Therefore my advice to you, friends, is to turn aside from troubled and anxious reflection on your own progress, and escape to the easier paths of remembering the good things, which God has done; in this way instead of becoming upset by thinking about yourself, you will find relief by turning your attention to God… Sorrow for sin is, indeed, a necessary thing, but it should not prevail all the time. It is necessary, rather, that happier recollections of God's generosity should counterbalance it, lest the heart should become hardened by too much sadness and so perish through despair.
ST. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX Sermons on the Song of Songs
