Sermons on the Song of Songs

“Thy name is as oil poured out.”

What, my brethren, is the mystical significance of the number seven occurring in the account of the resuscitation of the child by Eliseus? I do not believe that any of you is so simple as to suppose it to be without some special design and due, as it were, to chance, that the gaping was sevenfold. Nor do I consider that it was without meaning that the Prophet, lying upon the corpse, contracted himself to the dimensions of the child’s body, “and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands.” It is the Holy Ghost Who caused all these things to be so done and recorded, for the enlightenment, no doubt, of those human spirits of ours, which are led astray by the treacherous companionship of a corruptible body, and instructed in folly by the foolish wisdom of this world. “For the corruptible body,” so we read in Wisdom, “is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind that museth upon many things.” Consequently, no one ought to be surprised or impatient if I appear to examine curiously these storehouses of the Holy Spirit, so to call such mysterious narratives, since I know that “man’s life is such, and the life of my spirit in such things as these.” Yet I want to tell those who are gifted with a quick intelligence, and who are longing for the end of every sermon almost before they have heard the beginning, that I am a debtor to the dull, also, and indeed to them especially. My purpose is not so much to comment on words as to move and enkindle hearts. I have to draw the spiritual water from the well and to give it to you to drink, which cannot be done by gliding quickly through my subject, but by careful discussion and frequent exhortation. However, the inquiry into the mystical meanings of my present text has detained us longer than even I had anticipated. I was under the impression, I confess, that one discourse would suffice for this, that we could pass quickly through this dark and pathless forest of allegories, and perhaps in one day’s journey reach the open plain of moral instructions. But it has happened quite otherwise. Two days have we been wandering in the wood and the exit is still a long way off. The eye, contemplating a landscape from afar, takes in at a glance the tops of the trees and the peaks of the mountains. But the wide extent of the low-lying valleys and the dense tangles of brushwood thickets baffle its penetration. How, for example, could I have foreseen the miracle of Eliseus, until, whilst treating of the vocation of the Gentiles, and the rejection of the Jews, it suddenly and unexpectedly crossed my vision? And now that we have stumbled upon it, let us be content to dwell a little on the thoughts it suggests, which will lead us back again to the considerations we are intermitting. For in these thoughts, also, we shall find food for our souls. In the same manner, huntsmen and their hounds desist occasionally from the pursuit of the quarry they had first started, in order to chase another that springs up in their path.

My brethren, I find solid ground for confidence in the thought that this great Prophet, namely, Christ, “a Man mighty in word and work,” descending from the high mountain of heaven, deigned to visit me, “whereas I am but dust and ashes,” to compassionate me as I lay in death, to bend over my prostrate form, to contract and reduce Himself to my diminutive stature, to illumine my blindness with the very light of His Eyes, to cure my dumbness with the kiss of His Mouth, and to strengthen my feeble hands by the touch of His own. I find a sweet consolation in pondering upon these things. They replenish my soul with delight; they enrich my spirit with an abundance of grace; and cause all my bones to break out into praise of my Divine Benefactor. Such a restoration Christ wrought once for all in favour of the whole human race. But each one of us experiences daily in himself a rehearsal of it, when, namely, the light of understanding is imparted to the heart, the word of edification to the mouth, and to the hand the work of justice. For it is He who gives us to think what is true, to speak it to advantage, and to reduce it to practice in our lives. Herein we have a cord of triple strand, difficult to break, for delivering souls out of the devil’s prison, and drawing them after us up into heaven. And the cord I speak of consists in this, that we conceive right sentiments, express them worthily, and prove the sincerity of our faith by conforming our lives to its teaching. With His own Eyes He has touched mine, adorning with the brilliant luminaries of faith and understanding the forehead, so to speak, of the interior man. He has joined His Mouth to mine, impressing the kiss of peace on the lips of the dead; for when we were still sinners, dead to justice, He reconciled us to God. He applied His Mouth to mine, again breathing into my face the breath of life, but of a more holy life than the first. By the first He formed me “into a living soul,” by the second He reformed me into a quickening spirit. He laid His Hands on mine, by giving me the example of good works, the pattern of obedience. Or certainly in that He “put forth His Hands to strong things,” in order to “teach my hands to fight and my fingers to war.”

“And the child gaped seven times.” For the manifestation of the glory of the miracle, it was enough that he should gape once. The multiplicity therefore, and the reiteration until the mystical number seven was reached, point to a mystery. If you now contemplate the huge body of the whole human race, at first, indeed, you behold it altogether devoid of animation, like the corpse of the child. But when the universal Church has been restored to life by contact with the Prophet Who lay upon her, you will see her opening wide her mouth, gaping, as it were, seven times. That is to say, “seven times a day” she is accustomed to give praise to God. If you consider yourselves you may know by this that you are living a spiritual life and fulfilling the mystical number, if you subject the fivefold source of sensation to the two-fold law of charity, and, according to the Apostle, “yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification,” as before you yielded them “to serve iniquity unto iniquity.” Or, otherwise, if you dedicate the same five senses to the work of advancing the salvation of your neighbour, and complete the number seven by adding two exercises relating to God, viz., the praise of His justice and the praise of His mercy.