Your Angels Guard My Steps (Rekindling the Inner Fire Book #10)

Bernard Of Clairvaux

Description

Writings that touch the pure-flaming heart of God ... from the men and women who walked with Him through the ages...guiding into a deeper friendship with the "Father of Lights."Today, when there is so much interest in the invisible world of angels and demons, how can we know whether the speculation about angelic interventions, swordplay in the heavenlies, and signs in the sky is true? What role do angels actually play in our lives?Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) stands among the rare handful of men and women gifted with true insight into the unseen, supernatural world. Known throughout the medieval church as a "spiritual doctor," he was given both a spectacular vision of angels and the wisdom to understand their purposes among men. May his words fix in your soul a vision of the beauty of God himself, and may you sense the help of angels, as they guide you to the real presence of the One true Lover of your soul.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 1998
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441261823
• Langue: English

Extrait

Your Angels Guard My Steps
A 40-Day Journey in the Company of Bernard of Clairvaux
Devotionals Readings Arranged and Paraphrased by
David Hazard
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Foreword

1. The Bread of Angels
2. Our Hearts Lie Open
3. Childlike Faith
4. In His Presence
5. Walking in the Spirit
6. Ministers of Grace and Truth
7. Following Christ
8. Angel of Light
9. “Come to Me …”
10. “… on the Heights”
11. The Highest Word
12. Spirit of Prayer
13. Archangels and Virtues
14. Self-Mastery
15. Feeding a Friend
16. Beyond the Cross
17. The Powers
18. Among Dark Hearts
19. Lifted
20. Soul in Flight
21. Jesus, Our Brother
22. Jesus, Our Deliverer
23. Jesus, Lord of My Heart
24. God in Us
25. God’s Purity
26. Principalities, Dominions, Thrones
27. The Rule of God
28. A New Spirit
29. His Body
30. Miraculous Signs
31.…More Signs
32. Sowing Seeds
33. Cherubim
34. The Wrong Way
35. Seraphim
36. The Sixth Mountain
37. Robed in White
38. Return to Love
39. Born Anew
40. The Wedding Feast

Back Cover
Foreword
The invisible world of angels and demons has seized our interest. Angelic interventions, sword-play in the heavenlies, signs in the sky…these are the bases of hot-selling books, television shows, and movies. What does this tell us, but that we are longing for help and wisdom from beyond ourselves?
What role do angels play in our lives?
The Bible sometimes pulls away the veil and lets us see into the dimension behind the air we breathe: angel hosts, or solo messengers, who step into our world…burning and fearsome…and then vanish. They tell nothing about themselves and very little about what they’re up to during those vast silences when the curtain is closed.
Doesn’t it mean something that the Scriptures speak so briefly about such marvelous beings? It seems obvious that God is especially careful about our direct contact with angels. Perhaps this has to do with our self-centered tendency to make our own plans, apart from God, and to look for a power source that gets us what we want. We seek power, position, money. We manipulate people to get our way. Imagine what we’d do if we could see a supernatural being who’d been sent to help us…with all that power?
It’s because God casts His pearls wisely, I believe, that angels are invisible to most of us. Few men and women have been granted the opportunity to see them. Fewer still have been granted the wisdom to understand the nature of this invisible order of beings what God has created angels to do, and why. One, apparently, was the writer of Hebrews, thought to be Paul, who was supernaturally “caught up” into the third heaven. He writes:

