I Am With Him in Tribulation

From a Sermon by Saint Bernard, abbot (1090-1153)

I Am With Him in Tribulation

Listen to

Narrated by Frank Dugan, Huntington Beach, California

I am with him in tribulation, says God. Shall I then seek anything here below apart from tribulation? For me it is good to cling to God, and also to put my hope in the Lord God, because he has said: I will rescue him and glorify him.

I am with him in tribulation. My delight, he says, is to be with the sons of men – Emmanuel, God with us. He himself descended to be near those who are saddened in spirit, to be with us in our tribulation. One day we shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord – provided, however, that we are concerned here below to have him with us, as our companion on the journey, who will restore us to our true country or, better, as one who is now our way and our true country hereafter.

It is good for me to be sad, O Lord, as long as you are with me, rather than to be a king apart from you, to feast without you, to boast without you. It is better for me to embrace you in tribulation, to have you with me in the furnace, than to be without you in heaven. For what do I have in heaven apart from you? What have I desired on earth? Gold is tested in the furnace, and the just by the trial of tribulation. There, yes there, you are present with them, Lord. You are there in the midst of those gathered in your name, as you were once with the three young men in the fiery furnace.

Why are we afraid, why do we hesitate, why do we flee from this furnace? The fire rages, but the Lord is with us in tribulation. If God is with us who can be against us? And if he then rescues us, who will steal us from his hand? Lastly, if he honors us, who can dishonor us? If he honors us, who can humiliate us?

I will fill him with length of days. It is as if he said more clearly: I know what he desires, I know what he thirsts for, and what he likes. He likes neither silver nor gold, pleasure nor curiosity, nor any of the honors of the world. All this he considers as loss; all this he despises, counting it as dung. He has totally emptied himself, and he does not allow himself to be concerned with things he knows can never satisfy him. He knows in whose image he has been made, of what greatness he is capable; he does not strive to raise himself up only to be cut down from the highest state.

So I will fill him with length of days, for only the true light can refresh, only the eternal can fill him. Indeed this length of days has no end, this light knows no setting, and this fullness can never turn to disgust.

Source: The Liturgy of the Hours – Office of Readings

Saint Bernard (1090-1153) was born in 1090 near Dijon in France to devoutparents of the highest nobility of Burgundy. After a religious upbringing, he joined the Cistercians in 1111 and later was chosen abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux. There he directed his companions in the practice of virtue by his own good example. Because of various schisms which had arisen in the Church, Bernard traveled throughout Europe restoring peace and unity. He wrote numerous theological and spiritual works. He had a special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and it was said of him that no one spoke more sublimely of the Queen of Heaven. He developed close friendships with contemporaries and even popes. The passing of Pope Eugenius was one whom he considered his greatest friend and consoler. Bernard died n 1153 at the age of sixty-thee, after forty years spent in the cloister.

Bernard founded one hundred and sixty-three monasteries in different parts of Europe; at his death they numbered three hundred and forty-three. He was the first Cistercian monk placed on the calendar of saints and was canonized by Alexander III in 1174 and Pope Pius VIII declared him a Doctor of the Church.