Sermons on the Song of Songs

“The sons of my mother have fought against me.”

“The sons of my mother have fought against me.” Annas, and Caiaphas, and Judas Iscariot were sons of the Synagogue; and these fought most fiercely against the daughter of the Synagogue, that is to say, against the Church, in her very infancy, hanging Jesus, her Founder, on the tree of the cross. For God then fulfilled by their means what He had long before predicted through His Prophet, saying, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed.” And perhaps that is the voice of the infant Church which we hear in the canticle of Ezechias, “My life is cut off as by a weaver; whilst I was yet but beginning He cut me off.” It is, therefore, of those mentioned just now, and of others of the same nation, who are known to have been enemies of the Christian name, that the Spouse here complains, saying, “The sons of my mother have fought against me.” And rightly does she call them the sons of her mother, not the sons of her Father, since they had not God for their father, as the Saviour testifies, but were from their father the devil. For they were murderers, just as he was a murderer from the beginning. Hence, she does not say “my brothers” or “the sons of my Father,” but “The sons of my mother have fought against me.” Otherwise, without this distinction, the Apostle St. Paul might seem to be included amongst those of whom she makes this complaint, since he also once persecuted the Church. Yet he obtained mercy, because he “did it in ignorance,” whilst living in infidelity. And he proved afterwards that he had God for his Father, and thus that he was a brother to the Church, as having the same Father in heaven and the same mother on earth.

But observe, my brethren, how she accuses by name the sons of her mother, and them alone, as if only they are in fault. Yet how much has she not also suffered from aliens! As she says herself by the Prophet David, “Often have they fought against me from my youth”; also, “The wicked have wrought upon my back.” Wherefore, then, dost thou complain of none but the sons of thy mother, knowing, as thou dost, that men of different nations have often persecuted thee? It is written, “When thou art invited to the table of a rich man, consider diligently the things that are laid before thee.” We, my brethren, are seated at the table of Solomon. Who is more wealthy than Solomon? I speak not of earthly riches, although Solomon has an abundance even of these. But I wish you to consider the mystical table now before us, how richly furnished it is with celestial delicacies. Spiritual and divine is the food placed upon it for our use. Hence we read, “consider diligently the things that are laid before thee, knowing that it behoveth thee also to prepare the like.” And so, with all the diligence of which I am capable, I consider what is laid before me and what is meant for my own instruction and admiration in those words of the Spouse. And that which especially arrests my attention is the fact that she mentions expressly and solely the persecutions suffered from those of the household, passing over in silence the others, so numerous and cruel, which, as we know, she has endured from men of every nation under heaven, from infidels, heretics, and schismatics. I am too well acquainted with the prudence of the Spouse to imagine that such an omission is due to chance or forgetfulness. But, evidently, she laments more particularly what affects her more sensibly, and what she desires to put us more on our guard against. What is that, my brethren? It is the plague of internal and domestic dissension. You have this clearly expressed in the Gospel, by the mouth of the Saviour Himself, where He says, “And a man’s enemies shall be they of his own household.” You may read the same in the Psalmist, “The man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who eat my bread, hath greatly supplanted me.” Also, “For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it; and if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden myself from him. But thou, a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar, who didst take sweet meats together with me.” That is to say, “The wrong done me by thee, my friend and companion, causes me more pain and distress than all that I suffer from others.” You know who it is that makes this complaint, and of whom.

Acknowledge, then, that the Spouse is complaining of the sons of her mother, with the same sorrow, because in the same Spirit, as David of Achitophel, when she says, “The sons of my mother have fought against me.” Hence, she elsewhere makes a similar complaint: “My friends and my neighbours have drawn near and stood against me.” Remove far from you, my brethren, this abominable and detestable evil of domestic discord, you who have experienced and do daily experience “how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity,” if yet the union of bodies is accompanied by concord of will, and not by the scandal of dissension. Otherwise, the dwelling together shall neither be “pleasant” nor “good,” but most bitter and evil. But woe to the man by whom the pleasant bond of unity is broken! Assuredly he shall bear the judgment, be he who he may. Rather let me die than hear any of you truthfully exclaiming, “The sons of my mother have fought against me”! Are you not all sons of this congregation, as if of the same mother, and brothers of each other? What, therefore, can disturb you from outside or sadden you, if all be well within, and you enjoy fraternal concord? For “who is it that can hurt you if you be zealous of good?” Wherefore, “be zealous for the better gifts,” that you may prove yourselves zealous of the good.

But charity is of all gifts the most excellent. Surely that gift must be quite incomparable which the Heavenly Bridegroom was so often at pains to recommend to His newly-wed Bride, at one time saying, “By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another”; at another “This is My commandment, that you love one another,” and, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” He also prayed that they might be one, as He and the Father are one. And see if St. Paul, who invites you to “be zealous for the better gifts,” does not give charity the first place amongst all, both when he declares it superior to faith and hope and surpassing knowledge, and when, after enumerating the manifold and wonderful gifts of supernal grace, he directs us to a still more excellent way, which he affirms to be none other than charity. But what can be conceived comparable to that which is to be preferred to martyrdom itself, and to a faith strong enough to move mountains? Therefore, I say to you: have peace amongst yourselves, and then whatever may seem to threaten from outside, it shall have no power to frighten you, because it shall have no power to hurt you. On the other hand, no matter how the world may appear to smile upon us, we shall certainly find in that no consolation, if, at the same time, the seed of discord (from which may God preserve us!) is sprouting in our midst. Therefore, my dearly beloved, be at peace with each other. Let no one injure his brother by word or deed, or by any sign. Let no one, exasperated perhaps and surprised by “pusillanimity of spirit and the storm,” be compelled to appeal to God against those who have offended and saddened him, and to give utterance to that serious accusation, “The sons of my mother have fought against me.”