St. Bernard on The Four Loves

ON THE LOVE OF GOD
Why God Should Be Loved - You ask me,  Why should God be loved??
I answer: the reason for loving God is God himself. And why should God be loved for his own sake? Simply because no one could be more justly loved than God, no one deserves our love more. Some may question if God deserves our love or if they might have something to gain by loving him. The answer to both questions is yes, but I find no other worthy reason for loving him except himself.God is entitled to our love. Why? Because he gave himself for us despite the fact that we are so undeserving. What better could he have given? If we ask why God is entitled to our love, we should answer, Because he first loved us. God is clearly deserving of our love especially if we consider who he is that loves us, who we are that he loves, and how much he loves us.
And who is God? Is he not the one to whom every spirit bears witness: "Thou art my God." God has no need of our worldly possessions. True love is precisely this: that it does not seek its own interests. And how much does he love us? He so loved the world that he gave his only Son; he laid down his life for us.
The First Degree of Love: Love of Self for Self's Sake
Love is a natural human affection. It comes from God. Hence the first and greatest commandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God." But human nature is weak and therefore compelled to love itself and serve itself first. In the human realm people love themselves for their own sake. This is planted within us for who ever hated his own self?
The Second Degree of Love: Love of God for Self's Sake 
God, therefore, who makes everything that is good, makes himself to be loved. He does it as follows: first, God blesses us with his protection. When we live free from trouble we are happy, but in our pride we may conclude that we are responsible for our security. Then, when we suffer some calamity, some storm in our lives, we turn to God and ask his help, calling upon him in times of trouble. This is how we who only love ourselves first begin to love God. We will begin to love God even if it is for our own sake. We love God because we have learned that we can do all things through him, and without him we can do nothing.
The Third Degree of Love: Love of God for God's Sake
In the first degree of love we love ourselves for our own sake. In the second degree of love we love God for our own sake, chiefly because he has provided for us and rescued us. But if trials and tribulations continue to come upon us, every time God brings us through, even if our hearts were made of stone, we will begin to be softened because of the grace of the Rescuer. Thus, we begin to love God not merely for our own sakes, but for himself.
The Fourth Degree of Love: Love of Self for God's Sake
Blessed are we who experience the fourth degree of love wherein we love ourselves for God's sake. Such experiences are rare and come only for a moment. In a manner of speaking, we lose ourselves as though we did not exist, utterly unconscious of ourselves and emptied of ourselves.If for even a moment we experience this kind of love, we will then know the pain of having to return to this world and its obligations as we are recalled from the state of contemplation. In turning back to ourselves we will feel as if we are suffering as we return into the mortal state in which we were called to live.
Can We Attain the Fourth Degree of Love?I am not certain that the fourth degree of love in which we love ourselves only for the sake of God may be perfectly attained in this life. But, when it does happen, we will experience the joy of the Lord and be forgetful of ourselves in a wonderful way. We are, for those moments, one mind and one spirit with God.I am of the opinion that this is what the prophet meant when he said: "I will enter into the power of the Lord: O Lord I will be mindful of Thy justice alone." He felt, certainly, that when he entered into the spiritual powers of the Lord he would have laid aside self and his whole being would, in the spirit, be mindful of the justice of the Lord alone.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux
For more on St. Bernard's life and writings see: http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_author/69/St._Bernard_of_Clairvaux.html

