Sermons on the Song of Songs

“My Beloved to me, and I to Him.”

Listen now, my brethren, to what has been held over since yesterday. Be attentive whilst I tell you of the joy which I have found. It is also your joy. Hear me therefore with gladness. I have discovered this joy in a single expression of the Bride’s, and after refreshing myself with its fragrance, so to speak, I have kept it concealed until now, when it shall cause you all the more pleasure in proportion as it is the more seasonably proposed. The Spouse, then, has spoken, and she has declared that her Bridegroom attends to her. But who is this Spouse? And who is this Bridegroom? The Bridegroom, my brethren, is none other than our God. And the Spouse—dare I say it?—the Spouse is ourselves, together with the rest of the multitude of captives, all known to Him. Let us therefore rejoice. “This is our glory,” the consciousness that we are the Spouse to whom God attends. Yet how infinitely great is the distance between Him and us! What are we, “earth-born and the sons of men,” compared to God? In the words of the Prophet Isaias, “All nations are before Him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to Him as nothing and vanity.” What, then, can such a Spouse mean by putting herself on an equality with One so far above her, when she says, “My Beloved to me, and I to Him”? Either she exalts herself extravagantly, or He loves her excessively. What a wonderful thing it is that she should thus claim His attention for herself, as her own exclusive property, as it were, in the words “My Beloved to me”! Nor is she satisfied with so much. She carries her glorying still further and dares to give herself to Him in return, to exchange herself for Him, so to speak, as a thing of equal value! “And I to Him,” she adds. A presumptuous speech, surely, this “and I to Him.” And not less presumptuous that other, “My Beloved to me.” But both together are clearly more presumptuous than either of the two taken singly.

Oh, how great is the daring of a pure heart, of a good conscience, and of a “faith unfeigned”! “He attends to me,” she says. Is it then true that the Divine Majesty, to Whom belongs the government and the administration of the wide world of creatures, gives His whole attention to her? Can it be a fact that the care of the universe is exchanged for the mere intercourse of love, rather say for the repose of love, in order to gratify the desires of the Spouse? Such in truth is the case. For this Spouse is the Church of the elect, whereof the Apostle says, “All things for the sake of the elect.” And who can have any doubt “that the grace of God and His mercy is with His saints, and that He hath respect to His chosen”? I do not, however, deny His providence over His other creatures; but I say that the Spouse claims for herself all His special care and attention. “Doth God take care for oxen”? asks the Apostle. It is manifest that we may say the same of horses, of camels, of elephants, and of all the other beasts of the earth; yea, of all the fishes of the sea, and of all the birds of the air, and finally of everything in the world, those creatures only excepted to whom alone it has been said, “Casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you.” Does it not seem to you, my brethren, as if you heard the admonition, “Attend to Him because He attends to you”? And take notice how the Apostle Peter, to whom belong the words quoted, observes here the same order as the Spouse. For he does not say, “Casting all your care upon Him that He may have care of you,” but, “Casting all your care upon Him because He hath care of you.” Thereby he clearly indicates not alone how dearly beloved is the Church of the saints, but also how she has been prevented by love.

It is therefore evident that what St. Paul interrogatively affirms of the oxen applies not to her. For surely the Lord must have care for her, seeing that He hath loved her and delivered Himself for her. Is she not that wandering sheep the care of which the Good Shepherd preferred even to the care of His heavenly flock? Yea, abandoning these, He descended to earth for her sake; He sought for her diligently; and when at last she was found, He did not lead or drive, but He carried her back to the fold. Next, on account of her and in company with her, He made new feasts of joy in heaven, inviting all the choirs of angels to participate therein. What then? After deigning to bear her back on His own shoulders, will He no longer have care for her? Impossible! Hence she does not hesitate to say, “The Lord is careful for me.” Neither has she any fear lest she should be over-confident in affirming, “The Lord will repay for me,” and using the other similar expressions which seem to signify God’s special solicitude for her. Therefore it is that she calls the Lord of Hosts her Beloved, and glories that He Who “judgeth all things with tranquillity” attends to her. And why should she not glory therein? Has she not heard Him saying to her, “Can a mother forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will I not forget thee”? Besides, it is written, “The eyes of the Lord are upon the just.” But what is the Spouse except the whole assembly of the just? What is she, I ask, but “the generation of them that seek the Lord, of them that seek the face” of the Bridegroom? For it is not the case that He attends to her whilst she does not attend to Him. Therefore she makes explicit reference to the attention on both sides, saying, “My Beloved to me, and I to Him.” As if she should say, “He attends to me, because He is kind and compassionate; and I attend to Him because I am not ungrateful; He renders to me ‘grace for grace,’ and I render back to Him thanks for grace; He attends to my deliverance and I attend to His glory; He attends to my salvation and I attend to His will; He attends to me and to none other, because I am His only dove; and I attend to Him and to none other, because I listen not to the voice of strangers, and I pay no heed to them that say to me, ‘Lo, here is Christ,’ or, ‘Lo, He is there.’” So may the Church apply to herself the words, “My Beloved to me, and I to Him.”