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becomes “easy enough to obey the precept [to]
love our neighbour as ourself” (p. 33). Love & Human Iden�ty
The first lesson is that the convergence of love
Loving the Self for God’s Sake and human iden�ty is cri�cal for all human
Here Bernard’s work takes a surprising turn. beings. “When we look inside ourselves,” we
In his view, there comes a point when we come must do so being careful to retain “the inward
to love ourselves not narcissis�cally but becau- recollec�on of who we are.” If we don’t “we
se of our obedience to God. While surprising run the risk of ac�ng contrary to our nature or
this makes sense. A�er all, what is obedience le�ng the evil one slip into that central place of
except to join our will to the will of God? If God heart and there exert an influence” (McCabe,
loves me and I make His will my own then how p. 23).
can I fail to love myself as well? But, again, Ber-
nard offers us a sober warning. If this is true for me personally, how much more
is it necessary when I help others to make the
Given the struggles of living in a fallen world, same inward turn? If forge�ulness of my own
"We may not hope to possess the fourth degree deepest iden�ty is a great, self-inflicted wound
of love, or rather to be possessed by it, un�l we on my own soul, how is not an even greater fai-
have put on a body spiritual and immortal, pure lure when I am similarly forge�ul when I seek
and calm, obedient and subject in all to the spi- to guide those who come to me for help?
rit” (p. 36). Love’s highest degree, in other
words, is an eschatological reality. And while it Bernard reminds us that I owe those I serve and
doesn’t happen without our par�cipa�on, it is what they have a right to expect from me, is not
not “our doing, but only the work of the power snappy life hacks but guidance in an “inward
of God in favour of such as please Him.” While contempla�ve gaze in the light of the truth.”
we may have glimpses of this “perfect love” we The “careful guarding of the heart and unflin-
will only experience it fully in the life to come ching honesty about what we see there” is
because it is only then “when neither the bur- what we must offer since it is this alone that
den nor the tempta�ons of this body oppress” “clears a space … where it becomes increasin-
us (p. 36). gly easy to see, to hear, and to breath the things
of God” (McCabe, p. 23).
This doesn’t contradict Bernard’s view of the
fundamental goodness of crea�on and so of Unity of Crea�on & Redemp�on.
the body. Nor does it mean he denies the in�- The second lesson is the in�mate and enduring
mate connec�on of crea�on and redemp�on. rela�onship between crea�on and redemp�on.
“The body,” he writes, “is for the soul a faithful While he contrasts the ease of crea�on with
companion; if it be a burden [because of sin], it the hardship of redemp�on, even a�er the Fall
is also a help.” This is why our lives are “labo- crea�on retains for Bernard its goodness and
rious,” because that which is given to us for our its fundamentally posi�ve role in our redemp�-
help is o�en a hindrance. This changes at death on.
when the body “ceases to aid” but also “ceases
to hinder.” It changes again defini�vely at the This unity is first of all ontological. Even in a Fal-
resurrec�on when the body is once again a help len world, all that exists does so because God
and “no more a burden” but “glorious.” It is this calls it into being. This means that, even in a fal-
last, glorious state, that we glimpse in this life len world, crea�on shares in God’s life. The fal-
when we come to love ourselves with the love lenness of the world might obscure crea�on’s
God has for us (p. 38). goodness and its par�cipa�on in the divine life,
but for Bernard, it never obliterates it. No
Bernard & Chris�an Psychology ma�er how wicked we are, we never cease to
So what does Bernard’s work mean for those share or par�cipate in the being of God.
interested in psychology, psychotherapy, bibli- The ontological unity of crea�on, its fundamen-
cal counseling, or spiritual direc�on? tal unity and balance, are only grasped by a gra-
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