that you received on your Shoulder in carrying the very heavy Cross of Calvary, in which they were discovered
three Sacralissima Bones, tolerating immense pain in it; I beg you, by virtue and merits of said Plague, to have mercy on me by forgiving me all my sins, both mortal and venial, to assist me at the hour of death and to lead me into your blessed kingdom.
The four degrees of love of San Bernardo
In the De diligendo Deo, San Bernardo continues the explanation of how the love of God can be achieved, through the path of humility. His Christian doctrine of love is original, therefore independent of any Platonic and Neoplatonic influence. According to Bernard, there are four substantial degrees of love, which he presents as an itinerary, which comes out of the self, seeks God, and finally returns to the self, but only for God. The degrees are:
1) Self-love for oneself:
"[...] our love must begin with the flesh. If then it is directed in a just order, [...] under the inspiration of Grace, it will eventually be perfected by the spirit. In fact, the spiritual does not come first, but what is animal precedes what is spiritual. [...] Therefore first man loves himself for himself [...]. Then seeing that alone he cannot exist, he begins to seek God through faith, as a necessary being and loves him. "
2) God's love for himself:
«In the second degree, therefore, he loves God, but for himself, not for Him. However, starting to associate with God and to honor him in relation to his own needs, he gradually comes to know him with reading, with reflection, with prayer , with obedience; so she approaches him almost insensibly through a certain familiarity and tastes pure how sweet she is. "
3) God's love for God:
«After having tasted this sweetness the soul passes to the third degree, loving God not for himself, but for Him. In this degree one stops for a long time, on the contrary, I don't know if in this life it is possible to reach the fourth degree.»
4) Self-love for God:
"That is, in which man loves himself only for God. [...] Then, he will admirably be almost forgetful of himself, he will almost abandon himself to tend everything to God, so as to be a spirit only with him. I believe he felt this the prophet, when he said: "-I will enter into the power of the Lord and I will remember only Your justice-". [...] »
In De diligendo Deo, therefore, Saint Bernard presents love as a force aimed at the highest and most total fusion in God with His Spirit, who, in addition to being the source of all love, is also its "mouth", as the sin is not in "hating", but in dispersing the love of God towards the self (the flesh), thus not offering it to God himself, Love of love.