Kitabu · 11 sura · dakika 44 za kusoma · Ngumu

Kumpenda Mungu

De Diligendo Deo

Bernard of Clairvaux · 1090–1153

Anza kusoma Tafuta katika kitabu hiki

Kuhusu kitabu hiki

“Kumpenda Mungu” ni risala fupi na kuu ya Bernardo wa Clairvaux kuhusu kwa nini na jinsi gani tunapaswa kumpenda Mungu. Akiandika katika karne ya kumi na mbili, Bernardo anajibu kwamba tunampenda Mungu kwa sababu ya alivyo na kwa yote aliyotupatia — naye anafuatilia kupaa kwa nafsi kupitia hatua nne za upendo: kutoka kujipenda mwenyewe, hadi kumpenda Mungu kwa ajili yetu wenyewe, hadi kumpenda Mungu kwa ajili ya Mungu, na hatimaye kujipenda hata sisi wenyewe kwa ajili ya Mungu peke yake. Yenye wororo, yenye kutafakari, na fupi, imelisha ibada ya Wakristo kwa miaka mia nane.

Unataka nikueleze kwa sababu gani na kwa kipimo gani tunapaswa kumpenda Mungu. Ningesema kwamba Mungu mwenyewe ndiye sababu ya upendo wetu kwake, na kwamba kipimo cha upendo unaostahili ni kuwa bila kipimo. Je, jambo hili liko wazi vya kutosha?
Kutoka Kwa Nini Tunapaswa Kumpenda Mungu

Yaliyomo

  1. 1 Kwa Nini Tunapaswa Kumpenda Mungu 2 dakika
  2. 2 Haki ya Mungu Juu ya Upendo Wetu 5 dakika
  3. 3 Kichocheo Kikuu cha Mkristo cha Kupenda 5 dakika
  4. 4 Ni Nani Apataye Faraja Katika Mungu 5 dakika
  5. 5 Wajibu wa Kumpenda Mungu 3 dakika
  6. 6 Muhtasari 1 dakika
  7. 7 Thawabu ya Kumpenda Mungu 7 dakika
  8. 8 Hatua ya Kwanza ya Upendo 3 dakika
  9. 9 Hatua ya Pili na ya Tatu ya Upendo 2 dakika
  10. 10 Hatua ya Nne ya Upendo 4 dakika
  11. 11 Upendo Kamili Baada ya Ufufuo 5 dakika

Questions and Answers

What is On Loving God about?
It is Bernard of Clairvaux's great little treatise on why and how we should love God. Writing in the twelfth century, Bernard answers the question of why God is to be loved by saying: because of who he is and all he has given — and the question of how much, with his famous reply, that the measure of loving God is to love him without measure. He then traces the soul's ascent through degrees of love.
Who was Bernard of Clairvaux?
A twelfth-century French abbot, the founder of the monastery of Clairvaux and one of the most influential figures of the medieval church — a reformer, preacher, and mystic whose warmth of devotion earned him the title 'the honey-sweet doctor.' On Loving God is among his best-known works and a classic of Christian spirituality.
What is Bernard's answer to why we should love God?
That God deserves our love for his own sake, because of who he is, and that we owe it to him for all he has given — first the gifts of creation and life, and above all the gift of himself in redemption. God loved us first and gave himself for us; the only fitting response is to love him in return, and to love him because he is worthy of it, not merely for his benefits.
What does Bernard mean by loving God 'without measure'?
Asked what the measure of loving God should be, Bernard replies that the measure is to love without measure — that is, there is no limit at which love for God becomes excessive. Because God's own love and worth are boundless, the love we owe him knows no proper ceiling; we are always to love him more, never to decide we have loved him enough.
What are the 'degrees of love' Bernard describes?
Bernard traces the soul's ascent through stages: first a man loves himself for his own sake; then he loves God for his own benefit; then he comes to love God for God's own sake; and at last, rarely and only in part in this life, he loves even himself for God's sake, wholly caught up in the love of God. It is a map of how self-love may be transformed into pure love of God.
Is this a difficult medieval book to read?
It is short and, for its depth, remarkably warm and readable. Bernard writes as a lover of God rather than a mere theologian, and much of the treatise has the tone of devotion rather than argument. Its images and its ardour have kept it alive for eight centuries, and it remains one of the most accessible doorways into medieval Christian spirituality.
Why read a twelfth-century monk on love today?
Because the question he answers — why and how to love God — is permanent, and few have answered it with such clarity and fire. Bernard cuts beneath sentiment to the reasons love is owed to God and charts a path by which cold hearts may be warmed, making the book as searching for the modern reader as for the medieval one.
Where should a reader begin?
At the beginning; the treatise is brief and moves as a single argument, from why God is to be loved to how far, and then up through the degrees of love. Read slowly, as Bernard's own devotion invites, it is less a lesson to be finished than a fire to be warmed at.

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, “The Pond at the Entrance of the Woods” (c. 1860–75). The Cleveland Museum of Art, CC0.