Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines.” This is a moral passage, my brethren. Now I have already shown that, according to the moral signification, these spiritual vineyards are nothing else but spiritual men, everything within whom is cultivated, everything germinating, everything fructifying, everything bringing forth the fruit of salvation. Hence, as the kingdom of God is said to be within us, in the same sense we may say that the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts is within us. For we read in the Gospel that the “kingdom of God shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof.” The fruits referred to are the same which St. Paul enumerates where he says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continence, chastity.” These fruits give the measure of our progress. These are the fruits which the Bridegroom will accept, “for He hath care of us.” “Hath God care of” material vines? No, it is not trees but men that are loved by the Man-God, and He reckons as His fruit our progress in virtue. The season for this fruit He diligently observes; He rejoices when it appears; and after it has come forth, He watches over it anxiously lest we should lose it. I should rather say, lest He should Himself lose it. He identifies Himself with us. Therefore, when He, evidently commands us to catch for Him the wily little foxes, which would otherwise pilfer the budding fruit, He says, “Catch us the little foxes that destroy the vines.” And as if someone were objecting and saying, “Thy fear is premature, because the time for the fruit has not yet come,” He seems to reply, “It is not so, ‘for our vineyard hath flourished.’” After the flowers the fruit makes no delay in appearing. Nay, even whilst the flowers are still falling, it immediately bursts out, immediately begins to show itself.

This, my brethren, is a parable of the present time. Behold our novices. They have come hither only lately; only lately have they been converted. Of them we cannot say that “our vineyard hath flourished,” because it is still in flower. As yet whatever you may observe manifesting itself in them is but a blossom. Their fruiting season has not arrived yet. That beginning of an improvement in their conduct is only a blossom; a blossom too is that recently adopted form of a more regular life. They have assumed a well-disciplined exterior, and everything about their persons is edifying. Outwardly, I acknowledge, they are in all respects pleasing. So far as can be noticed, they are now less particular about the garments which cover their bodies, their words are fewer, their faces more cheerful, their looks more modest, their movements more grave. But inasmuch as all these virtuous manifestations have but lately begun to appear, by reason of their newness they must be reputed as blossoms, rather as the promise of fruit than as the fruit itself. So far as you are concerned, my little children, I have no fear of the wiles of the foxes, because it is not after flowers but after fruit that these animals are known to hunger. The danger for you comes from a different source. What I fear for the flowers is the blight, not the pilfering of the foxes but the blighting of the frost. It is the sharp north wind that makes me anxious about you, and the morning cold; for it is they that are wont to kill the early blossoms and prevent the fruit from appearing. Hence for you, my children, the evil to be dreaded comes not from the foxes but from the north wind. “Who shall stand before the face of his cold?” If once this cold is allowed to invade a soul, whilst the spirit of that soul (as so often happens) is slumbering in a state of tepidity, and if further (which God forbid!) meeting with no resistance, it descends into the interior of the heart and the innermost recesses of the mind, and there freezes the affections, obstructs the paths of counsel, unsteadies the light of judgment, and binds fast the liberty of the spirit: immediately there is manifested in the mind a certain rigidity, such as that which usually appears in the bodies of fever patients; the soul’s vigour relaxes, her energies languish, her horror of austerities increases, her fear of poverty grows more disquieting, she becomes contracted in herself in proportion as grace is withdrawn, a life of penance begins to look unbearably long, reason is lulled to sleep, her vital force is ebbing fast away, first fervour gets cooler and cooler, the weariness of torpor gradually prevails, fraternal charity is growing cold, pleasure entices, a false sense of security deceives, old habits of sin resume their sway. What more shall I say of this unhappy soul? She shuts her eyes to the law, she forswears justice, she renounces the right, and abandons the fear of the Lord. Finally she gives herself up to impudence; she takes that desperate, that shameful, that most disgraceful leap, that leap full of all ignominy and confusion, the leap from on high into the abyss, from the solid pavement to the dunghill, from the throne to the sewer, from the summit of heaven to the sink of earth—the leap from the cloister to the world, from paradise to hell. To trace the origin and source of this monstrous evil, to show by what means it may be avoided or by what virtue overcome, the present is not the proper time for such an undertaking. These questions shall be dealt with in their own place. Let us now proceed with what we have on hand.

I must next direct my remarks to those amongst you who are more advanced and more firmly grounded in virtue, that is, to the vineyard which already “hath flourished,” and which consequently has no longer anything to fear from the cold. Nevertheless, its fruit is not safe from the foxes. It will be necessary to explain more clearly what these spiritual foxes are, why they are called “little,” and why it is expressly enjoined that they be caught, rather than driven away or killed. I shall also be obliged to introduce different pedes of these animals, in order the better to instruct and admonish my hearers; not however in the present germon, lest it should weary you by being unduly prolonged, and that we may preserve the freshness of our levotion in the grace and in the praise of the glory of he great Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, Our lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.