Sermons on the Song of Songs

“The watchmen who kept the city found me.”

We are now, my brethren, at liberty to go on with the interrupted discourse. And first I would remind you that the qualities which I described for you yesterday as belonging to ecclesiastical rulers are not such as we actually see in our spiritual guides, but such as we should like to see. There is indeed a very great difference between the two, the ideal and the actual. For not all those whom you may now behold standing close to the Spouse on her right and left, and who seem, as the saying is, to cleave to her side, are really the friends of the Bridegroom. Very few indeed shall He be able to find “of all them that are dear to Him” who seek not the things that are their own. They love gifts; and having made themselves thus the slaves of mammon, they cannot at the same time love Christ. Observe how they go, all glittering with ornaments and “surrounded with variety,” like a bride coming out of her bridal chamber. Were you suddenly to see one of them moving in the distance, would you not take him to be the Spouse herself rather than one of her keepers? Whence, think you, have they obtained that overflowing abundance of wealth, those splendid garments, that luxury which characterises their tables, that accumulation of vessels of silver and gold? Whence, but from the goods of the Spouse? Therefore it is that she has been left poor and needy and naked, the picture of misery, pallid, unregarded, neglected. Hence we may see that the concern of the Spouse’s present-day keepers is not to adorn but to despise her, not to guard but to make away with her, not to defend but to betray her, not to instruct but to ruin her, not to feed the flock but to slaughter and devour it. It is of such the Lord says in the psalms that they “devour My people as they eat bread”; and, “They have devoured Jacob and laid waste his place”; and by the Prophet Osee, “They shall eat the sins of my people”—which may be paraphrased thus: content with exacting a fine for every sin, they are little solicitous for the conversion of the sinner. Can you show me even one amongst all our spiritual rulers who is not more intent on emptying the purses of his people than on purifying their souls of their vices? Where shall you find the prelate who endeavours by his prayers to appease the divine anger, who preaches “the acceptable year of the Lord”? But these I have mentioned are only their lighter faults: the graver are reserved for a more terrible judgment.

However, there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on their shortcomings, whether heavy or light, because my words cannot reach their ears. And even though what I say were committed to writing, they would probably disdain to read it; or if perchance they did peruse my remarks, they would wax indignant with me, whereas they should in reason be rather incensed against themselves. Let us therefore waste no more time on them who are not the finders but the betrayers of the Spouse. Let us rather turn our attention to those by whom the Spouse acknowledges that she has been found, whose office and ministry without whose zeal these others have inherited, those whom all desire to succeed and but few to imitate. Would to God our modern prelates exhibited the same alacrity in the discharge of their functions as they did when canvassing for their episcopal chairs! Then doubtless they would keep anxious watch and would exercise great solicitude in guarding that Spouse who was found by their predecessors and entrusted to their care. Nay, they would exercise vigilance out of regard for their own interests, and would never suffer it to be said of them, “My friends and My neighbours have drawn near and stood against Me.” Good reason, no doubt, had the Bridegroom for making this complaint, and of none of His “friends and neighbours” could it be more justly made than of the pastors of our own time. It is not enough for these watchmen to neglect the care of their flocks, unless they can also succeed in destroying them. Sunk and buried as they are in the profound sleep of forgetfulness of duty, no thunder-clapping herald of divine vengeance is loud enough to awaken them even to a sense of fear for their own safety. And thus it comes to pass that having no mercy on themselves, they show their people no mercy, so that both shepherd and flock perish miserably together in a common ruin.

But who are those watchmen of the city by whom the Spouse has been found, as she herself confesses? They are the apostles, my brethren, and men of apostolic lives. Verily these are the watchmen who keep the city, that is to say, who keep the Church which is the Spouse whom they have found; and they keep it the more vigilantly at this present time when they behold it exposed to more serious danger from a domestic and internal enemy, as it is written, “A man’s enemies are they of his own household.” For surely they have not abandoned and deprived of their protection her for whose sake they “resisted unto blood,” but rather they continue to defend and guard her by day and by night, that is, in life and after death. And if the death of His saints is precious in the sight of the Lord, as the Psalmist testifies, I make no doubt that their protection of the Church is all the more powerful after death in proportion as “their principality is (more) exceedingly strengthened.”

Perhaps some one will here object and say to me, “Thou speakest of these matters with the same confidence as if thou hadst beheld them with thine own eyes, yet they are altogether beyond the range of mortal vision.” To this I answer, by telling thee that if thou regardest as trustworthy the testimony of thine eyes, “the testimony of God is greater.” Now, here is the testimony of God, “Upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen, all the day and all the night they shall never hold their peace.” But thou mayst reply that these words refer to the angels. I will not contradict, since, as we read, “they are all ministering spirits.” But who shall prevent me from supposing that the same words are equally applicable to the beatified souls of men, which are not now inferior in power to the angels themselves, and at the same time perhaps feel more affection and compassion for us in proportion as they are more united to us by community of nature? Add to this the fact that they have endured the same sufferings and miseries to which they behold us still subjected. And how is it possible that the recollection of having passed through similar tribulations does not excite in those holy souls a more special pity and solicitude in our regard? Is not theirs the voice which we hear in the psalm, saying, “We have passed through fire and water and Thou hast brought us out into a refreshment”? What? They have got safely across, and will they abandon us in the midst of the flames and the billows, without so much as deigning to reach out a helping hand to their perishing children? No, my brethren, the case is not so. It is well with thee, O holy mother Church, it is well with thee in the place of thy banishment, since both heaven and earth stand ready to succour thee. They that guard thee “neither slumber nor sleep.” Thy keepers are the holy angels, thy watchmen are the spirits and souls of the just. Nor are they in error who suppose that thou hast been found by both these orders of blessed spirits, angelic and human, and art likewise guarded by both. Each of the two orders has its own special motive for solicitude concerning thee. The saints are solicitous, because without thee they cannot reach their consummation; the angels are solicitous, because it is only through thee that they shall have restored to them the integrity of their number. For who is not aware that the fall of Satan and his confederates has left a great gap in the ranks of the heavenly host? Consequently both the angels and the saints are dependent on thee for the consummation, the former of their number, the latter of their desire. Recognise thine own voice, therefore, in the psalm, “The just wait for me until Thou reward me.”