SERMON LXI.
HOW THE CHURCH FINDS THE RICHES OF DIVINE MERCY IN THE HOLLOWS OF CHRIST'S OPEN WOUNDS: AND OF THE FORTITUDE OF THE MARTYRS, WHICH THEY HAVE RECEIVED OF CHRIST.
' Arise? my love, my fair one, and come away.' — Cant ii. 13. r I "HE Bridegroom manifests His great affection by repeating the words of affection. For repetition is a sign expressive of affection; and that He again summons His Beloved to labour among the vines, shows how full of solicitude He is for the salvation of souls. That the vines denote souls, you have already heard; nor need I repeat what has been said upon that subject Notice what follows. If I remember rightly, He has never yet clearly named the Bride in all this work except when He leads her to the vineyards, when He brings her near to the wine of charity. When she shall have come thither, when she shall have been perfected, He will make with her a spiritual marriage; and they two shall be, not one flesh, but one spirit, according to the saying of the Apostle: He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit (1 Cor. vi. 17).
2. Then follow the words: O My dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let Me see thy countenance, let Me hear thy voice. He loves, and therefore goes on to speak words of love. He winningly calls her anew His dove; He says that He is hers, and claims her as belonging wholly to Him; it is no longer she who earnestly entreats that He will show Himself unto her, and speak to her; it is now He who in turn begs for these graces. He acts as a bridegroom, but as one who is modest and diffident, who shrinks from exposing himself to public gaze, who determines to enjoy his happiness in retirement, or, as it were, in the clefts of the rock, or in the hollows of the walL Imagine, then, that the Bridegroom speaks thus to His Bride: c Do not fear, My beloved, that the labour upon the vines to which I call you will interfere with or interrupt the enjoyment of our love. There will even be in it some advantage.' This is a kind of trifling founded upon the literal sense of the words. But why do I call it trifling, seeing that there is nothing serious in the literal explanation? The outward appearance of this passage is not worthy of our attention unless the Spirit shall help our infirmity to understand the inward meaning of it Let us not, then, remain outside of this spiritual sense, lest it should seem (which God forbid!) that we desire to refer to what is impure and dis-
THE FORTITUDE OF THE MARTYRS
honourable. Take heed that you bring chaste ears to this discourse of love; and when you think of these two who are its subject, remember always that not a man and a woman are to be thought of, but the Word of God and the devout soul. And if I shall speak of Christ and the Church, the sense is the same, except that under the name of the Church is specified not one soul only, but the unity, or rather the unanimity, of many souls. And do not think that by the clefts of the rock or the hollows of the wall are meant the hidingplaces of those who work iniquity; reject from your minds every thought or suspicion of such works of darkness.
3. Another writer has thus expounded this passage, interpreting the clefts of the rock of the wounds of Christ. And rightly so, for that rock was Christ (1 Cor. x. 4). Precious are those clefts [to us], for they establish the faith of the Resurrection and the Divinity of Christ. My Lord and My God, said an Apostle (John xx. 28). Whence came that assured conviction (praculum), if not from the clefts of the Rock? In these the sparrow hath found an house, and the turtle a nest for herself where s/ie may lay tier young (Ps. lxxxiv. 3); in these the dove finds safety, and regards without fear the hawk that flies around. And therefore He says, My dove that art in the clefts of the rock. While the dove replies: He hath exalted me upon a rock (Ps. xxvii. 5), and again, He hath set my feet upon a rock (Ps. xl. 2). The man who is wise builds his house upon a rock, because there he need fear neither the force of the winds, nor the beating of the waves (Matt. vii. 24). What good does he not find upon that rock? Raised upon it, I stand firmly, and am safe. I am safe from the enemy; I am strong against accident; and all because I am lifted above the earth; for everything that is earthly is uncertain and perishable. Our conversation is in heaven, whence we need not fear ever to fall, nor ever to be cast down. Our rock, then, is in heaven; in it is strength, and on it security. Is it not said that the rock is a refuge for the conies (Ps. civ., 18)? And where, in truth, is there a firm and safe refuge for us who are weak, except in the Wounds of our Saviour? There I dwell with safety so much the greater, as He is so powerful to save. The world rages around me, the body weighs upon me, the devil lays snares for me; but I do not fall, for I am founded upon a firm Rock. Perhaps I have committed some great sin, my conscience is troubled, but I do not despair, because I remember the Wounds of my Lord; for He was wounded for our iniquities (Is. liii. 5). What sin is there so deadly that it may not be remitted through the Death of Christ? If, then, I keep in remembrance a remedy so powerful and efficacious, I cannot be terrified by any disease, however virulent it be.
