583 chapter 3: the altar of the mystical temple Saint Bernard, a man most loving of God, holding the same opinion, says: “In every creature that is busied under the sun with the vanities of the world, nothing is found more sublime than the human heart, nothing more noble, nothing more like God. Therefore He seeks from you nothing other than your heart” (Med. 7).34 Add that if our heart [were] a little more noble, it [could] be filled with no other thing except God alone! And so it should seek nothing except God, nor to rest anywhere but in Him, to whom it is morally bound. Augustine acknowledged speaking to God in this way: “You made us, Lord, for [Y]ourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in You.”35 The most learned and devout Father Nieremberg36 illustrated this in a very elegant and appropriate metaphor [parable] saying: “The nautical needle does not come to rest until it turns toward the North, and looks straight at the Arctic Pole; and in what other direction it finally turns, it never stops there: so exactly our Heart, which God has made for Himself alone and not for anything else, tends and inclines towards its own center or natural perfection: and it cannot rest until it looks to its Creator” (in the Divine Life, Ch. 4).37 And so, since they are mutually sought by each other, both God by the heart, and the heart by God, neither should the heart envy God, nor God the heart; let Him remain alone on His altar. Nothing earthly, let alone impure, should come to rest on it. Let us keep this altar with utmost zeal very pure for God alone. Let us altogether imitate the magnanimity of Mattathias: when in his sight a certain Hebrew was sacrificing to idols, “he leapt on the man and slaughtered him on the Altar” (cf. 1 Macc 2:2324). Nor should we permit anything except God on the altar of our heart. His command is, “You shall love the Lord, your God, 34 Bernardus, Meditations..., 6/1: PL 184, 498 (n. 328). 35 Augustine, XIII Books of Confessions, Bk. I, 1. 36 Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, SJ (d. 1658), was famous for his learning and devotion. Cf. Testore Celestino, Nieremberg, Juan Eusebio: ECat VIII, 1872; Niedzielski Jan, Nieremberg Jan Euzebiusz T.J.: PEK XXIXXXX, 14. 37 Nierembergius, Ioannes Eusebius, The Divine Life or Royal Road to Perfection, Latin edition by Fr. Martin Siberius, SJ, of the Monastery of Westphalia, 1642, p. 47.
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