Sermons on the Song of Songs

flesh or of the world, since they are never drawn dry by the number of those who receive of them, but are fed from the deep fount of Charity, and so flow ever new. Truly these streams come forth from the body of Charity, and [in him who receives them] become a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John vii. 38 and iv. 14). The praise of them far surpasses that of the choicest perfumes, because they are nourished not only with the taste and the savour of words, but they exhale the sweet fragrance which good deeds send forth. What remains to be said of them, with what milk it is that they are expanding, with what sweet odours they are perfumed, these things I will, Christ helping me, treat of in another sermon. Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

I HAVE neither such depth of knowledge, nor such brilliancy of genius, as to discover of myself anything new. But the mouth of St. Paul is a great and unfailing fountain which is open to us. From him it is that I draw what I am about to say on the subject of the bosom of the Bride, as, indeed, I am accustomed frequently to do. Rejoice, he says, with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep (Rom. xii. 1 5). He here expresses, in a few words, the affections of a mother's heart, because little children cannot either be in pain and grief, or in health and gladness, without the close sympathy of their mother in either case, nor can she fail to feel with them. Thus, following the opinion of St. Paul, I shall assign those two affections to the breasts of the Bride — to the one compassion, to the other congratulation. If it were otherwise, if she had not these as yet — that is, if she had not learned to be quick in congratulating others, nor to be ready to condole with them in their grief — she would be but a child, and not of a marriageable age. If a person of such character as this is taken to discharge the oversight of souls, or to preach, he does not profit others, and to himself he does very great harm. And if he should thrust himself into these ministries, what a shameless action is that!

2. But let us return to these thus typified, to the differences between them, and to the graces they yield. Congratulation pours forth the milk of exhortation, and compassion that of consolation. Our spiritual mother1 feels her pious bosom abundantly supplied from above with both the one and the other of these as often as she is fulfilled with the love of God. You see her occupied in nourishing her little children out of her abundance; to one she gives consolation, to another exhortation, according as each seems to have need. For instance, if she sees that one of her children in the Gospel has been taken unawares by some violent temptation so that he is rendered troubled and sorrowful, doubting and fearful, and is no longer able to bear up against the force of the temptation, how she condoles with him and soothes him! how she sorrows for him and gives him comfort, and finds many a pious reason to enable him to rise out of his state of depression! If, on the contrary, she sees one active, energetic, and making good progress in the spiritual life, she rejoices greatly, she plies him with beneficial advice, she animates him to advance still further, instructs him in that which is requisite to perseverance, and exhorts him so that he may go on from strength to strength. To all she adapts herself, in her own heart she reflects the feelings and the dispositions of all, and, lastly, she shows herself the mother no less of the feeble and failing soul than of the strong and progressive.

3. How many are there at the present day — I mean of those who have taken upon them the cure of souls — who are animated by sentiments the very reverse of these? It is a fact not to be spoken of without groaning and tears; they forge, so to speak, in the furnace of avarice, and make merchandise of, the very instruments of Christ's Passion — the scourge, the spitting, the nails, the lance, and, in fine, the Cross and the Death of Christ They squander all these things for the making of shameful gains; they hasten to huddle into their own pouches the price of the Redemption of the world. The only difference which distinguishes them from Judas Iscariot is that he, for the price of all these things, received but, comparatively speaking, a few pence; while they, with a greed much more insatiable, exact uncounted sums of money as their gains. They have for riches a thirst which is insatiable; well-nigh their sole fear is lest they may lose these; and if they should do so they grieve. Upon the love of them they brood in satisfaction, if, perchance, there be a moment left free from the task of keeping what they have or of gaining more. As for the salvation of souls, or their loss, they think of it not at all. No maternal care for souls assuredly have they who, being too well nourished, having fattened and grown great upon the patrimony of the Crucified, are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph (Amos vi. 6). A true mother is unmistakably to be known (non dissimulat); she is never void of nourishment for her children. She ceases not to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and to weep with them that weep; to press from her bosom the life-giving milk— from that of congratulation the milk of exhortation; from that of compassion, of consolation. I need not say more of these, and of what they contain.