From the East rose the Sun

This week I do not have a lecture to give, so I take this opportunity to recharge myself and contribute a little word to the mission of Christianity. Here is how I see Christianity in the enormous battles of the day including past, present and future. This is just an opinion and I may very well be wrong and stand to be corrected. The shining star rose from the East. The Sun, that is Jesus Christ, rose from the East, the son of Abraham. The East is what we call today the Middle East. And from the same East rose also Islam, thought by Eastern Christians at the time, that it is simply a deviation or a sect of Christianity. This is partly why it was accepted in the Middle East by the Christians of its day. What happened to the Eastern Churches was providential. They fell to Islam one after the other so that in one century all the Middle East was swallowed by Islam. The Byzantine Church was the last to fall in 1453. Why did it fall? It is also providential, so that no one can speak out the word of Christ other than the West, centered in Rome. Over the past 5 centuries since the fall of Constantinople, the flourishing Christian West (starting with the Renaissance and humanism, going into the Reformation and Anti-Reformation, and in the 19th century with the Enlightenment, Modernism , and now Post-modernism), has developed a civilization that conquered everywhere: The Americas and Australia, and even the Middle East again. The Catholic Church expanded everywhere except east of the Middle East. There are now over a billion Catholics worldwide. But is this enough? No. It is not enough, for the Sun must also shine in the Far East. The 20th century brought with it what we know as the Ecumenical Movement for Christian unity. The Catholic Church entered that movement with the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and with this movement she moved into an open dialogue with every philosophy, religion, and atheist thought including Buddhism and Hinduism, among others. The dialogue had hardly started when nations from East and West started another dialogue: communication in the information age climaxed with the internet, and economically, what came to be called globalization. The world now is a global village. Socially speaking, there is no more East and West. Meanwhile, the advances in modern Biblical scholarship coupled with the challenges of contemporary science swamped the Christian West. The Holy See of Rome had to face the challenges by establishing and enlarging scholarly and academic organizations in the two pressing dialogues with modern Biblical scholarship and contemporary sciences. The dialogue now is on multiple fronts: Orthodox Churches and Protestant communions for Christian unity (note that the Catholic Church recognizes the fundamental validity of the Eastern Churches); other world religions especially the monotheist Judaism and Islam but also Buddhism and Hinduism (note here the increasing understanding between the Catholic Church and Judaism as well as more dialogue with Muslim Ulamaa or scholars); atheist ideologies all over the world; modern Biblical scholarship (note here the recognition of new methods for interpreting Scriptures while staying faithful to the deposit of faith); and contemporary natural and social sciences (note here the 6 academic conferences sponsored byRome in the past 20 years and this year too). In other words, the Church is in dialogue with everyone in the world. To refocus our direction here, we can grasp a bit more detail from the past decade or two: John Paul the Great (d. 2005) made it his mission to re-evangelize the nations, and put in motion a renewal of the entire Western civilization. Pope Benedict XVI, continuing his predecessor’s policy, realized that the mission of the Church is global and so, while continuing the dialogue with mainstream Islam, he confronted the tide of Islamic Fundamentalism head-on. John Paul II went to the Middle East and with him the Catholic Church. Benedict went further, spiritually, to the East to seek the Sun that rose from there. In his recent writings he re-emphasized the old tradition of facing the East in the liturgy. This emphasis reminds me of the great tradition of the Eastern Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic. Above all, it reminds me of the vital role that the Melkite Catholic Church, to whom I belong, must play in the mission of Catholic-Orthodox full unity. The Church must go to the East. As the Sun, the Son, rose from the East, so from there must he come again. The Church went from the East to the West and must come back to the East, and from there go to the Far East before the Second Coming of the Christ. This is a great mystery, (to echo the Apostle to the nations, Paul, to whom this year is dedicated). Peter the Great, according to the prophecy of St. Malachy, is probably already here. But God only knows. Let us pray the Lord’s prayer “Our Father… Thy kingdom come. Thy Will be done. On earth as it is in heaven.” And let us finish this word with the prophetic word "Maran Atha" Come Lord! (Revelation).

