Sermons on the Song of Songs

Oh, the Synagogue, that senseless Spouse, who, contemning the justice of God, that is to say, the grace of the Bridegroom, wished rather to establish her own justice, refusing “to be subject to the law of God”! For this has she been repudiated, and is now a Spouse no longer. Her place has been given to the Church, to whom it has been said, ‘ “I have espoused thee to Me in faith, I have espoused thee to Me in justice and judgment, and in mercy and in commiserations.’ Thou hast not chosen Me, but it is I Who have chosen thee. Nor have I chosen thee because of any merits which I discovered in thee, but My choice anticipated thy merits. Consequently ‘I have espoused thee to Me in faith,’ and not in ‘the works of the law.’ I have espoused thee to Me in justice,’ but in the justice which is from faith, not from the law. It remains then that thou shouldst judge a righteous judgment between Me and thee, the judgment in which I have espoused thee to Me, and which, as thou knowest, was in nowise due to thy merit, but solely to My good pleasure. Now this is the judgment, that thou shouldst not extol thy merits, that thou shouldst not make a display of the ‘works of the law,’ that thou shouldst not boast of having borne the ‘burden of the day and the heat,’ because, as thou must understand, it is rather in faith and in the justice which is from faith, and in mercy, and in commiseration I have espoused thee to Me.”

She who is the true Spouse will understand aright all these things, and will duly acknowledge both graces, first, the grace which is given first and by which she is prevented, secondly, that which follows and completes. Hence she says here, “My Beloved to me, and I to Him,” attributing to His grace the beginning. In a following passage grace is assigned the consummation, where we find, “I to my Beloved, and my Beloved to me.” Let us now try to ascertain what she means by the words, “My Beloved to me.” If we regard this expression as requiring to be completed by the addition of the verb “attend,” as I have before suggested, and thus, as repeating what the Psalmist says, “With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and He hath attended to me,” then it seems to me that the Spouse is here alluding to something ineffable, some exceedingly great prerogative. But a subject which deserves your best and fullest attention must not be proposed to ears and minds already wearied. If, therefore, you have no objection, let us defer to another time this discussion. But the delay shall not be long. To-morrow I purpose to begin where I now leave off. Only do you pray that I may be preserved in the meantime from the inrush of distracting cares through the grace and mercy of the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.