[God] makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire…. Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation? (Hebrews 1:7, 14)
Those who understand angels at all know this for sure: they are not sent to serve our will; they are on a definite mission from God. They work by influence, unseen, and most importantly they keep out of the way as much as possible. Why? Because they must not obstruct our soul’s view of the One who is our goal and crown.
When the eye of our soul is lifted up to perceive the wonder of God, and we long to be close to Him…when our hearts are broken by a glimpse of the humility, the downcast majesty of Christ, and our pride melts…when an invisible light ignites a word of Scripture to us…if some event shakes our world and we are caused to “number our days aright”…when another person’s character seems suddenly to shine, stirring our desire to change and live better…is this the work, the subtle soul-influencing of angels? If so, it’s sure they won’t tell us. But a careful reading of the Bible seems to indicate our invisible “ministers” are about their work…turning our eyes to God, shepherding us along the path to our soul’s true home.
Today, when there is so much interest in the life of the soul, so much talk about spiritual “paths” and speculation about angels, we need expert help: Bernard of Clairvaux is one of the few men of all time whom we can trust to instruct us in these particular areas.
Bernard stands among a handful of saints beloved by the whole body of Christ. His life and words are alight with a power and beauty that no doubt come from his encounters in prayer with the pure-burning love of God.
He also stands among the rare handful of men and women gifted with true insight into the unseen supernatural world. As you will see in the excerpts that follow, he was given both a spectacular vision of angels those living flames sent by God to help us and the wisdom to understand their purposes among men. It’s true his ideas about the angelic world, and the whole cosmos, were heavily influenced by The Celestial Hierarchy , the Middle Ages’ most widely read treatise on angels, penned by an anonymous author known as “Pseudo-Dionysius.” But Bernard’s insights are not merely “borrowed.” They come out of a life tested in many fires.
Bernard would be recognized as a doctor of the church because he would be called upon to intervene at many dramatic moments when the stability of the church and the peace of nations were shaken. Ironic, because as a young man he wanted only to live in contemplative quiet, absorbed in meditation on the love of God. True, he would establish a spiritual brotherhood of men dedicated to living simply and experiencing the real presence of God. Soon communities would spread rapidly across Europe…and in time, throughout the world. But so brilliant was the fire of his devotion, so amazing his diplomacy, so penetrating his wisdom, that Bernard would be called to resolve issues in one titanic battle after another.
What was his secret? What did Bernard learn from his study of Scripture and angels about winning the war between flesh and spirit? or intervening when worldly powers are struggling for control? What was the source of his tremendous focus, grace, and strength under fire? He must have held great spiritual insights, for the twelfth century was a time of turmoil and danger…and Bernard’s influence in it altered the course of history….
On an early morning, in 1090, the sun shone weakly through gray mists in the Burgundian hills surrounding Fontaine le Dijon in France. The town’s castle fortress was quiet. And nearby, in the estate of a minor nobleman, a midwife mopped the forehead of a young mother, then laid in her arms a newborn son.
“Bernard,” whispered the young woman as she touched the child’s cheek.
The infant’s father must have peered down on the two and felt pleased. Another son . Like himself, like his other sons, this boy would grow and receive the superior training of a knight. It was his natural-born destiny…to be a warrior.
Warriors were in demand. Though Alfred the Great had run the Vikings into the north in the ninth century, the dawn of the twelfth was hardly “secure” for the Christian West.
Five hundred years after Islam first boiled out of Palestine, in a.d. 629, in a series of bloody conquests, its forces were still driving forward. With torch and scimitar they had taken the Near East, continually pressing into the Balkans, across Africa, and northwest into Europe. Today, some branches of Islam have elevated jihad to mean a “personal holy war” against your own sins. Early Islam was hardly so introspective. Muslims overran the Iberian peninsula, where Eulogius, the archbishop of Toledo, was brutally martyred. Everywhere, priests, nuns, and the everyday faithful who refused Muhammad’s teaching were burned or beheaded.
From the Christian side, too, pressure to choose Christianity over Islam…or die…virtually poisoned true missionary effort. (The Khazars of Eastern Europe cleverly converted to Judaism to buy themselves diplomatic immunity from both sides.)
The First Crusade ended with good success for the Christians. The military drive south from Europe recaptured old Christian strongholds in the Mediterranean, Turkey, Egypt, and Africa and the news of triumph ran from Palestine northward, over pilgrim and trading routes, when crusaders drove Islamic forces back from Jerusalem’s holy sites. For a few years it would be much safer as safe as you could be anywhere on the road during medieval times to make pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulcher or Bethlehem’s ancient Church of the Nativity.
But the Christian forces that “held” Jerusalem were surrounded, and it was an uneasy peace a lull in the fighting.
Knights were needed. And since Bernard was to be one, he was sent to St. Vorle’s, a nearby school of renown run by the Canons Regular, to be taught in history, politics, Latin, and courtly manners. It was here that a schoolmaster recognized the boy’s quick mind and gave him the essential tools philosophical order, style, and disciplined thought never knowing that these skills would later help Bernard shape his passions and thoughts into some of the greatest spiritual masterworks of all time. And it was also at St. Vorle’s that Bernard came early to a fork in the path a choice that would entirely change his life’s course.
Maybe it was in the vast eternal silences of the old stone church, with the sun streaming through the stained glass, igniting the high altar in reds, golds, and blues, that some sense of God’s holy majesty lifted the boy’s heart. Or perhaps his inspiration came from the impassioned look of love and devotion seen on the face of a young canon as the Communion host was raised. Spiritual fire does leap from one soul to another, and Bernard’s spirit was leaping with a joy too thrilling to lose. We only know that at some moment in the young man’s soul, a voice spoke from all eternity, saying, “Come…. Follow me.”
Like other saints and mystics, Bernard did not so much turn from the world an escapist move as he turned to God, happily leaving behind anything that would hinder him in his pursuit of the One who had summoned him: Love himself ha