A Living Miracle

Yesterday July 18, 2008 was the first anniversary of my stroke. The lecture was about my personal experience with illness since 1986, the year when I had a mild heart attack, the replacement of the aortic valve with a mechanical valve and a double bypass surgery in 1987, followed by my enlarged prostate in 2001, aortic aneurysm found in 2002, kidney cancer (renal cell carcinoma) treated with a partial nephrectomy surgery in 2005, and stroke in 2007 following my prostate surgery in Montreal. May 12, 1986, I recall waking up in the middle of night, having heard a coarse voice mocking me in my dream along with my father’s tender voice to go to the hospital. I was having severe angina. At Toronto General Hospital Dr. Michael Sole, FRCSC, at the time research director. professor of medicine at U of T, and chief cardiologist at TGH, diagnosed my case: a mild myocardial infarction (heart attack) due to an enlarged aorta and a thickening of the blood arteries. The aortic problem damaged my aortic valve and enlarged my heart. He warned us that without the replacement of the aortic valve, I would die within 2 years. On January 13, 1987 I underwent a successful heart surgery: aortic valve replacement with a mechanical valve and double bypass surgery carried out by Dr. Hugh Sculley, at the time an icon in valve replacements. The mechanical valve required me to take daily an anticoagulant called coumadin, to prevent formation of blood clots on the valve. From 1987 to 2001 I was followed up regularly by my family general practitioners Dr. Alyanak to 1993, and from 1993 Dr. Shields - both at Mount Sinai Hospital. (by the way, last year Dr. Shields was recognized for 50 years excellent services by the Hospital). From 1987 to 1992 I was seen by Dr. Sole once a year who informed me that another mild heart attack may have occurred in February 1987. But overall the valve was working fine, and from March 1987 there has been no change in my heart. I have been doing an echocardiogram every year to check the valve and the aorta. In late 1990s due to an enlarged prostate I started doing the PSA blood test which could indicate whether there is any malignant tumor. In January 2002, Dr. Shields surprised me that my PSA is fine but an X-ray shows my aorta enlarged. He immediately consulted Dr. Sole whom I saw in March of the same year. Dr. Sole’s echocardiogram report said that there is an aortic enlarged aneurysm of 6-7 cm and being alarmed he sent me in the same day to Dr. Sculley to have a an aorta repair surgery in less than a week (I knew later that Dr. Sole was top student at Harvard medical school). In meeting with Dr. Sculley, I asked him to postpone the surgery for a couple of months to allow me to participate in the graduation ceremony of my son Christian from St. Michael’s Choir school at the end of June 2002. Dr. Sculley agreed. I personally did not want to go through another heart surgery so I started calling Dr. Sculley in August, but he was already having a problem with his hands that eventually prevented him from performing any surgery. My file was then transferred to Dr. David, known as the greatest heart surgeon in Toronto and one of the top in North America. In my first meeting with Dr. David, he explained that this is not my first heart surgery, and that it is complicated by the fact that the aortic aneurysm is in the ascending aorta. He gave me a survival chance of 60-70%. I said “Thank you but no. I would rather not do it.” In mid 2004, Dr. Shields following on my enlarged prostate found a strange thing in the left kidney based on the ultrasound test and decided to send me to a urologist from Mount Sinai by the name of Dr. Juda. Dr. Juda sent me for more medical tests and when the results came back, he diplomatically announced to us that there is probably a cancer in my left kidney and he said “I am sending you to a top shotgun-Dr. Jewett at Princess Margaret Hospital”. Dr. Michael Jewett, FRCSC, is probably the top urology surgeon in Toronto. He is professor of surgery at U of T and a top researcher with 188 papers on prostate cancer and other urology illnesses. was Chairman of urology at U of T and head of urology at UHN. Dr. Jewett said he was sure I have renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) in the left kidney that required removal but refused to perform the surgery since I have a large aortic aneurysm. I went back to Dr. Shields hoping to convince Dr. Jewett or find an alternative surgeon. He did! But Dr. Jewett first offered the services of one of his students to perform it laparoscopically. The answer was no by the surgeon so I returned to Dr. Jewett. On January 25, 2005, I had my partial nephrectomy surgery performed by Dr. Jewett himself. He removed 40% of my left kidney to ensure that no cancer will spread. Since then I do a yearly checkup on the kidney. While recovering from the surgery I had bleeding from the kidney due to my anticoagulant. It took me back to the hospital for another 20 days. In April 2006 I had the first urinary tract obstruction due to my enlarged prostate. On and off using a catheter, I asked Dr. Jewett about any procedure that would relieve it. He said they do in Toronto the traditional TURP surgery which carries a risk of bleeding, but a new method called HoLEP is used by Dr. El-Helali, a top prostate surgeon, in Montreal. I went to see Dr. El-Helali in May 2007 and had my prostate surgery at Royal Victoria Hospital performed by Dr. El-Hilali on July 10. His assistant urged me to take my anticoagulant which I had stopped before the surgery as required but I thought that I do not need bleeding in Montreal. “I will come back to Toronto in 3 -4 days and can then restart my anticoagulant.” On July 18, 2007 I felt dizzy- My wife Samia called 911 and immediately they transferred me to North York Hospital. I was treated there from stroke. They said that a clot formed on the mechanical aortic valve when I did not take my anticoagulant. It travelled to the brain and caused the stroke. Thanks to God, it was a microembolism. My speech became slightly slurred and my writing became difficult but other than that I had full memory, comprehension, and all the motor functions intact. The stroke however reset my systolic blood pressure to less than 100. My beta blocker had to be reduced which caused my heart beats to go over 90 per minute. It also caused me stress and resulted in extra heart beats. I was seen by Dr. Sole in early October. He did an electrocardiogram to check my heart, an echocardiogram to check the aortic aneurysm, and a holter monitor to check my extra beats. He saw me again in November and did a blood pressure monitor to ensure my blood pressure is not hypotensive. The results were amazing: My electrocardiogram showed no change in the heart electricity since 1987. My echocardiogram showed no heart failure, and no change in the aortic aneurysm. It is even less, measuring 5.8 cm. My holter monitor showed that my extra beats are benign. They are the type that results from stress and will disappear eventually. My blood pressure monitor showed my blood pressure is exactly what it should be – not hypotensive that could induce a stroke, and not hypertensive that could cause cerebral hemorrhage -about 105-65. Dr. Sole said to me “You fell on the right side” The stroke has corrected the risk of my aneurysm rupturing. And Dr. Sole said this to me “God is smiling on you”! When I look back at 22 years of illness, I am amazed that not only have I survived the 2 years ultimatum for an enlarged heart, but also survived the kidney cancer, the dangerous aortic aneurysm, and the stroke. Everything worked together to give me life, even though I did not deserve it. My great sins and pride did not stop the hand of God to work through those genius physicians. In all these events, God intervened to rescue me from death. The cause is simple: God loves. Christ loves. I cannot fail today one full year after the stroke, to recognize the miracle that God has worked for 22 years in my body. I am a living miracle.

