Incipit Speculum beati Bernhardi Abbatis De Honestate vite

Here begins the Mirror of the Blessed Abbot Bernard on the Honesty of Life

A decorative initial 'P' marks the beginning of the text.

You ask of me, son and brother, that which I have never heard anyone ask of their mentor before. However, because your devotion insistently demands it, and to one who asks reasonably, I cannot deny anything. I write in brief discourse a formula for an honest life: which, if you keep perseveringly while burning with the love of Christ, you shall undoubtedly attain eternal life.

Therefore, so that the discourse may proceed from the interior to the exterior man, you must strive incessantly for the purity of your heart, so that God, the lover of all purity, may deign to sit therein as if upon His own throne, and place His seat there as if in heaven. According to that saying: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is the footstool of my feet" Isaiah 66:1. And again: "The soul of the just man is the seat of wisdom." It is therefore necessary that you attend and insist upon your thoughts, so that you would fear to think or meditate before God what you would blush to say or think in the presence of a human being. You must know that just as we are known to man by words or deeds, so are we known to the uncircumscribed Spirit by our thoughts; for what is said to men are, to God, thoughts. For the Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain, and just as no creature is invisible to Him, so nothing at all can be thought that can be hidden from Him. Hence the Apostle says: "For the word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart" Hebrews 4:12.

Of the contemplation of God.

Let Christ therefore be in your heart, and let the image of the Crucified never depart from your mind. Let Him be your food and drink, your sweetness and refreshment, your consolation, your honey and your desire. Your meditation, your prayer, your life, your reason, and your resurrection.