Sermons on the Song of Songs

The text continues: “For Thy breasts are better than wine, smelling sweet of the best ointments.” Whose words these are, we are not informed. Hence it is left for the commentator to determine the person to whom they most properly belong. As for me, I think I can see reasons for assigning them either to the Spouse, or to the Bridegroom, or to the friends of the Bridegroom. And, in the first place, I will point out how fitly they may be regarded as coming from the Spouse. Whilst she is conversing with the familiars of her Beloved, lo! He of Whom they speak approaches. For He willingly draws nigh to those who are talking about Him. Such has ever been His custom. Thus, to the disciples journeying to Emmaus and conversing about Jesus, He joined Himself as a pleasant and sociable companion. This is what He promises in the Gospel: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them”; and also by His Prophet: “Before they shall call, I will hear, and whilst yet they are speaking I will hear.” So now He comes uninvited to the Spouse and her companions, and, delighted with their words, anticipates their prayers. I believe, indeed, that sometimes He does not even wait for words, but is drawn to us by our very thoughts. Hence, he who was found “a man according to the heart” of God, tells us that “The Lord hath heard the desire of the poor, Thine Ear hath heard the preparation of their heart.” Do you, therefore, my brethren, watch over yourselves in every place, as knowing yourselves to be ever under the Eye of that God Who “searcheth the hearts and the reins,” “Who hath made the hearts of everyone of” you, Who “understandeth all your works.” The Spouse, accordingly, observing the presence of her Beloved, breaks off abruptly in her speech. She feels ashamed of her presumption in which, as she perceives, she has been discovered by Him. It had seemed to her that the way to compass her design least at variance with the rules of modesty, would be to engage the services of the friends of the Bridegroom and use them as intermediaries. She presently turns to the Bridegroom Himself, and she tries to excuse her presumption as well as she can, saying, “For Thy breasts are better than wine, smelling sweet of the best ointments.” As if she should say, “If I appear to Thee ambitious, the fault lies with Thyself, O my Bridegroom, Who suckled me so condescendingly on the sweetness of Thy Breasts. Thus, all fear being banished rather by Thy love rather than by my temerity, I have been more daring, perhaps, than is expedient. So my imprudence results from mindfulness of Thy love to me and forgetfulness of Thy Majesty.” Let these remarks be understood as merely supplying a context for the words of the Canticle. We have now to see what means this strange commendation of the Bridegroom’s Breasts.

These two Breasts of the Beloved are simply the two proofs He offers us of the benignity of His Nature, in patiently waiting for the sinner’s return to Him, and affectionately receiving the penitent. A twofold sweetness of most delicious savour, I say, exudes from the Breast of the Lord Jesus, namely, long-suffering in expectation and readiness in forgiving. Lest you should consider this but a fancy of my own, I will give you scriptural testimony of it. Concerning long-suffering we read, “Or despisest thou the riches of His goodness and patience and long-suffering?” Again, “Knowest thou not that the benignity of God leadeth thee to penance.” Hence, if He delays long before pronouncing the sentence of punishment against the sinner, the reason is, because He desires rather to bestow the grace of pardon upon the penitent. “For He willeth not the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live.” Let me now give you testimonies regarding the second Breast which I have interpreted to mean facility in pardoning. Concerning it we read, “In whatever hour the sinner shall repent, his sin shall be forgiven him.” Also, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He is bountiful to forgive.” David beautifully comprehends in a few words both these Divine Breasts, where he says that the Lord is “long-suffering and plenteous in mercy.” The Spouse, therefore, acknowledges that, by the experience of this twofold mercy, her confidence has increased to such an extent as to embolden her to ask for a kiss. “What wonder, O my Beloved!” we may fancy her saying, “if I make so bold with Thee after being allowed to draw from Thy Breasts such an abundance of sweetness? So it is no reliance on my own merits, but the sweetness of Thy Breasts that makes me so daring.” Hence, the meaning of the expression, “Thy Breasts are better than wine,” may be understood to be this: “The oil of divine grace that flows from Thy Breasts is more useful to me for my spiritual progress than are the reproofs, wine-like in their pungency, of my human superiors. And not alone are ‘Thy Breasts better than wine,’ but they also ‘smell sweet of the best ointments.’ That is to say, not only dost Thou nourish those who are present with the milk of spiritual sweetness, but Thou dost also shed around them that are absent the sweet odour of a worthy esteem of Thyself, thus ‘having good testimony both from those who are without and from those who are within.’ Thou hast, I say, milk within and ointments without, because unless Thou didst first attract us by the odour of Thy ointments, there would be none to refresh with the sweetness of Thy milk.” As to these ointments, and whether they suggest aught that is deserving of consideration, we shall see afterwards when we come to the verse, “We will run after Thee to the odour of Thy ointments.” Now, according to my promise, let us examine if the same words, which I have just explained as spoken by the Spouse, may not also be ascribed to the Bridegroom.

As she is speaking of her Beloved, suddenly, as I have said, He Himself appears. He complies with her request, and bestows the kiss, thus fulfilling in her regard the word which is written, “Thou hast given” her her “heart’s desire, and hast not withholden from” her “the will of her lips.” The filling of her breasts bears witness to this. So great, my brethren, is the efficacy of this holy kiss, that, directly it is received, it causes the breasts to swell out with an abundance of spiritual milk. Those amongst you who are most given to prayer understand what I am saying from their own experience. How often do we not draw near to the altar with dry and tepid hearts! But whilst we persevere in prayer, suddenly there is an infusion of grace, our hearts swell, our whole interior is deluged with an inundation of piety, and, were there but someone to press, the milk of sweetness engendered would be neither slow nor scanty in coming. Thus, then, the Bridegroom may say to the espoused soul, “Now, My Spouse, thou hast received what thou didst ask for, and the proof of it is this, that thy breasts are become better than wine. From the fulness of thy breasts thou mayst infer that the kiss solicited has been bestowed upon thee. Behold, they are now distended and, in the abundance of milk, made better than the wine of worldly knowledge, which inebriates indeed, but with curiosity, not with charity, filling rather than nourishing, inflating rather than edifying, producing satiety rather than strength.”

Let us next consider the same words as if spoken by the friends of the Bridegroom. “Unreasonably,” they protest, “dost thou, O Spouse, complain of thy Beloved, because what He has already granted thee is of more value than that which thou now requirest. The object of thy present desire will no doubt give thee pleasure. Yet the breasts, from which thou feedest the children of thy womb, are better, that is, are more necessary, than the wine of contemplation for which thou prayest. The latter is the wine that ‘rejoiceth the heart of (the individual) man,’ but the former is the charity that edifies the multitude. If Rachel, that is, the exercises of the contemplative life, be the more fair, Lia, to wit, the active ministry, is the more fruitful. Do not, then, devote too much time to the kisses of contemplation, for better are the breasts of preaching.”