The Relationship of Virtue and Contemplative Prayer

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I simply couldn't pass up the opportunity to share a brilliant quote from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who's been my mystic of choice lately. While writing about the importance of obedience in his most famous treatise, On the Canticle of Canticles, Bernard said: "Without the practice of virtue you could not attain to contemplation." A few pen-strokes later, he went on: "the taste of contemplation is due only to obedience to the commandments."

There is a deep truth that St. Bernard elucidated with these simple phrases. In order to reach the highest heights of prayer (or deepest depths), people must first learn and practice virtue. Those virtues are cultivated by continually praying over and internalizing the commandments (both the old law and the new law, surely). Virtue comes very "easily" when we continually keep in mind that we must love God with all our heart, mind, and strength; when we remember to keep holy the Sabbath, honor our parents, or shun lying, stealing, and lust. The more we keep those commandments, the more robust the corresponding virtues become in us.

So, let us read and re-read the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, and even passages of St. Paul to acquaint ourselves with the divine law. Let us then take those truths to prayer and ask God to cultivate virtue in us. Finally, let us take those virtues into the world and rebuild the City of God.

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