"Bernard of Clairvaux, the great spiritual master of the Cistercian tradition, in his basic teaching on love tells us there are four 'degrees' of love. First, there is the love of self. It can be good or bad, ordered or disordered. But a good self-love is an essential foundation. For how else can we love our neighbour as ourselves and how can we love God? Loving ourselves well, we come to love the God who made us and is so good to us, a love of gratitude, a second step in love. Getting to know this wonderfully good God who made us, and all else for us, we begin to love God in God self, for God's sake and not just for our own sake - the third step in love. The final step comes when we come to love even ourselves for God's sake. Drawn up in an intense love of God, we can easily forget ourselves. But we find that God has an intense love for us. And, because we want to be united with God in all, one with God we love ourselves. Bernard says this level of love is rare in this life when we do not yet see God face to face. But as best we can, we do want to love ourselves for God's sake and to see our lives grow in the fruits of the Spirit, to be truly transformed, to evolve to the full potential of our God-given and God-like humanity." Pennington, M. Basil. True Self False Self.New York: Crossroad Publishing., 2000. 19 - 20