Page 27 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 19

V. Rev. Dr. Gregory Jensen is a priest of the Ukrainian Ortho-
dox Church USA and has a Ph.D. in spirituality and spiritual
forma�on from Duquesne University in Pi�sburgh, PA.
His more than 15 years of pastoral experience with all aspects of
clergy sexual misconduct includes inves�ga�ng allega�ons,
cra�ing disciplinary plans, advoca�ng for vic�ms, and helping
parishes in transi�on a�er an offending pastor is removed.
Currently, he is the priest of Ss Cyril & Methodius Ukrainian
Orthodox Church and a professor at St Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox
Theological Seminary in South Bound Brook, NJ. He is also the
chaplain for Orthodox students at Wisconsin-Madison.
frgregoryj@gmail.com

Former contribu�on here:
h�ps://emcapp.ignis.de/5/#p=77
h�ps://emcapp.ignis.de/9/#p=30
h�ps://emcapp.ignis.de/10#p=62

To Love Because We Have First Been Loved by God

Bernard of Clairvaux’s Psychology of Love

For 12th century monk, preacher, and spiritual ture and our sinful condi�on, this last stage of
author, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), love love is “something [we] may [only] hope to
of God, neighbor, and self are interconnected. possess… or rather to be possessed by” in hea-
In On Loving God, he argues that love is “not a ven. Rather than seeing this as nega�ve, it is
contract” but “an affec�on of the soul” that for Bernard a source of compassion for self and
arises not “from mere agreement” but sponta- others and a reminder of the joy that awaits us
neously. Love’s true reward is the beloved, not in the Kingdom of God. Love’s eschatological
any external benefits. fulfillment is a theme he returns to in his ser-
A keen psychologist of the spiritual life, Ber- mons of the Song of Songs. Here he discusses
nard iden�fies four stages in love: love as affect or “of feeling,” which no one can
1) I love myself for the sake of myself, order or fulfill “in the measure required.” Love
2) I love God out of a recogni�on of my need is also a behavior or doing—this makes love “a
for Him, command to be carried out” in faithful obe-
3) I love God in gra�tude for His many gi�s to dience to God. While “our natural desires” in-
me, and spire us to love apart from the right reason,
4) I come to love myself because God has first they also “degrade” love. And while love “go-
loved me. verned by reason” is “enduring,” it is “arid.”
Both forms of love are necessary but insuffi-
To transcend the constraints of a “nature… frail cient because, ul�mately, love finds its fulfill-
and weak,” the soul “has to love itself first.” It ment only in the beloved (both divine and hu-
is only then, by stages, that one can ascend to man). Therefore, love is ul�mately a gi� to be
the love of God and eventually “oneself only received by the “full maturity” of which “is re-
for God’s sake.” Given the limits of human na- served to future bliss” in the Kingdom of God.

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