Four Questions on the Heart from St. Bernard

Saint Bernard, the great Cistercian Abbot, gave a Chapter talk to his monks during Lent. In it he admonished them:

“Observe carefully what you love, what you fear, what makes you rejoice, what causes you to be sad. See whether under your religious habit you have a worldly soul, and whether, hidden by the cloth of conversion, your heart is perverse. The whole of the heart is in these four affections and in these four is comprised, as I see it, all that is involved when you turn to God with your whole heart”
(Sermo 2.3 in Quadragesima PL 183: 172D).

Thanks to Fr. Meinrad for this snippet which he shared with us during the Fraternity Lenten retreat in Atchison, Kansas. Enough here for many examinations of conscience...