Sermons on the Song of Songs

HOW CHRIST THE BRIDEGROOM INCLINES UNTO AND GIVES ATTENTION TO HIS BRIDE, WHICH IS THE CHURCH; AND HOW SHE LIKEWISE INCLINES UNTO HIM. OF THE CARE WHICH GOD HAS FOR HIS ELECT. ALSO OF THE MERIT AND THE CONFIDENCE OF THE CHURCH.

HEAR now what I reserved from yesterday to say to you; hear the great joy which I have felt. And this joy is yours; hear it, therefore, and rejoice. I have felt it in one word of the Bride, and, after having been, as it were, perfumed with it, I have laid it by with care to share it with you to-day; and that so much the more gladly as the time seems appropriate for so doing. The Bride, then, has spoken, and has said that the Bridegroom inclines unto her. Who, then, is the Bride, and who is the Bridegroom? The Bridegroom is our God; and, if I venture to say so, it is we who are the Bride, with the rest of that multitude of captives whom He knows. Let us rejoice, for this is our glory1; we are among those to whom God gives attention. Yet how great is the disparity between Him and us! What are the children of men, the earth-born, before Him? According to the Prophet, All nations before Him are as nothing; and they are counted to Him less than nothing, and vanity (Is. xl. t 7). What object, then, can there be in a comparison between persons so unequal? Either the one glorifies herself without measure, or the other loves without measure. Is it not a wonderful thing that she should thus claim as her own the attention and interest of her Bridegroom, and say, My Beloved is mine? Nor is she content even with this; she goes on to glorify herself still farther; she replies to Him as equal to equal, and gives assurance to Him in her turn. For she goes on to say, And I am His. An unexampled speech indeed: / am His. Nor is the other assertion less unexampled: My Belated is mine. But the association of the two is still more wonderful than either of them separately.

2. What does not a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned, venture? ' To me/ she says, ' He gives attention.' Is it possible that a Majesty so great, upon which rests the government and administration of the universe, deigns to give attention to her, and that the Eternal God occupies Himself with the affairs, or, rather, the repose, of the affection and the aspirations of the Bride alone? It is evidently so. For she is the Church of the elect, of whom the Apostle says: 1 endure all things for the elect 's sakes (2 Tim. ii. 10; see also 1 Cor. iii. 21). And who can doubt that 'the grace and mercy of God is with His Saints, and that He hath respect unto His chosen ' (W^isd. iv. 15)? We do not, then, deny the providence of God over His other creatures; but the Bride claims for herself His especial care and regard. Doth God take care for oxen t (1 Cor. ix. 9). And there is no doubt that the same question may be asked with respect to horses, and to camels, to elephants, and to all the beasts of the earth; and similarly to the fishes of the sea, and the winged denizens of the air: in short, to everything that is upon the earth, with the sole exception of those beings about whom that declaration was made: Casting all your care upon Him, for He caret h for y&u (1 Pet. v. 10). Does it not seem to you that this is as if the Apostle had said: ' Give attention unto Him, for He attends to you, and has an interest in you '? And notice that the Apostle Peter (for it is he who speaks) observes in his words the same order as does the Bride. For he does not say, Casting all your care upon Him, * in order that

He may care for you/ but * because He careth for you and thereby he plainly shows that the Church of the Saints is not only beloved by God, but was beloved by Him before it had any love for Him at all.

