The mystical kiss

The mystical kiss is Bernard of Clairvaux’s image for the soul’s encounter with Christ: not a greeting or a figure he treats as ornamental, but an expression of longing fulfilled in intimacy with God. In his sermons on The Song of Songs, the kiss gathers together desire, spiritual growth, faith, and the limits of language. Bernard also makes it a map of the soul’s movement from repentance toward union, while insisting that the encounter itself remains a gift that cannot be fully explained to another person.

The Song of Songs and the language of desire

Bernard began composing his sermons on The Song of Songs around 1135–36, and continued the project for the rest of his life. He followed a Christian allegorical reading in which the Bridegroom signifies Christ and the bride may signify the individual soul, or, in another interpretation, the Church. The opening appeal for a kiss therefore becomes a voice of spiritual desire: the soul longs not merely to think about God but to receive an intimate encounter.

Bernard devoted the first four sermons to the opening image, returned to it after addressing other subjects, and took it up again in later sermons. Its recurrence reflects how much work the image does. The kiss means the fulfillment of a longing soul’s desire and, more specifically, the union of God with the human person. Bernard distinguishes that union from visions, dreams, parables, and other forms of representation. His emphasis is on encounter itself, not on substituting a description or image for what the soul seeks.

The bride’s request also establishes love as the organizing principle of the metaphor. In Bernard’s account, a soul that loves God is figured as a bride, and the desire for the kiss is an outpouring of that love. The image joins longing to intimacy: the soul asks for what it desires because it is already oriented toward the beloved. This is not a detached account of spiritual knowledge; it is a language of relationship, in which knowledge and closeness belong together.

The three kisses as a spiritual progression

Bernard develops the kiss through three stages. The first is the kiss of Christ’s feet, associated with confession and the seeking of forgiveness. It begins in recognition of sin and a posture of humility before God. Bernard gives the feet two meanings, mercy and judgment, and treats both as necessary. A person marked by these spiritual footsteps bears signs of fear before divine judgment and hope in forgiveness. To emphasize only judgment risks despair; to emphasize only mercy risks complacency. The first kiss therefore makes repentance a balanced response, not a choice between fear and hope.

The second stage is the kiss of Christ’s hand. Here the emphasis shifts from forgiveness to renewal and spiritual formation. Bernard names the two hands liberality and fortitude: one gives generously, while the other protects what it gives. Both must be acknowledged. The image of the hand thus makes spiritual progress more than an inward wish; it signifies receiving help and guidance as the soul learns to live in faith.

The third kiss is the kiss of Christ’s mouth, the intimacy toward which the earlier stages lead. Bernard associates it with unbounded joy in God’s presence and with the soul’s union with God. These three movements correspond to purgation, illumination, and union: the removal of sin and pursuit of purity, learning to live the gospel in faith, and finally experiencing intimacy with God. The progression gives the kiss a practical as well as an ecstatic meaning. Longing does not skip repentance or growth; the image places intimacy at the culmination of a spiritual journey.

Faith, the Holy Spirit, and the kiss of the mouth

Bernard also presents the kiss of the mouth as assurance that Christ, the mediator between the person and God, will not withdraw his promise. The kiss strengthens faith and names Christ Jesus the Word as the bond between the soul and God. In this account, it is not simply an image of spiritual pleasure: it answers a question about trust. The soul’s desire for intimacy is bound to its need for assurance.

In Sermon 8, Bernard interprets the risen Christ’s breathing on the disciples in John 20:22 as a kiss of the mouth. The bride receives the Holy Spirit through this kiss, and the gift has two aspects: the light of knowledge and the fervor of devotion. Bernard connects those gifts to the soul’s capacities, describing reason as ready for insight and the will as ready for wisdom. The image therefore encompasses both understanding and devotion rather than treating spiritual union as feeling alone.

The kiss also gives Bernard a language for knowledge that exceeds ordinary explanation. He calls it hidden manna and a sealed fountain: images of a gift that is real but not publicly accessible in the way an argument or description would be. Only the recipient can grasp what the kiss is. This limit does not mean that Bernard offers no account of it; the sermons explain its meaning, stages, and spiritual effects. Rather, they distinguish explanation of the image from possession of the experience. A reader can follow the teaching without thereby claiming to have received the kiss.

Longing, discipline, and the limits of description

The image’s urgency appears in Bernard’s concern about lukewarm devotion. He criticizes monks who fall asleep during the night office and contrasts that indifference with the bride’s thirst for God. Upright intention—to please God and adhere to God—matters because, in Bernard’s account, the vision of God is granted as a unique favor to the pure in heart. The kiss is therefore not a technique for securing an experience at will. The sermons hold together human desire, disciplined devotion, purity of heart, and the gift of encounter.

Bernard’s account also recognizes that longing and experience do not always coincide. He recalls a period early in his conversion when he sought God while feeling inward coldness and hardness of heart. At unexpected moments, that condition could change; he was grateful for these renewals, even while wondering whether memories of human goodness rather than thoughts of God had stirred them. His question about when he would behold God’s face keeps desire open and unresolved. The kiss gives that desire a vivid destination, but does not make every stage of spiritual life feel like fulfillment.

This distinction accords with the book’s broader account of mystical life. Prayer, meditation, study, and silence may be practiced regularly, and their cumulative effect may deepen receptivity, but mystical experience is not presented as something that practice can manufacture. The book describes practices ranging from praying The Book of Psalms to silent worship, while also stressing that the experience itself is a gift. These accounts provide a wider context for Bernard’s teaching without making every prayerful or communal experience identical to his kiss: the kiss remains his particular image for the soul’s loving union with Christ, and for a reality that language can approach but not exhaust.