4. Thus it plainly appears how greatly that man erred who said, My iniquity is greater than I can bear (Gen. iv. 1 3). Except that he was not among the members of Christ, nor did the merits of Christ pertain to him, so that he could have a dependence upon them, or say, as a member asserting an interest in that which belongs to His
Head, that they were His.1 But as for me, that which is wanting in myself I claim with undoubting confidence in the Heart of the Lord, from which all mercy flows; nor is it without clefts through which that mercy flows forth. For [the soldiers] pierced His Hands, and His Feet, and His Side they pierced with a lance; and by these openings it is permitted to me to suck honey from the rock, and oil from the hardest crag; that is to say, to taste and see how sweet the Lord is. He was meditating thoughts of peace, and I knew it not; for who hath known the mind of the Lord; or who hath been His counsellor? But the nails wherewith He was pierced have become for me, as it were, master keys (clavis, clavus\ to open for me the treasury of the Lord's Will. How can I do otherwise than see with clear vision through a cleft so broad? The nails cry aloud, and the wounds cry aloud, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. The sword passed through His soul, and came near to His Heart, that He might so learn to have a fellow feeling with our infirmities. Through the clefts of His Body the secret of His Heart is laid open, and that great mystery of goodness, the lovingkindness and mercy of our God, in which the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, is manifested to our thankful gaze. How can the Lord's wounds do other than exhibit His lovingkindness? and how has it ever shone forth more wondrously, O Lord, sweet and gentle, and of great mercy, than in the cruel wounds which Thou didst endure for our sake? There is no greater proof of compassion and mercy than this, that one should lay down his life for those who were destined and condemned to death.
5. The pitying mercy of the Lord is, then, all my merit I am not altogether destitute of merits, as long as He deigns to have compassion upon me; and they will be increased just in proportion to the greatness of His mercy. What if I feel myself guilty of many offences? Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound (Rom. v. 20). And if the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting (Ps. ciii. 17), I also will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever (Ps. lxxxix. 1). Shall it be my own righteousness that I celebrate? Nay, O Lord; / will make mention of Thy righteousness^ even ef Thine only (Ps. lxxi. 16). For that is mine also, since Thou Thyself hast become my Righteousness. Have I any reason to fear Jest the one righteousness should not suffice for both? It is not like that cloak of which the Prophet speaks, which was so narrow that it could not cover two (Is. xxviii. 20). Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness (Ps. cxix. 142). What is longer than eternity? And Thy Righteousness is eternal; and so ample as amply to cover me equally with Thyself. In me, indeed, it shall cover a multitude of sins; but in Thee, O Lord, what does it cover but the treasures of Thy lovingkindness, the riches of Thy goodness to us? These are the treasures which are laid up for me in the clefts of the rock. Of what great variety of sweetness are these good things, hidden, indeed, now, but only from those who perish! For why is that which is holy given unto dogs, or pearls cast before swine? God has revealed them to us by His Spirit, and has made us enter into His holy things by these open clefts. How great an abundance of sweetness is found in them, what fulness of grace, and what perfection of virtues I
6. I will enter into those storehouses so richly filled, and, according to the counsel of the Prophet, will leave the cities, and dwell in the rock (Jer. xlviii. 28). I will be as it were a dove making her nest in the deepest recess of the cleft, so that, being set with Moses in the cleft of the rock, I may attain to see the Lord at least from behind as He passes by (Exod. xxxiii. 23). For who shall stand before Him and look upon His Face, that is, behold His unchangeable Glory, except he to whom it shall be vouchsafed, to be brought not only into His holy place, but into the Holy of Holies? Nor is that sight of the Lord a small favour, nor to be lightly thought of. Let Herod despise it if he will; as for me, I am far from thinking it a small thing, and the farther, the more despisable it seems to Herod. Even such a sight of the Lord has its own delights. Who knows whether God will not turn, and forgive, and leave behind Him a blessing? A time shall come when He shall show to us the light of His Countenance, and we shall be saved. But in the meantime, may He prevent us {prarvefiiat — go before) with the sweetness of those blessings which He is wont to leave behind Him. Let Him now display to us His condescension, as it were, by a view of Him from behind, and reserve for another time the sight of His Countenance in its Glory. He is exalted high above all in His Kingdom, but upon His Cross He is all sweetness. T^et Him begin with me by the latter vision, and in the other bestow upon me the fulness of joy. Thou shall make me fall of joy, it is said, with Thy Countenance (Acts ii. 28). Each vision is saving, and each is sweet; but the one is in supreme exaltation, the other in humility; the one in Glory, the other in mortal pallor.
