{"id":2236,"date":"2020-09-26T20:28:28","date_gmt":"2020-09-27T01:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/?p=2236"},"modified":"2020-09-26T20:59:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-27T01:59:39","slug":"love-and-rewards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2020\/09\/26\/love-and-rewards\/","title":{"rendered":"Love and Rewards"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod is not loved without a reward, although he should be loved without regard for one.\u00a0 True charity cannot be worthless, still, as &#8216;it does not seek its own advantage,&#8217; it cannot be termed mercenary.\u00a0 <strong>Love pertains to the will, it is not a transaction; it cannot acquire or be acquired by a pact.\u00a0 Moving us freely, it makes up spontaneous.\u00a0 True love is content with itself; it has its own reward, the object of its love<\/strong>.\u00a0 Whatever you seem to love because of something else, you do not really love; you really love the end pursued and not that by which it is pursued&#8230;True love merits its reward, it does not seek it.\u201d Bernard of Clairvaux, <em>On Loving God<\/em> VII. 17. trans. Emero Steigman (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1995), 20. [Emphasis added]<\/p>\n<p>Bernard focuses on the spontaneous nature of love.\u00a0 Divine charity transforms the soul.\u00a0 True love (<em>verus amor<\/em>) does not seek a reward.\u00a0 It is not an contractual agreement.\u00a0 A lover&#8217;s desire reshapes her <em>affectus<\/em> (the word translated as &#8216;will&#8217; above) and redirects it toward a new object.\u00a0 Therefore, she seeks no reward from a human lover or God.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cGod is not loved without a reward, although he should be loved without regard for one.\u00a0 True charity cannot be worthless, still, as &#8216;it does not seek its own advantage,&#8217; it cannot be termed mercenary.\u00a0 Love pertains to the will, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/2020\/09\/26\/love-and-rewards\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,16,134,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-bernard-of-clairvaux","category-cistercian","category-love","category-medieval","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2236"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2236\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.cune.edu\/matthewphillips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}