Can we hope for Christian unity between Catholics and Orthodox?

The Catholic Church in fact started its heavy involvement in the ecumenical movement since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) known as Vatican II. In early 1963, Paul VI embraced the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, in his historical visit to the Holy Land. In 1965, closing Vatican II, Pope Paul VI, simultaneously with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and his Synod, removed the anathemas between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople. In 1973, Paul VI received, in Rome, Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria where they signed a dogmatic declaration agreeing on the issue of the humanity and divinity of Christ being perfect and united in his person. John Paul II followed his immediate predecessors' policy of opening to the Orthodox Churches. He visited Dimitrius I in Constantinople in 1979 and more visits ensued between Rome and Constantinople. In 2000, in his pligrimage to the Middle East, he visited Shenouda III and proposed more efforts to remove the only hard problem remaining, the primacy of the Roman Pontiff. He also met with Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Patriarchs in Syria. Meanwhile a theological dialogue was already under way with both Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches (who in 1989 reached a theological agreement on all doctrines). John Paul II desired strongly the achievement of Christian unity asnd reunion with the Eastern Orthodox by the third millenium for which he worked tirelessly. He coined the phrase that the Church must breath with both her lungs. Since Benedict XVI has been elected to the Holy See of Rome, much ecumenical efforts have been directed to move towards the East. In Benedict, we find the same movement, if not more. His recent writings indicate a desire to "reform" the reform of Vatican II in the liturgy. Benedict XVI is adamant, so it seems, that the priest in the Mass should face the altar not the people. He further wants to have the altar built towards the East from which our Sun of Righteousness, Christ, came. The theological dialogue between Catholic and Orthodox theologians this year seems also to have resulted at a preliminary recommendation to recognize the primacy of the Pope of Rome. I think we can, and should, hope for Christian unity between Catholics and Orthodox Churches.This is the prayer which Christ himself uttered to his Father (John 17). Let us make it our prayer too!