7. For, as says the Psalmist of the dove: The hinder parts of her back are covered with the paleness of gold (Ps. lxviii. 14. Douay). He cannot be other than pale in death. But gold, though it be pale, is of more value than yellow and shining brass; so also the foolishness of God is wiser than men (1 Cor. L 25). This gold is the Word, the wisdom of God. This gold has rendered its colour pale, hiding the Form of God, and putting on the form of a servant. From the Church also He has taken her golden brightness, for she says: Look not on me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me (i. 6). Her back, then, also has the paleness of gold; she does not blush at the blackness of the Cross; she does not shudder at the scorching brands of the Saviour's Passion, nor fly from the livid marks of His wounds. She even takes delight in them, and desires that her last end may be like these. It is on that account that the words are spoken which she hears from the Bridegroom: My dove that art in the clefts of tlu rock; because she dedicates herself with single-hearted devotion to the Wounds of Christ, and dwells in them with continual meditation. Thence comes the endurance which does not shrink from martyrdom; thence the complete confidence which she has in the Most High. The martyr can fear nothing who lifts his eyes to that bloodless and livid Face, by whose very paleness he is healed, and who nerves himself to show forth a glorious likeness of his Master's Death, even in the paleness of gold. Why should he fear to whom it is said by the Lord Himself: Let Me see thy countenance! (ii. 14). Why does He say this? I think it is not so much that He desires to see her, as that He desires to be seen by her. For what is there that He does not see? He has no need that anyone should show themselves to Him who sees all things, even though they be hidden. What He desires, then, is to be seen; the Leader full of kindness and bounty desires that the countenance and the eyes of His devoted soldier should be fixed upon His wounds, to draw from them strength and encouragement, and to render him stronger to endure his sufferings, through the power of His Example.
8. In truth, while the martyr is gazing at the Wounds of his Saviour, he will not feel his own. He stands intrepid and triumphant, though his whole body be a mass of wounds; and when the steel gashes his sides, he beholds the sacred blood of martyrdom spout forth from his body, not only bravely, but with gladness. Where, then, is the soul of the martyr? It is in a place of safety; in the Rock, in the Bosom of Jesus, which it enters through the open portal of His Wounds. If it were left to its own sensations only, assuredly the stabbing sword would be seen and felt; the pain would be found unendurable; it would succumb, and deny its Lord. But as it is abiding in the Rock, what wonder if it should endure as a rock endures? Nor if it is an exile from the body, is it wonderful that the pains of the body it does not feel. This is not the consequence of insensibility, but of the force of love. The senses are not lost, though they are controlled. The pain is felt, but the soul rises above it and scorns it. It is then from that Rock comes the fortitude of the martyr, and the power that is in him to drink of the cup of the Lord (Matt. xx. 22, 23). And that cup, so exciting in its passionate glow, how goodly is it! (Ps. xxiii. 5). Goodly, indeed; and that not less to the Leader who is keenly watching the struggle, than to the brave soldier who fights and conquers, for our strength is the joy of the Lord (Neh. viii. 10). How can it be otherwise than that the voice of a martyr's testimony, bravely sustained unto the end, should be to Him a cause of joy, since, in fact, He asks it so earnestly, in the words before us: Let Me hear thy mice. Nor will He delay, in His turn, to repay it according to His promise: Whouh ever, therefore, shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in Heaven (Matt. x. 32). But let me cut short this sermon, for it cannot be finished at this time; and it would be excessively long were I to complete all that remains to be said upon this verse which I have begun to expound. Let me reserve it, therefore, to the beginning of the next sermon; and may all that I say, and the manner in which it is said, be a subject of satisfaction to Him, who is the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ our Ix>rd, who is above all, God blessed for ever. Amen.