Context: I would count him blessed and holy to whom such rapture has been vouchsafed in this mortal life, for even an instant to lose thyself,
as if thou wert emptied and lost and swallowed up in God, is no human love; it is celestial.
But if sometimes a poor mortal feels that heavenly joy for a rapturous moment, then this wretched life envies his happiness,
the malice of daily trifles disturbs him, this body of death weighs him down, the needs of the flesh are imperative,
the weakness of corruption fails him, and above all brotherly love calls him back to duty.
Alas! that voice summons him to re-enter his own round of existence; and he must ever cry out lamentably,
‘O Lord, I am oppressed: undertake for me’ (Isa. 38.14); and again, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ (Rom. 7.24)
Bernard of Clairvaux: Quotes about love
Bernard of Clairvaux was French abbot, theologian. Explore interesting quotes on love.“The true measure of loving God is to love Him without measure.”
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 395
“Who loves me, loves my dog.”
Qui me amat, amat et canem meam.
In Festo Sancti Michaelis, Sermo 1, sect. 3; translation from Richard Chevenix Trench, Archbishop of Dublin On the Lessons in Proverbs ([1853] 1856) p. 148
Bernard quotes this as being a proverb in common use.
Bernard to Pope Eugene III, letter 240:1, A.D. 1146, concerning the election of a certain unworthy bishop at the Church of Rodez (see letter 328). In The Life and works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, John Mabillon, Samuel J. Eales, Volume 2, p. 705