On Loving God

Name: On Loving God
Author: St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) was a Burgundian monk who founded the Cistercian abbey of Clairvaux at twenty-four and became the most influential churchman of his century. Advisor to popes and kings, preacher of the Second Crusade, and a formidable controversialist, he still wrote with burning warmth about the love of God. Our library carries his treatise On Loving God and a selection of his letters, rich in devotion to Christ.

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First published: 1128
Category: Devotional
Length: 13k words · about 1 hour
Chapters: 16
Narration: 🎧 Volunteer Readers

About this book

Bernard of Clairvaux's treatise On Loving God asks why and how God is to be loved, and traces the soul's growth through four degrees of love — from loving self for one's own sake to loving self only for God's sake. Written in the 1120s at the request of a cardinal, it is Bernard's most compact and beloved work.

DEDICATION
Chapter I. Why we should love God and the measure of that love
Chapter II. On loving God. How much God deserves love from man in recognition of His gifts, both material and spiritual: and how these gifts should be cherished without neglect of the Giver 🔒
Chapter III. What greater incentives Christians have, more than the heathen, to love God 🔒
Chapter IV. Of those who find comfort in the recollection of God, or are fittest for His love 🔒
Chapter V. Of the Christian's debt of love, how great it is 🔒
Chapter VI. A brief summary 🔒
Chapter VII. Of love toward God not without reward: and how the hunger of man's heart cannot be satisfied with earthly things 🔒
Chapter VIII. Of the first degree of love: wherein man loves God for self's sake 🔒
Chapter IX. Of the second and third degrees of love 🔒
Chapter X. Of the fourth degree of love: wherein man does not even love self save for God's sake 🔒
Chapter XI. Of the attainment of this perfection of love only at the resurrection 🔒
Chapter XII. Of love: out of a letter to the Carthusians 🔒
Chapter XIII. Of the law of self-will and desire, of slaves and hirelings 🔒
Chapter XIV. Of the law of the love of sons 🔒
Chapter XV. Of the four degrees of love, and of the blessed state of the heavenly fatherland 🔒