Sermons on the Song of Songs

You now understand, my brethren, how these vicissitudes of the Word’s retiring and returning are accomplished in the soul, according to what is written, “I go away, and I come unto you,” also, “A little while and you shall not see Me, and again a little while and you shall see Me.” O little while and little while! Oh, the long, long length of that little while! Sweet Lord, dost Thou call that a little while, the time in which we do not see Thee? Far be it from me to gainsay the word of my Lord, but to my mind it certainly seems a long while, yea a very long while. Nevertheless it may truly be described either as little or as long: it is little for our merits; it is long for our desires. You have all this in the Prophet Habacuc, where he says, “If (He) make any delay, wait for (Him) for He shall surely come and He shall not be slack.” How shall He not be slack if He makes a delay, unless the meaning intended is that the haste which is sufficient for merit is not enough for desire? Now the loving soul is borne on by her feelings; she is drawn forward by her desires; she has no regard to merit; she closes her eyes to her Bridegroom’s Majesty and opens them wide to the delights of His love, “setting them in her Saviour and dealing confidently in Him.” For without the least fear or embarrassment she recalls the Word, and asks with confidence to be again allowed to enjoy the sweetness of His society; and using her wonted liberty she addresses Him not as her Lord, but as her Beloved. “Return, my Beloved,” she cries. Then she goes on, “Be like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of Bethel.” But of this hereafter.

Now, my brethren, I will ask you to “bear with some little of my folly.” I want to explain to you, according to promise, what has been my own experience in this matter. “It is not expedient indeed,” but I will expose myself only for the sake of benefiting you. If what I shall have to say proves helpful to your progress, I shall console myself for my folly; if not, I shall freely acknowledge my imprudence. I confess, therefore, that even to me—“I speak as it were in foolishness”—the Bridegroom has condescended to pay a visit, and indeed not once but many times. But although He has often come into my soul, I have never been able to ascertain the exact moment of His entrance. I have been conscious of His presence within me; I could afterwards recall that He had been present; sometimes I have even had a presentiment of His coming; yet I have never perceived Him either in the act of entering or in the act of retiring. Whence He comes to my soul, and whither He withdraws Himself on leaving me, and by what way He comes in, and by what goes out,—as to all these questions, I am still in ignorance, according to what we read in the Gospel, “Thou knowest not whence He cometh and whither He goeth.” Nor is this surprising, since He is the Same to Whom the Psalmist says, “And Thy footsteps shall not be known.” Certainly He does not enter through the eyes, for He has no colour; nor through the ears, since He makes no sound; nor through the organ of smell, because His mingling is with the mind, not with the atmosphere—He is the Author of the air, not its odour. Neither does He gain admission through the avenue of the mouth, because He is not anything which can be eaten or drunk. The sense of touch is equally powerless to attain to Him, since He is altogether intangible. By what way then, does He enter? Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that He does not enter at all, inasmuch as He is not any one of those things which exist outside us? But neither can He be said to come from within me, because He is good, and “I know there dwelleth not in me that which is good.” I have ascended to what is highest in me, and behold! I have found the Word to be higher still. Influenced by a pious curiosity, I have descended to explore the lowest depths of my being, only to find that He was still deeper down. If I looked to my exterior, I perceived Him beyond what is outermost. And if I turned my gaze inward, I saw Him more interior than what is inmost. Then I realised the truth of what I had read, namely, that “in Him we live and move and be.” But blessed is the soul in which He is also, which lives for Him and is moved by Him.

But then you will ask me how can I even tell that He is present, since “His ways are unsearchable”? I answer that “the Word of God is living and effectual”; and as soon as He enters, He arouses my slumbering soul, moves, softens, and wounds my heart, which before was so hard and stony, so wicked and corrupt. He also begins “to root up and to pull down, to build and to plant,” to irrigate what was dry, to illuminate what was dark, to open what was shut, to heat what was cold, to “make the crooked straight and the rough ways plain,” so that “my soul may bless the Lord, and all that is within me may bless His holy name.” Whenever, therefore, the Divine Bridegroom visits my interior, as He often does, He gives no sign to indicate His entrance, whether by voice, by vision, or by the sound of His footsteps. For it is not to any movements on His part, nor to any activity of my own senses that I am indebted for the knowledge that He has come into my soul. I have been made conscious of His presence from the feelings of my heart, as mentioned already. The expulsion of vices and the repression of carnal affections have revealed to me the might of His virtue. His scrutiny and reproof of my secret sins have filled me with admiration for the profundity of His wisdom. I have experienced His goodness and gentleness in whatever little improvement there has appeared in my life. He has shown me to some extent the “loveliness of His beauty” in the “renewal and reformation of the spirit of my mind,” that is to say, of my interior man. And from the contemplation of all these perfections I have been overwhelmed with awe at the “multitude of His greatness.”

Furthermore, the departure of the Bridegroom has the same effect on such pious dispositions as the removal of the fire from beneath the boiling pot. Immediately all my fervour and devotion begins to relax, to languish, and to cool. It is by this change I come to know that He has withdrawn from me. Thereupon, my soul cannot but be a prey to sadness until He returns. And this shall be a sign to me that He has come back, when I feel my heart once more beginning to burn within me. After having so much experience of the goodness of the Word, is it any wonder, my brethren, if even I appropriated the words of the Spouse, calling on Him to return whenever He retires? For although there is no equality, there is at least some similarity between the desires which animate her and me. So long as I live, it shall be my custom to recall the Word by the word of recalling, which is “Return” (revertere). And as often as He escapes from me, so often will I call Him back. I will not cease to cry after Him, as He goes, with the fervent desire of my heart, calling on him to return and to “restore unto me the joy of His salvation,” to restore unto me Himself. I confess to you, my children, that in the meantime I can take no pleasure in anything else, since I have not Him Who is my only delight. And I beg of Him not to return to me empty, but “full of grace and truth,” according to His custom, and as He has done yesterday and the day before. Herein, as it seems to me, the comparison of the roe and the young hart may be clearly exhibited, because truth has the eyes of the roe, and grace the hart’s vivacity.