4. I have also to point out what are the perfumes with which the same are fragrant, provided that I am assisted by your prayers, so that by their means that which it is given me to think may also be spoken worthily, and to the profit of my hearers. The perfumes of the Bride differ from those of the Bridegroom, as they are different the one from the other. What was to be said of those of the Bridegroom is contained in a former discourse. Let us consider just now only the perfumes of the Bride; and that with the greater care, been use Scripture commends them particularly to our attention in calling them not only good, but best of all. I mention several kinds, so that out of many those most befitting the Bride may be chosen. There is the perfume of contrition, the perfume of devotion, and that of piety. The first is pungent, and causes pain; the second is soothing, and relieves pain; the third is curative, and removes disease. Now we will speak of these separately.

5. There is, then, a perfume or unguent which the soul — that is, if it be ensnared and entangled with many crimes — compounds for itself, if, when it begins to reflect upon its ways, it collects, heaps together, and pounds in the mortar of conscience its sins of many different kinds, and, putting them into the caldron, as it were, of a heart that heaves and boils [with distress], cooks them together over a kind of fire of grief and repentance, so that the man may be able to say, with the Psalmist: My heart was hot within me: while I was musing the fire burned (Ps. xxxix. 3). Here, then, is one unguent which the sinful soul ought to prepare for itself at the commencement of its conversion, and to apply to its still fresh wounds; for the first sacrifice to be made to God is a troubled and contrite heart (Ps. li. 17). Although the sinner is poor and needy, and therefore unable to compound for himself an unguent better and more valuable, yet let him not neglect to prepare this, though of poor materials and of no value, for a broken and contrite heart God will not despise (ibid.); and it shall appear so much the less vile in the sight of God, as by remembrance of his sins it becomes the more so to the sinner himself.

6. Yet if we say that this invisible and spiritual unguent was designated in type by that visible ointment wherewith the Feet of God manifest in the Flesh were anointed by the woman who was a sinner, we shall not be able to regard it as being altogether worthless. For what do we read of it in the Scripture? That the house was filled with the odour of the ointment (John xii. 3). It was poured by the hands of a sinful woman,1 and poured upon the extremities of the body — that is, upon the feet; yet it was not so vile and so con- temptible that the power and the sweetness of its perfume could not fill the whole house. And if we consider with what fragrance the Church is perfumed by the conversion of one sinner, and how powerful an odour of life unto life each penitent becomes if his repentance is perfect and public, we shall be able to pronounce, without the least doubt, that the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Assuredly the odour of penitence extends even as far as the mansions of the blessed in heaven, so that, as the Truth Himself declares, there is joy among the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth (Luke xv. ro). Rejoice, O penitents; be strengthened, ye that are weak of heart. To you I speak who are but lately converted from the world and from your evil ways, who are feeling the bitterness and confusion of a mind touched with repentance, and in whom the excessive pain of wounds, as it were, yet recent, still throbs and torments. Your hands may with safety drop the bitterness of myrrh into this salutary ointment, for a broken and contrite heart God will not despise. Nor is such an ointment as this to be despised or counted vile, of which the odour not only draws men to conversion, but moves the Angels to joy.

7. Yet there is a perfume as much more precious than this, as the materials of which it is composed are of more excellent kinds. For the materials of the former do not require to be sought from far; we find them without difficulty within ourselves, and in our own little garden-plots gather them easily in great plenty, as often as necessity requires. For who is there who [does not know himself to] have sins and iniquities of his own, enough and too many, always at his hand, unless he desires to deceive himself upon this point? But these are, as you recognise, the materials of the former ointment, which I have described. But as for the sweet spices which compose the second, our earth does not produce them at all; we must seek them in a land very far off. For is not every good gift, and every perfect gift from above, and does it not come down from the Father of Lights? (James i. 17). For this perfume is compounded of the benefits which Divine goodness has bestowed upon the human race. Happy is he who with care and pains collects them for himself, and sets them before the eyes of his mind with acts of thanksgiving proportioned to their greatness. Assuredly when these shall have been bruised and pounded in the mortar of our breast, with the pestle of frequent meditation, then boiled together on the fire of holy desire, and finally enriched with the oil of joy, there will be as the result a perfume far more precious and more excellent than the former. Sufficient as proof of this is the testimony of Him who says: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me (Ps. 1. 23). Nor can we doubt that the remembrance of benefits is an incitement to praise of our benefactor.

