Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.
Growth in Virtuous Love
To undergo real transformation in holy love, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux asserts that three commitments are required of any person, three essential conditions that should sound awfully familiar to us in recovery. First, one must participate in community and learn to serve and promote the good of others. Second, one must exercise self-restraint of the mind and body, of the appetites and passions. And third, one must surrender the illusion of self-sufficiency and come to embrace total dependence on God in radical trust.
The great saint suggests that these three commitments or conditions operate in a mutually enriching and circular fashion wherein the care and concern for one another in community will give rise to accountability and self-control of our thoughts and behaviors that in turn will open the heart to greater trust and dependence on God. The progressive effect of this cycle, like a positive feedback loop, is an ever increasing expansiveness of heart that further motivates the selfless care and concern for the welfare of others, inspires and empowers the practice of self-discipline and virtue, and cultivates a deeper and more prayerful surrender to God in all things. What Saint Bernard understands as growth in virtuous love is what we might characterize in 12-step recovery as a “spiritual awakening.” He proposes a kind of healing counter circulation to reverse the selfish and entrapping vortex of self-centeredness, self-gratification, and self-imposed isolation so typical of sin and addiction.
Let us see what Saint Bernard has to say about each of these commitments in a little more detail.
The Necessity of Community and Service to Others
Conversion in virtuous love is grounded in active participation in community. Saint Bernard places primary emphasis on the necessity of community because he clearly understands that it is from within the selfless and “other-centered” intentionality of caring relationships that we actually learn to love rightly and justly. It is what combats our tendency to regress into the distortions of narcissistic thinking and self-love. Community is the school of practicing virtuous love. And to be sure, as recovering addicts and sinners, we need all the practice we can get!
Saint Bernard writes, “because love is natural [i.e. the desire to love and be loved is implanted within us by God at our creation], it is only right to love the Author of nature first of all…But nature [i.e. our concupiscent human nature after the Fall] is so frail and weak that necessity compels her to love herself first, and this is carnal love, wherewith man loves himself first and selfishly…But if, as is likely, this same love should grow excessive and, refusing to be contained within the restraining banks of necessity [i.e. the virtues, self-mortification], [and] should overflow into the fields of voluptuousness [i.e. self-seeking, sin, attachment, addiction], then a command checks the flood [i.e. temptation and acting out], as if by a dike: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’ [Mark 12:31]” (On Loving God).
Addictions by their very nature are isolating, and isolation worsens addiction—the vicious and deadly cycle. A direct antidote for breaking up this dark pattern is purposeful participation in community as carried out in the performance of spiritual and corporal works of mercy for one another. This is how Christ lives in us and through us: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst,” and “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brethren of mine, you did for me” (Matthew 18:20); Matthew 25:40). This is how we, who are manifestly the Body of Christ, become His hands and feet for the salvation of souls and unite our will to His holy will in humility and love.
This is also why in recovery fellowships and relationships it is essential that we take up regular acts of self-donation, the most basic of which is just showing up to a meeting and perhaps sharing in raw honesty one’s experience, strength, and hope. It can also mean making the effort to reach out to a sponsor when under the duress of temptation. Other examples include simple acts like making coffee, greeting people, setting and cleaning up, or making a financial contribution. This process of self-donation can progress by volunteering to lead meetings as well as by becoming a sponsor. We might also offer our full testimonial at a speaker meeting or retreat.
The point is that these acts of self-giving, even if they may seem insignificant at the time, will actually prove in the long run to be profoundly beneficial because we will incrementally learn through such actions “to be” with others in a non-narcissistic and non-abusive way, in other words, in an ever expansive and truly loving way. We will grow accustomed to living in a stance of relational concern and genuine care for one another that is not habitually self-referential and self-directed. Such an approach is evocative of the Little Way of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux who taught that small acts of love and kindness directed towards God and neighbor can have an immeasurable impact on real progress in love and the spiritual life.