3. It is quite evident that what the Apostle has said with regard to oxen has no reference whatever to the Church, since He who loved her, and gave Himself for her, cannot be said to be without care for her. Is not she that lost sheep in the parable, of which the care took precedence of even that for His flock in heaven? For the Pastor left those other sheep in the wilderness, and came down to earth to care for her; he sought for her diligently, nor when she was found did he even lead her back, but bore her back upon His shoulders; then there was instituted in Heaven a new festival of rejoicings with her and for her, and the peoples of the Angels were invited to the solemnity (Luke xv. 4-7, 10). What then? shall it be said that He has no care for her whom He deigned to carry back upon His own shoulders? She is not, then, deceived when she says: The Lord thinketh upon me (Ps. xl. 17); nor does she mistake when she says also: The Lord will repay for me (Ps. cxxxviii. 8, Douay), and makes any other assertion which marks the care which the Lord has for her. It is for that reason that she calls the Lord of Sabaoth her Beloved, and boasts that He who judges all things with tranquillity (VVisd. xii. 18, Vulg.) gives attention to her. Why should she not boast of this, since she has heard Him saying unto her: Can a woman forget for sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget \ yet will I not forget thee (Is. xlix. 15). Again, the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous (Ps. xxxiv. 15); and what is the Bride, but the assembly of the righteous? What is she, but the generation of them that seek the Lord, who desire to behold the Face of the Bridegroom? For He does not give attention unto her without her rendering, in her turn, attention and devotion unto Him. Wherefore she expresses each of these truths, when she says: My Beloved is mine, and I am His. He is mine, because He is good and merciful; / am His, because I am not ungrateful. He bestows upon me grace from grace, and I render unto Him thanks {gratiam) for His grace; He has care for my deliverance, and I for His honour; He for my salvation, and I for obedience to His will. He has care for me and for no other, because I am His one dove, His undefiled, and I have care for Him and for no other; nor do I give ear to the voice of strangers, nor listen to those who say: Lo, here is Christ; or, lo, He is there (Mark xiii. 21). It is the Church that speaks thus.

4. But what shall we say of each of us individually? Are we to think that there is anyone among us to whom what is said by the Bride is capable of being applied? Anyone, do I say, among us? I should think that there is no one at all among the faithful members of the Church with respect to whom it may not justly be inquired whether the Bride's mystical saying is not realized in some degree in.him. But between a single soul and the mass of souls there is a difference of method. It was not on account of one soul alone that God [the Son] has done and suffered so many things when He performed and accomplished upon the earth the work of our salvation, but on account of a great number of souls which He would unite into one Church, and which would form one only Bride. Each to the other is the dearest of all; she clings to no other Spouse, nor does He give Himself to any other Bride. What may she not expect from a lover who took upon Him an enterprise so great? What may she not hope for from Him who descended from heaven to seek her? Nor has He only sought her, but has found and made her His own with a great price, that is to say, the Blood of the purchaser. Besides, she relies so much the more upon the favour shown to her, inasmuch as, looking onward to the future, she is not ignorant that the Lord hath need of her. To what end do you inquire? It is, says the Psalmist, ' to see the good of His chosen, to rejoice in the gladness of His nation, to glory with His inheritance' (Ps. cvi 5). You will not think that this is a matter of small importance; nay, I say to you that all His works will remain imperfect, if this fail of being attained. Does not the end of all things depend on the state and consummation of the Church? If you take away this, it is in vain that the lower creation awaits the manifestation of the sons of God. If you take away this neither the Patriarchs nor the Prophets will reach their state of perfection, since St. Paul asserts that God has so provided for us that they without us should not be made perfect (Heb. xi. 40). If you take away this, the glory of even the holy Angels will be imperfect by the incompleteness of their number, nor will the City of God rejoice in the integrity of all its parts.

5. Whence, then, shall the design of God be fulfilled, and that great mystery of His mercy be accomplished? Whence shall be given to me those babes and sucklings, out of whose mouth God's praise is perfected? (Ps. viii. 2). Not Heaven, but the Church, has those babes in Christ, to whom the Apostle says, I have fed you with milky and not with meat (1 Cor. iii. 2). And these are invited by the Psalmist to fill up, as it were, the praises of the Lord, saying. Praise the Lordy ye children (Ps. cxiii. 1, Douay). Do you think that our God will receive all the praise which is due to His glory, until the coming of those who shall sing on their own behalf in the presence of the Angels, We have rejoiced for the days in which Them hast humbled us, for the years in which we have seen evils (Ps. xc 1 5, Douay)? This kind of rejoicing the heavens have not known, except through the children of the Church. No one who has never known what it is not to rejoice ever rejoices after this fashion. Great is joy when it succeeds to sorrow, welcome is quiet after labour, the safe harbour after the shipwreck. Security is pleasing to everyone, but most of all to him who has been in fear of danger. Light is agreeable to all, but of especial sweetness to him who is escaping from the power of darkness. To have passed from death unto life doubles the charm of life. This it is that shall be the peculiar zest to me in.

the banquet of heaven, and it will be distinct from that of the heavenly spirits themselves. I venture to assert that the blessed life of heaven itself is without this special blessedness which is mine, unless those whose is that blessed life deign to say that they enjoy it by their charity in me and through me. It seems, in truth, that something is added to the perfection of their joy from me, nor is this addition a small one; for the Angels rejoice at the repentance of a sinner. And if my tears of penitence are to the Angels a source of joy, what must my perfect happiness be to them? Every work of theirs has for its object the praise of God; but there is something wanting to His praise, if there is no one to say, We went through fire and through water, but Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place (Ps. lxvi. 12).