8. Furthermore, while Scripture, when speaking of the former, testifies only that it is not despised by God (Ps. 11 17), of this latter it is plain that it is the more commended, in that it is said to glorify God. Besides, the former is poured upon the Lord's Feet; the latter upon His Head. For if in Christ the Head is to be referred to His Divinity, as St. Paul declares the Head of Christ is God (i Cor. xi. 3), then, without doubt, he anoints the Head, who renders thanks; for this is addressed (tangit) to God, not to man. Not that He who is God is not Man also, for God and. Man is one Christ, but because every good gift, even that which is ministered through man, comes from God, not from man. For it is the Spirit which quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing (John vi. 63). And we know that Cursed is the man that trusteth in man (Jer. xvii. 5); although all our hope rests rightly upon Him who is the God-Man, yet this is not because He is Man, but because He is God. Therefore, the former perfume is poured upon His Feet; but this upon His Head, because the humiliation of a contrite heart is befitting to the humility of the flesh, but praise and glory to the [Divine] Majesty. See, then, of what a nature is this perfume which I have been describing to you, with which that Head, so august even to the Principalities and Powers of Heaven, does not disdain to be touched; nay, rather regards it as an honour to Him, as He Himself declares: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me (Ps. L 23).

9. Wherefore it does not belong to him who is poor and needy and of small courage to compound such a perfume as this, inasmuch as it is confidence alone which commands the sweet spices which are its materials, but a confidence which is born of freedom of spirit and purity of heart. For the soul which is of small courage and of little faith is hampered by the consciousness of the little which it possesses; its poverty does not permit it to occupy itself in the praises of God, or in the contemplation of those benefits which produce the praises. And if ever it has the wish to rise to that point, immediately it is recalled to the consciousness of its cares and uneasiness about its necessities at home, and is straitened in itself by the miseries which press it hard. If you ask of me the cause of that misery, I reply that you are, or have been, conscious in your own selves (if I do not mistake) of that which I refer to. It seems to me that this depression of mind and want of joyful trust usually comes from one of two causes. Either, that is to say, it is from newness of conversion, or, especially if the conversion is not recent, from lukewarmness of conduct. Both the one and the other cause humiliates and casts down the conscience, and throws it into trouble and inquietude, since it feels that its former passions are not yet dead in it, either because of the shortness of the time since its conversion, or because of the feebleness and want of zeal in its efforts, and thus it is obliged to occupy itself entirely with rooting up from the garden of the heart the thorns of iniquity and briers of evil desires, nor is it able to divert any thoughts from itself. What then? how can one, who is wearily occupied in sighing and groaning [over such a task as this], at the same time rejoice in the praises of God? How can thanksgiving and the twice of melody », to borrow the phrase of the prophet Isaiah (li. 3), sound forth from the mouth of one that is groaning and lamenting?

For, as the Wise Man teaches us, Music in mourning is a tale out of season (Ecclus. xxiL 6, Vulg.). And the giving of thanks follows the benefit, not precedes it. But the soul that is still in sadness needs to receive the benefit, and does not rejoice in having obtained it. It has a great reason to offer its prayers, but not to offer its thanksgiving. How is it to acknowledge a blessing which it has not, in fact, received? It was correct, therefore, for me to say that it was not the privilege of a soul that is poor and needy and of small courage to compound this precious perfume, which requires to be composed of remembered benefits of God; nor is such a one able to behold the light, as long as its gaze is fixed upon the darkness. For it is in bitterness — the sorrowful remembrance of past sins occupies it; nor can it admit any thought of joy. It is to such that the prophetic spirit bears testimony, saying: // is vain for you to rise up early (Ps. cxxvii. 2); as if he would remind them: It is in vain for you to rise up that you may behold bounties to be a delight to your soul, unless you have first received the light which shall comfort it with regard to the stains of sin which trouble it. This perfume, therefore, is not for the soul which is still in a state of spiritual poverty.

10. But see who they are who may rightly take the glory of having it in abundance. The Apostles departed from the presence of the council^ rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the Name of Jesus (Acts v. 41). Assuredly those men were well filled with that unction of the Spirit, whose cheerfulness did not abandon them, I do not say, because of words, but not even because of blows. They were indeed rich in charity, in whom it was exhausted by no spending, and who were enabled to offer themselves as a complete and worthy burnt sacrifice to God. Their hearts poured forth everywhere that holy unction, with which they had been imbued in plenitude, when they spake in various tongues the wonderful works of God as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts ii. 4, 11). Nor can it be doubted that they abounded in the same perfumes of whom the Apostle thus speaks: I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ: that in everything ye are enriched by Himy in all utterance, and in all knowledge; even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that ye come behind in no gift (1 Cor. i. 4-7). Would that I too might be able to render the same thanksgivings on your account, and to see you rich in virtue, ready and prompt to praise God, and superabounding in this spiritual fatness in Jesus Christ our Lord.