The simple and brilliant logic of Jesus’ “Golden Rule” (cf. Matthew 7:12; Luke 6:31), which Saint Bernard invokes here, is that the “getting-out-of-oneself” intentionality and purposefulness of empathy for one’s neighbor, even if imperfect (and trust me, it will be imperfect!), is what pulls us away from the precipitous ledge of our self-preoccupation, self-obsession, and self-aggrandizement that so often results in exploitation, alienation, and isolation. To use the language of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, this is where we learn to relate to our fellow human beings authentically in an “I-Thou” relationship as opposed to objectifying and dehumanizing them in an “I-It” relationship (I and Thou).
This conversion in community by definition requires humility and self-sacrifice. And it certainly takes practice, involving much trial and error, especially for the hardened sinner or long-term addict. This, again, is why fellowship and community are so absolutely vital to help us identify and correct our errors in learning how to relate to and love one another and to provide corrective guidance when we “miss the mark.” It is also why we must persevere in being present in community where we learn how to establish and recognize proper boundaries, how to listen and communicate, how to express our needs, and how to respect the needs of others.
The Necessity of Self-Mortification
Saint Bernard furthermore teaches that the love of neighbor in community is what gives rise to the effective practice of self-mortification with regard to the appetites and passions, or what we can understand as our compulsions, unhealthy attachments, and addictions. He says, “Wherefore if a man find it a burden, I will not say only to relieve his brother’s needs, but to minister to his brother’s pleasures, let him mortify those same affections in himself, lest he become a transgressor. He may cherish himself as tenderly as he chooses, if only he remembers to show the same indulgence to his neighbor. This is the curb of temperance imposed on thee, O man, by the law of life and conscience, lest you should follow your own lusts to destruction, or become enslaved by those passions which are the enemies of your true welfare” (On Loving God).
Loving one another virtuously in community promotes a mutually supportive “practice-what-you-preach” mentality and accountability. This fosters and sustains what could be called the “asceticism” of recovery, the behavioral changes we must make to get well, themselves founded on the healthy cognitive changes we internalize about our common identity as beloved sons and daughters of God as well as fellow broken and powerless sinners in need of the same Savior. As we increasingly acquire the virtue of humility in the care and spiritual accompaniment of one another, we will come to increasingly temper and subdue our previously rampant and prideful self-seeking and self-pleasuring, and thereby gain increasing freedom from our unhealthy attachments. That is why the radical honesty of recovery fellowship, especially in the sponsor-sponsee relationship, really really really matters!
The Necessity of Dependence on God
The practice of loving our neighbor and the curbing of our selfish desires leads the sinner (and the recovering addict), according to Saint Bernard, to greater surrender, trust, and dependence on God, the true center of gravity in our lives and in recovery. He writes, “But if you are reduced to want by such benevolence [i.e. love of neighbor via self-mortification], what then? What indeed, except to pray with all confidence unto him [emphasis added] who gives to all men liberally and upbraids not [cf. James 1:5], who opens His hand and fills all things living with plenteousness [cf. Psalm 145:16]…God freely promises all things needful to those who deny themselves for love of their neighbor [emphasis added]; and to bear the yoke of modesty and sobriety, rather than let sin reign in our mortal body [cf. Romans 6:12], that is indeed to seek the Kingdom of God and to implore His aid against the tyranny of sin” (On Loving God).
What is so marvelously insightful in his teaching is that through the very act of caring for one another, which leads to an ascetic and progressive disengagement from our self-centeredness, we are “driven,” like a navigator making a course correction at sea, to the right destination, to the safe harbor of total dependence on God. Better said, we at last come to recognize the true state of affairs as they actually always were, that we were always in reality totally dependent on the love and grace of God, and when we come to embrace this vital truth in recovery, good things start to happen!
This series will continue with Part 4.
Pete S. is a grateful Catholic in recovery. He lives in Augusta, GA and helped start a CIR General Recovery meeting at St. Teresa of Avila Parish in Grovetown. He actively sponsors several individuals in CIR. He is also a regular content contributor for the CIR Daily Reflections. And as a result of his recovery journey in CIR, he discerned a calling to the Benedictine spiritual way of life and on September 30, 2023, was invested as an Oblate novice of the Order of Saint Benedict affiliated with St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, PA.