Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Arise, make haste, My love, My dove, My beautiful one, and come; for winter is now past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have appeared in our land; the time of pruning is come.”

“Arise, make haste, My love, My dove, My beautiful one, and come.” Who is it, my brethren, that speaks thus? Doubtless it is the Bridegroom. But was it not also the Bridegroom who, a short time since, adjured the young maidens so earnestly not to awaken His beloved? Why therefore does He now command her not only to arise, but even to make haste? I have here suggested to my mind the thought of something similar, which is mentioned in the Gospel. On the night when the Lord was betrayed, He said to the disciples who were with Him and were worn out with their long watching, “Sleep ye now, and take your rest,” and yet added immediately, “Rise, let us go: behold he is at hand that will betray Me.” Here, in the same way, He forbids His Spouse to be awakened, and almost at the same moment awakens her Himself, saying, “Arise and come.” What can be the meaning of this sudden change of will or of counsel? Shall we suppose that the Bridegroom is capricious in His purpose, and that what He enjoins at one moment He prohibits at the next? God forbid! But rather see illustrated in this apparent change of mind what, if you recollect, I have commended to your notice before, and indeed more than once, touching the alternation of necessary action and prayerful leisure; and also what I observed about the impossibility of enjoying uninterrupted contemplation and undisturbed rest in the present life, in which external offices and the ministrations of charity have the stronger claim upon us, as yielding more abundant fruit. The Bridegroom, therefore, is acting here in accordance with His wont. When He perceives that His Spouse has enjoyed a little repose on His Bosom, He does not hesitate to invite her forth again to the more fruitful occupations of the active life. Not that she is unwilling to leave her rest. For surely He would not do Himself what He has forbidden to be done, viz., “to make the beloved wake before she please.” But the Bridegroom invites His Spouse when He gives her an attraction that draws her, an attraction to good works, a desire to bring forth fruit unto Him. For to her to live is her Bridegroom and to die gain.

So strong, my brethren, is this desire that it urges her not only to arise but even to arise in haste. And therefore we read, “Arise, make haste, and come.” It is no small consolation for her to hear the word “come” rather than “go.” For thereby she is given to understand that she is not so much sent to labour as led, and that she is to have the company of her Beloved. And what can she find difficult with such a companion? “Set me beside Thee,” cried holy Job, “and let any man’s hand fight against me.” And the Psalmist, “Though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for Thou art with me.” Therefore the Spouse is not awakened against her will, since the will to be awakened has first been excited in her. That is to say, the desire of gaining souls to God has been infused into her heart. Her zeal is also stimulated and her alacrity further enlivened by the Bridegroom’s words concerning the seasonableness of the time. “‘It is time to do,’ O My Spouse,” He says to her, “‘for winter is now past,’ that spiritual winter when no man could work. ‘The rain’ also, which, by the floods and inundations it caused, covered the earth, impeded cultivation, and either prevented the sowing of crops or ruined what was sown, ‘the rain,’ too, I say, has disappeared, it ‘is over and gone’; and ‘the flowers have appeared in our land,’ signifying that the genial spring-time has come, the time most suitable for field-labour, the seed-time of harvests and fruits.” He then goes on to explain what is the work which should first engage her, reminding her that “the time of pruning is come.” She is therefore called forth to the cultivation of the vineyards, which then only will reward the labour expended on them with more abundant fruit, when all sterile branches have been cut off, and all noxious growths cleared away, and whatever is superfluous pared down with the pruning-knife. Thus much for the literal sense.

Let us now consider, my brethren, what spiritual lessons or truths are intended to be conveyed to us by these words, which apparently are but a part of an ordinary human narrative. As regards the vineyards, “I have already told you and you have heard” that they symbolise souls or churches, and there is no need to explain again what you understand sufficiently well. In this place, therefore, the more perfect soul hears herself invited to the work of watching over and correcting and instructing and saving the more weak, provided, however, she has not, by ambitious intrigues, “taken the honour (of the ministry) to herself, but is called to it by God, as Aaron was.” And what is this invitation but the interior impulse of charity, piously urging us to be zealous for our brother’s salvation, to be zealous for the “beauty of God’s house,” to be zealous for the advancement of the interests of His glory, and for the multiplication of the fruits of His justice, and for the honour and praise of His name? As often, then, as he who is charged with the direction of souls, or with the work of preaching, feels himself moved in his interior man by such devout affections towards God, so often he may be perfectly sure that the Bridegroom is present and calling upon him to come forth to the vineyard. And wherefore is he summoned thither except “to root up, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to build, and to plant”?

But because for this work, as indeed for everything else under heaven, all seasons are not equally opportune and suitable, therefore He Who calls His Spouse forth to the vineyard tells her that “the time of pruning is come.” The Apostle was well aware that this season had come when he said, “Behold now is the acceptable time; behold now is the day of salvation, giving no offence to any man that our ministry be not blamed.” He therefore warned his disciples that they should now prune and cut off whatever was vicious and superfluous, and everything that could be an obstacle or a hindrance to the fruit of salvation, because he knew that the time of pruning had arrived. Therefore also he exhorted the faithful vine-dresser, St. Timothy, to “reprove, entreat, rebuke,” for to reprove and to rebuke is to prune and cut away, whilst entreating and planting signify the same. Here the Bridegroom is admonishing us concerning the time for labour by the mouth of St. Paul. But listen to what He says by His own Mouth regarding the observation of the seasons, where, using other words and images, He thus addresses His newly-wed Bride, the Church of the apostles: “Do you not say that there are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh? Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes and see the countries. For they are white already to harvest.” And again, “The harvest indeed is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He send forth labourers into His harvest.” Therefore, just as in the Gospel the Bridegroom points out that the time is at hand for reaping the harvest of souls, so here in the Canticle He reminds His Spouse that the time is come for pruning the spiritual vines, viz., individual souls or particular churches. And perhaps the reason why He varies the simile is to give us to understand that by the harvests is meant the ordinary faithful, and by the vineyards communities of religious persons.