An Empty House

Vis videre mundatam, ornatam et vacantem domum? Hominem intuere qui confessus est, et deseruit manifesta peccata praecedentia ad judicium, et nunc solas movet manus ad opera mandatorum, corde penitus arido, ductus consuetudine quadam, plane quasi vitula Ephraim, docta diligere trituram. Exteriorum quae ad modicum valent, ne unum iota praeterit aut apicem unum; sed camelum glutit, dum culicem liquat. In corde enim servus est propriae voluntatis, cultor avaritiae, gloriae cupidus, ambitionis amator; aut haec omnia, aut singula quaeque intus vitia fovens: et mentitur iniquitas sibi, sed Deus non irridetur. Videas enim interdum sic palliatum hominem, ut seducat etiam semetipsum, penitus non attendens vermem, qui interiora depascitur. Manet enim superficies, et salva sibi omnia arbitratur. Comederunt, ait propheta, alieni robur ejus, et ignoravit. Dicit: Quia dives sum, et nullius egeo: cum sit pauper, et miser, et miserabilis. Nam et inventa occasione ebullire saneim, quae latebat in ulcere, et excisam, non exstirpatam arborem in silvam pullulare videas densiorem. Quod periculum si volumus declinare, securim ponamus necesse est ad radices arborum, non ad ramos. Non sola inveniatur in nobis exercitatio corporalis, ad modicum valens: sed inveniatur utilis ad omnia pietas, et exercitium spirituale. Sanctus Bernardus Clarae Vallensis, Sermo II, Sermones De Sanctis, De Domo Mundanda, Ornanda, Implenda Source: Migne PL 183.419d-420b

You wish to to see a house clean and adorned and empty? Look to a man who has confessed and has forsaken overt sin before judgement and now sets his hands only to the works of the commandments, with a heart utterly dry, led by a certain custom, certainly as the heifer of Ephraim trained to love the threshing. 1 On the outside for a little while he flourishes, not omitting one iota or dot, but he swallows the camel while he strains out the gnat. 2 In his heart he is a slave to his own will, a worshipper of avarice, desirous of glory, a lover of ambition, and all these, or each one, nurtures the evil within, and iniquity deludes itself, but God is not mocked. 3 See meanwhile that a man who is so cloaked seduces even himself, so that he does not at all attend to the worm which feeds on him within. In appearance all things are judged to be well with him. The prophet says: 'Foreigners devoured his strength and he did not know it.' 4 He says: 'Rich I am and I need nothing, when he is poor, and wretched and pitiful.' 5 For even if there is occasion when the pus which was hidden in the ulcer boils over, and it is excised, the tree is not uprooted which you see shoots put forth in the deeper wood. If you wish to avoid that danger, it is necessary to place an axe to the roots of the tree, not to the branches. 6 Let there not be found in us only corporeal exertions, in which we flourish for a little time, but let what is useful to all piety be found in spiritual exertions. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, from Sermon 2, On The Saints, That a house should be clean, adorned and filled 1 Hosea 10.11 2 Mt 23.24 3 Galat 6.7 4 Hosea 7.9 5 Apoc 3.7 6 Mt 3.10