CONTEMPLATION,
FOUR KINDS OF

The first and the greatest is to wonder at majesty. This demands a heart made pure, so that freed from vices and released from sin, it can ascend easily to heavenly things. Sometimes this contemplation holds the watcher rapt in amazement and ecstasy, if only for a moment.

A second kind of contemplation is necessary for this man. He needs to look on the judgments of God. While this contemplation strikes fear into the onlooker because it is indeed frightening, it drives out vices, strengthens virtues, initiates into wisdom, protects humility. Humility is the true and solid foundation of virtues. For if humility were to collapse, the building-up of the virtues will fall down.

The third kind of contemplation is occupied (or rather at leisure) in remembering kindnesses and, so as to avoid ingratitude, it urges him who remembers to love his Benefactor. Of such says the prophet, speaking to the Lord, “They shall declare the memory of the abundance of your sweetness” (Ps 14:7).

The fourth contemplation, which forgets what is past, rests wholly in the expectation of what is promised (Phil 3:13), which nourishes patience and nerves the arm of perseverance, for what is promised is eternal.

Bernard of Clairvaux