God's Plan for Marriage in the Redemption in Christ

Sin and Redemption:In chapter 3 of Genesis, sin enters the picture and seriously affects the relationships between man and woman (3:16), between them and nature (3:17-19), and between them and God (3:23). All the evil things that are present in the male-female relationship are presented as the result of sin: polygamy, use of the other as an object rather than as a person, lust without love, violence and sadism, domination and subservience. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked”(3:7). They saw now sin and in another sense they lost sight of the divine in each other! It was now fallen man and fallen woman..Though Christ has now redeemed the world, we must share in this redemption (Col 1:24). We are now struggling to regain the creation. In relation to marriage, this struggle to regain the original plan of creation was the radical call that Christ made: ”Have you not read that the creator from the beginning made them male and female..”(Matthew 19:4). The idea of redemption is prepared for in the Old Testament by God’s love for the people of the covenant. To express that love, the prophets turned frequently to the image of marriage (Cf. Hosea, Jeremiah 2:1-4:4, Ezekiel 16 and 23, Isaiah 54:1-10, Song of Songs, Tobit..). Hosea waits patiently for his unfaithful wife Gomer to return symbolically manifesting God's patience for his people to return to Him from their unfaithfulness in their following the pagan gods. In this process, marriage was in its turn illuminated by the covenant. The Song of Songs is full of poetic expressions of the lover towards the beloved, again a symbol for God's love and commitment to His people. Marriage became a mirror in which something of God’s love was seen as reflected. If husband and wife loved each other as God loved, then they would indeed be returning to the creation. In John 13:34 Jesus says “I give you a new commandment: love one another...”. At first sight there is nothing new (see Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18). The newness of the commandment is in the words immediately following “just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.” No one ever loved as Jesus loved, for he still loved his disciples and enemies when rejected and abandoned on the cross. Thus it is an enormous thing when husbands are told to love their wives “as Christ loved the Church and sacrificed himself for her that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her” (Eph 5:25). To reflect on the profound love of God, let us "go in the deep." We may speak symbolically of God as a family. The essence of the Trinity is that the Persons are united in love yet distinct: three in one. Husband and wife are also united yet distinct..Like God they too give life (co-creators). With their child, the fruit of their love, they become three in one. To the creation idea of finding God in the other, Christian revelation adds the idea of finding the creative innermost life of God in their family. A family is a fuller image of God than an individual. A Sacrament of Church: The Christian marriage is a sacrament, both a covenant between the couple, and a covenant between them and God. In it, God offers the promise of divine grace to sustain their union and renew the creation. In the sacrament of marriage, Jesus blesses, and is a witness of, the marriage covenant that creates the family. The New Testament begins with the birth of Jesus in a human family. After spending most of his life with that family, Jesus began his public ministry at the invitation of his mother with a miracle at Cana in which he abundantly blessed the ordinary joys of a wedding by turning water into wine (John 2). Not only did he start his public ministry by blessing the wedding, He also ended his public ministry by returning to his concern for family “Woman this is your son..”(John 19:26) After this he knew everything was completed (John 19:28). Jesus came on earth to change human society in all places and times. To accomplish this, he knew the place to start and end was the family. Marriage is the only sacrament in which the persons involved are themselves the “matter” of the sacrament. The matter of sacrament is the material substance used in celebrating the sacrament - it always points to the spiritual reality present and is said to be a visible sign of invisible grace (e.g. water in baptism physically cleans and purifies just as baptism does it spiritually. In the same way, oil physically strengthens and heals just as chrismation/confirmation does this spiritually.) While the sacrament is received at one moment at the wedding, the grace of the sacrament continues to be administered and received throughout the couple’s lives. Grace is God at work within us. In marriage the couple are meant to mediate this grace to each other. Because the couple are still fallen humanity, this mediation of grace is essential. Their marriage is filled with the difficulties of ordinary humanity struggling to regain the creation. There is thus a constant need to experience conversion of heart. Because of their limitations and sinfulness, their married love involves that death to self that makes it truly Christian. The forgiveness received from the other is an experience of Christ’s forgiveness and grace mediated through the other. Since the "one flesh" union of man and wife foreshadowed Christ and the Church right from "the beginning," Pope John Paul II speaks of marriage as the primordial sacrament: "All the sacraments of the new covenant find in a certain sense their prototype in marriage.” This is why Baptism is a "nuptial bath" and why the Eucharist is "the Sacrament of the Bridegroom and of the Bride." When we receive the body of Christ into our own, in a mysterious way, like a bride, we conceive new life in us — life in the Holy Spirit. It is this same Holy Spirit that forms the bond that unites spouses in the sacrament of marriage. Three Qualities of marriage:a) One man and one woman (monogamous): Love and commitment cannot be divided between several spouses. Once you are in true love, it is a total and unique giving of oneself. b) For their entire lives: love and commitment (indissoluble); A couple who live together without marriage may feel fully committed to each other. They may be convinced that their union is more authentic precisely because there are no legal and social bonds constraining them. However, without marriage they are falling short of total commitment, and they are lacking that confidence and courage to be committed for life. To love another totally, but only for a time, is a contradiction in terms. At the wedding, each of the partners consents fully to take the other as his own. And that is the beginning of the life-long covenant of marriage. c) To beget new life (procreative): Just as God’s love was fruitful in the creation of humankind, so this deepest human union of man and woman is meant to be fruitful. With God, they co-create another image of God with the same presence of the infinite. It is at the moment of the birth of their first child that a couple are usually most aware of the presence of the infinite. There is a sense of wonder as they hold their first baby in their arms. It is a permanent reality of their marriage and can give them a sense of reverence for each other and for their children. * The above text contains excerpts from "Marriage, Divorce & Nullity" by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, published by Dave Communications, copyright (c) 1984 and "A Basic Theology of Marriage.", (c) 1984 by Christopher West - see his website: http://www.christopherwest.com