Sermons on the Song of Songs

“He set charity in order in me.”

You are expecting I suppose, that having completed my exposition of the words which formed the text of the last discourse, I shall to-day pass on to the following verse. Yet such is not my intention. I have still the fragments remaining after yesterday’s feast, which I took the trouble to gather up “lest they be lost,” and which I purpose to set before you now. For lost they must certainly be unless they are distributed. What is more, I should lose myself with them, did I attempt to keep them for my own exclusive enjoyment. I have therefore no desire to defraud that insatiable appetite of yours, which I know so well, of these broken meats, especially since they are from the dish of charity, as sweet as they are delicate, and only the more savoury because so small. Were I to act otherwise, I should offend most grievously against charity by neglecting to communicate it to my brethren. And so we shall occupy ourselves to-day with a further consideration of the words of the Spouse, “He set charity in order in me.”

Charity, my brethren, must be exercised in two ways, in action and in affection. Now, in my opinion, the law of charity imposed upon men, and the definite precept, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul, with all thy strength and with all thy mind and thy neighbour as thyself,” concerns not affective but effective or active charity. For who could obey the command if it referred to feeling? We may therefore assume that effective charity is enjoined as the principle of merit, and affective rendered in reward. However, I do not deny that even in this present life we can, by the grace of God, make a beginning and some progress in affective charity; my contention is that its perfection and consummation belong exclusively to the happy life to come. How then, it may be asked, could God have laid upon us an obligation which it is absolutely impossible for us to discharge? Nevertheless, if you still insist that the precept of charity has reference to charity of affection, I shall not quarrel with your conviction, provided you are willing to allow that the commandment has never been and never shall be perfectly fulfilled by any mere mortal. For who would be so presumptuous as to pretend to a perfection which was beyond the reach of St. Paul, as he confesses where he says, “I do not count myself to have apprehended”? The Divine Legislator knew perfectly well that the burden of this law exceeded human strength. But He deemed it profitable for men to be reminded thus of their own insufficiency, and to learn at the same time what is the perfection of justice to which they must strive to approximate by every means in their power. Therefore, in commanding what is impossible He designs to make us humble, not to prove us prevaricators, “that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world be made subject to God, because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before Him.” For, receiving the command, and being conscious of our sinfulness and incapacity, we shall cry aloud to heaven and the Lord God will have mercy on us; and in that day we shall know “that not by the works of justice which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.”

Thus, my brethren, should I speak were we convinced that the charity enjoined is affective charity. But in truth the object of the law appears to be rather effective charity. This becomes the more evident from the fact that after saying, “Love your enemies,” the Lord added immediately, “Do good to them that hate you,” which refers to good works, or to charity in operation. And elsewhere we read, “If thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he be thirsty give him to drink.” Here also, as you perceive, there is question of love not in feeling but in effect. But attend once more to the Lord, where He is laying down the law concerning the love of Himself. “If you love Me,” He says, “keep my commandments.” In this place, again, by enjoining the observance of the commandments, He manifestly directs our attention to the works of charity. But if the love of Him whereof He is speaking, were only a matter of feeling, it would surely be superfluous to make mention of good works. It is in the same way, therefore, we must understand that other precept whereby we are commanded to love our neighbour as ourselves, even though this is not so clearly expressed. And for yourselves, my brethren, do you not consider yourselves to have sufficiently discharged the duty of fraternal charity, when you have fully observed that precept of the natural law, equally binding on every man, “See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to thee by another”; and also this, “All things therefore whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do you also to them”?

But I do not mean to say that we should be devoid of affection, and that with hearts hard and dry we should exercise nothing but our hands in the works of piety. Amongst the other great and grievous crimes with which the Apostle charges the gentiles, I find this also enumerated, that they were “without affection.” Now, there is an affection which is begotten of the flesh; and there is an affection which is obedient to the rule of reason; and there is an affection which is seasoned with the salt of wisdom. The first is that whereof St. Paul declares, “It is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be.” Of the second the same Apostle bears opposite testimony, for it is the affection which “consents to the law (of God) that it is good.” These two, therefore, must differ from each other, since to one and the same law the latter is subject and the former insubordinate. But far removed from either is the last, which tastes and understands “that the Lord is sweet,” thus extinguishing the first and rewarding the second. For the affection of the flesh is pleasant but vile; the rational affection has strength without savour; whilst the affection of wisdom is both unctuous and sweet. Hence it is by the affection of reason that good works are performed; and it is truly a love of charity, not that emotional charity, which, as has been said, is seasoned and enriched with the salt of wisdom, and which replenishes the mind with a “multitude of (God’s) sweetness,” but the charity which I have called effective and operative. This indeed does not as yet delight and refresh the soul with the delicious love just mentioned, but it inflames our hearts with a vehement love of that love. “Let us not love in word nor in tongue,” says the Evangelist, “but in deed and in truth.”