Sermons on the Song of Songs

My brethren, give me a man who loves God above all and with his whole being, and proportions his love of himself and his neighbour to his own and his neighbour’s love for God; who loves his enemies in the hope that they will at length recover the grace of divine charity; who loves the parents of his flesh with tenderness, by the instinct of nature, and the directors of his spirit with abundance, at the prompting of grace; and whose well-ordered love for God extends itself in the same manner to all the other creatures of God; who despises the earth, keeps his eyes lifted up to heaven, “uses this world as if he used it not,” and by the interior spiritual sense of taste can so distinguish between what is meant to be employed as a means and what must be embraced as an end, that he passes over things transitory in a transitory way, caring only for such of them as are necessary and in so far only as they are necessary, whilst he longs for the things of eternity with an insatiable desire—give me, I say, a man like this, and I will confidently declare him wise with the wisdom which esteems all things at their proper worth, so that he may glory like the Spouse with all justice and security, and may say, “He set charity in order in me.” But where shall we find such a man? Or when shall it be granted us to attain to such perfection? How long, with tears I ask it, how long must the homeland appear to us in the distance, without our being able to reach it? How long shall we sigh and salute it from afar, enjoying its perfumes, but unable to relish its sweetness? O Truth Divine, the exile’s home, and the end of his exile! Already I behold Thee; but, held back by the flesh, I am not able yet to enter Thee. Besides, I do not deserve to be admitted, all covered, as I am, with the soil of my sins. O Wisdom, Who “reachest from end to end mightly” in creating and embracing the universe, “and orderest all things sweetly” in regulating and beautifying our affections, direct our actions, we beseech Thee, according as our temporal necessities demand, and dispose our wills conformably to the requirements of Thy eternal truth, so that each one of us may at last securely glory in Thee, saying with the Spouse, “He set charity in order in me”! For Thou art the “Virtue of God” and the “Wisdom of God,” the Bridegroom of the Church, Christ Jesus Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.