Audiobooks Christianity - Other On Loving God
On Loving God

On Loving God

by Saint BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX (1090 - 1153)

On Loving God is one of the best-known and most influential works of Medieval Christian mysticism. Written at the request of one of the cardinals of Rome, it describes the four “levels” of love for God, and puts Christian devotion in the context of God’s love for mankind. Summary by Kirsten Ferreri.


A brief summary

Of love: out of a letter to the Carthusians

Of love toward God not without reward: and how the hunger of man's heart cannot be satisfied with earthly things

Of the attainment of this perfection of love only at the resurrection

Of the Christian's debt of love, how great it is

Of the first degree of love: wherein man loves God for self's sake

Of the four degrees of love, and of the blessed state of the heavenly fatherland

Of the fourth degree of love: wherein man does not even love self save for God's sake

Of the law of self-will and desire, of slaves and hirelings

Of the law of the love of sons

Of the second and third degrees of love

Of those who find comfort in there collection of God, or are fittest for His love

On loving God. How much God deserves love from man in recognition of His gifts, both material and spiritual: and how these gifts should be cherished without neglect of the Giver

What greater incentives Christians have, more than the heathen, to love God

Why we should love God, and the measure of that love