6. The whole state of the Church, then, is happy and blessed, and the thanksgiving and glory which she renders to God is altogether below that which she owes to Him, not only for those benefits which she has already received from His goodness, but for those also which she has still to receive from it. For why should she be anxious with respect to her merits, to whom a stronger and more secure reason for glorying is supplied, in the purpose of God respecting her? God cannot deny Himself, nor does He undo that which He has done; as it is written, Who declares... from ancient times the things that are not yet done (Is. xlvi. 10). He will do them, without doubt; He will do them, nor will He be wanting to His purpose. Thus you ought not now to inquire on what merits we rest the hope of good things, especially when you bear in mind the words of the Prophet: Thus saith t/ie Lord God, I do not this for your sakes... but for Mine Holy Names sake (Ezek. xxxvi. 22). For merit, it suffices to know that our merits are not sufficient; but as it is enough for merit not to presume on merits of one's own, so it is enough for condemnation to be whblly without merits. Even infants, when regenerated in Baptism, are not wholly wanting in merits, but have the merits of Christ, of which, nevertheless, they render, themselves unworthy, if, not through inability, but through neglect, they join to them no merits of their own; and this is, indeed, the peril of those who have reached the age of discretion. Make it, then, your care to have merits, but, having them, know that they have been given to you; hope for the fruit of them from the mercy of God, and you will escape every danger, whether of poverty, of ingratitude, or of presumption. A total want of merits is an injurious poverty, but a mistaken belief in one's wealth of merits is spiritual presumption. And therefore a wise man saith: Give me neither poverty nor riches (Prov. xxx. 8). Happy is the Church to whom neither merits are wanting without presuming, nor presumption without merits. She has ground for presumption, but not upon her merits; and she has merits, but for deserving, not for presuming; and, indeed, not to presume upon anything in herself, is not that very thing to deserve to presume upon her faith? Therefore she presumes the more securely [upon the merits of Christ] that she does not presume [upon her own]; and she has no cause to fear being confounded in that on which she glories, since she has so much ground for glorying; for the mercies of the Lord are many, and His truth endureth for ever.

7. Why should not [the Church] securely glory, since mercy and truth are met together (Ps. lxxxv. 1 1) for a testimony of her glory? Whether, therefore, she says, My Belomd is mine; or, / waited patiently /or the Lord, and Be inclined unto me; or, The Lord thinketh upon me (Ps. xl. 1, 17); or uses other words of a similar kind which appear to express a degree of affection and singular favour with which she is regarded by God, she is enabled to claim all this without fear, since it is the Lord Himself who has given to her the ground for her confident assurance, especially as she sees no other Bride, no other Church, in whom those [prophecies], which must necessarily be fulfilled, can find their fulfilment It is, then, clear that the Church need have no fear to appropriate to herself all these promises. But it is inquired whether it be permissible, also, for an individual soul, however holy and spiritual it be, to venture to attribute them in the same way to itself; for one single soul, however eminent in sanctity it may be, cannot be thought competent to attribute to itself all the prerogatives of that great multitude, faithful and Catholic, on whose account they were instituted. And therefore it would be the more difficult, as I consider, to find a soul (if, indeed, one such could be found) to whom this could be permitted. We will, however, essay this task, but in another discourse; because we do not wish to enter upon the paths of a discussion so intricate, and of which the issue is at present doubtful to us, before we have, in order to obtain the knowledge of that hidden word, lifted up our heart in prayer to Him who 'openeth and no man shutteth' (Rev. iii. 7), to Him who is the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesls •Christ our Lord, who is above all, God blessed for ever. A men.