Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church



“Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world ...” (John 17:24.)

Origen of Alexandria (part 2 of Pope Benedict’s reflections on Origen) comments on this verse from the Gospel proclaimed at Mass today:

”The Lord himself, in the Gospel, not only declares that these same results will occur in the future but that they are to be brought about by his own intercession when he himself decides to obtain them from the Father for his disciples, saying, “Father, I will that where I am, they also may be with me. And as you and I are one, may they also be one in us.” In this, the divine likeness itself already appears to advance (if we may so express it) from being merely similar to becoming the same, because, undoubtedly, in the consummation, or the end, God is “all and in all.”

I am of the opinion that the expression by which God is said to be “all in all” means that he is “all” in each individual person. Now he will be “all” in each individual when all those with any rational understanding — cleansed from the dregs of every sort of vice and with every cloud of wickedness completely swept away — either feel, understand or think in terms wholly divine. He will be “all” in each person when that person’s understanding will no longer behold or retain anything else other than God, but God alone will be the measure and standard of all his or her movements. This is when God will be “all,” for there will no longer be any distinction of good and evil, since evil will no longer exist. For God is, then, all things, and no evil can be present where he is. Nor will there be a desire any longer to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil on the part of one who is always in the possession of good and to whom God is everything.” (On First Principles, 3)



Collect
O God,
Who made of the abbot Saint Bernard
a man consumed with zeal for Your house and
a light shining and burning in Your Church,
grant, through his intercession,
that we may be on fire
with the same Spirit and
walk always as children of light.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son
Who lives and reigns with You
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.




Glory to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and will be forever. Amen


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