Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Arise, My love, My Spouse, and come; My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall, shew Me thy face, let thy voice sound in My Ears.”

“Arise, My love, My Spouse, and come.” The Bridegroom, my brethren, reveals the greatness of His love by thus repeating these titles of affection. For such repetition is the language of love. And by again inviting His Spouse forth to the labour of the vineyard, He shows His anxious solicitude for the salvation of souls. I have already explained that souls are here designated by the name of vines. But let us not lose time in examining words which have been sufficiently discussed already. Let us pass on to what follows. However, I will first remark that, so far as I can remember, the Bridegroom has not before, in this Canticle, addressed His beloved one by the title of Spouse, but He does so now because she is about to enter the vineyard, and is approaching to the wine of charity. When she attains to this, and has been made perfect, then shall she celebrate her mystical nuptials with Him, then her Beloved and she shall be two, not indeed in one flesh, but in one spirit, according to the testimony of the Apostle, where he says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”

The Bridegroom goes on, “My love in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall, shew Me thy face, let thy voice sound in My Ears.” Because He loves He continues to speak the language of love. For the second time He affectionately calls her a dove, His dove, to signify that she belongs to Him exclusively. And what she has been wont to request so earnestly of Him He now in His turn solicits from her, namely, that she would show Him her face and delight Him with her conversation. He appears here in the character of a shy lover, who, because of his modesty, desires to shun publicity and seeks a sequestered spot for the satisfaction of his affection, such as the “clefts of the rock” or the “hollow places of the wall.” We may therefore fancy the Bridegroom thus addressing His beloved, “Do not be afraid, O My spouse, that the work of looking after the vineyard, to which I am inviting thee, will hinder or interrupt our loving conversation. For that occupation will afford us many opportunities for the intercourse which we both so ardently desire. The vineyard must certainly have an enclosing wall, and the ‘hollow places’ thereof offer welcome trysts to lovers.” Such is the play of the literal sense. Why should I not call it a play, since if we stop at it and go not beyond the surface meaning, it is impossible to discover in these words anything like a serious purpose. Indeed, as they sound on the external ear, they suggest nothing even worthy to be heard, unless the Holy Spirit shall deign to strengthen with His interior light the weakness of our understanding. Therefore lest we should remain outside in the letter, lest, which God forbid! we should seem to be only listening to the arts and blandishments which belong to profane love, let us attend with chaste and sober minds to this discourse on divine charity. And if there should be mention of lovers, think not of male and female, but of the Word and the holy soul, or of Christ and the Church, which is the same thing, except that by the name of the Church is designated not a single soul, but rather the unity, or better still, the unanimity of many souls. Neither should we suppose the “clefts of the rock” and the “hollow places of the wall” to be the coverts of “them that work iniquity,” lest any suspicion should arise in our minds of the works of darkness.

Some one else has expounded this passage in a different sense, interpreting the “clefts of the rock” to mean the Wounds of Christ, which I entirely approve of, since “Christ is the Rock.” O blessed clefts, which fortify our faith in the resurrection and in the Divinity of the Saviour! “My Lord and my God,” exclaimed Thomas the Apostle. But whence did he derive this confession save from the clefts of the Rock? Therein “the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest for herself, where she may lay her young ones.” In them the dove rests secure, and beholds with fearless eye the hungry hawk’s gyrations. Therefore the Bridegroom here calls His Spouse, “My dove in the clefts of the Rock.” And it is the voice of the dove we hear in the psalm saying, “He hath exalted me upon a Rock,” and, “He hath set my feet upon a Rock.” The wise man builds his house upon the Rock, because on such a foundation he shall have nothing to fear from the violence of floods or tempests. What can be found in the Rock except what is most excellent? It lifts me up from the ground, It renders me secure, It affords me firm footing. On the Rock I am safe from my enemies, I am prevented from falling, and that because, standing on the Rock, I am exalted above the earth. For everything on the earth is unstable and insecure. But if “our conversation is in heaven,” then we need have no fear either of falling or of being thrown down. In heaven is the Rock, wherein alone can be found strength and security. “The Rock is a refuge for the irchins,” as the Psalmist says. And in truth where shall the weak find a safe rest or a secure asylum except in the Wounds of the Saviour? There shall I dwell with a confidence proportionate to the greatness of His power to save me. Let the world rage, let the body bear me down, let the devil plot against me: I shall not fall, for I am founded on the Rock. I have sinned most grievously; my conscience is indeed much disquieted, yet is not confounded, because I will call to mind the Wounds of my Saviour. For “He was wounded for our iniquities.” What sin can be so much “unto death” as that it cannot be “loosed” by the death of Christ? Therefore no disease, however desperate, shall have power to drive me to despair, if only I keep in mind so potent and efficacious a remedy.

Cain consequently was in error when he said, “My iniquity is greater than I may deserve pardon”; unless it be that he was not one of Christ’s members, and had no share in Christ’s merits, entitling him to regard them as his own and to call them his own, just as the members can claim as its own what belongs to the head. But as for me, my brethren, whatever I perceive to be wanting, to me I appropriate to myself with all confidence from the Heart of my Lord Jesus. For that Heart overflows with mercy, neither does It want for clefts for the outpouring of Its treasures. They dug His Hands and Feet and opened His Side with a lance. And through these clefts I am permitted to “suck honey out of the Rock, and oil out of the hardest stone.” That is to say, I am enabled to “taste and see that the Lord is sweet.” He was thinking “thoughts of peace” and I knew it not. For “who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor?” But the nail that pierced Him has been for us a key to unlock the mind of the Lord and to expose to our view His secret counsels. Why should I not look through these fissures into the Heart of the Rock? The nails announce to me, the Wounds proclaim to me that “God indeed is in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.” “The iron pierced His Soul” and “His Heart hath drawn near” to us in order that He may no longer be as one “who cannot have compassion on our infirmities.” The secret of His Heart is revealed to us through the clefts of His Body; the “great mystery of godliness” is revealed to us; and revealed also are “the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us.” Surely the Heart of Christ can be seen through the openings of His Wounds. For what can prove to me so clearly as Thy Wounds that Thou, O Lord Jesus, “art sweet and mild and plenteous in mercy”? “Greater (mercy) than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life,” not for his friends, but for his enemies, criminals devoted and doomed to death.