Sermons on the Song of Songs

You know, O my children, you know how reasonable is my sorrow, how worthy of tears is the loss I have sustained. For you understand how faithful a companion has been taken from my side “in the way in which I was walking.” You know what was his attentiveness to duty, his diligence at work, his sweetness and amiability of character. Who was so indispensable to me? By whom was I so much beloved? He was my brother by blood, but more my brother by religious profession. Oh, pity my lot, you to whom these things are known! I was weak in body, and he supported me. I was pusillanimous, and he encouraged me. I was slothful and negligent, and he spurred me on. I was improvident and forgetful, and he acted as my monitor. Oh, whither hast thou been taken from me? Why hast thou been torn from my arms, “a man of one mind,” “a man according to my heart”? We have loved each other in life, how then is it that we are separated in death? O most cruel divorce, which only death could have power to cause! For when in life wouldst thou have so deserted me? Yes, it is unmistakably the work of death, this most woeful separation. For what but death, that enemy of all things sweet, would not have spared the sweet bond of our mutual love? With good reason is that called death and a double death, which in its rage has slain two in carrying off one. Has not that separation been death to me also? Yea, and especially to me, for whom is preserved a life more bitter than any death. For I live indeed, but only to endure a living death. And shall I call such an existence life? O unfeeling death, how much kinder it had been to deprive me of the possession of life than of its fruit! For life without fruit is worse than death, since we are told that two evils, the axe and the fire, await the tree that bears no fruit. Therefore, through envy of my labours, “thou hast removed far from me my friend and my neighbour,” to whose zeal was mainly due whatever fruit those labours yielded. Hence it were far better for me to have lost my life than thy company, O my brother, who wert the earnest stimulator of my studies in the Lord, my faithful helper, and my prudent counsellor. Why, I ask, have we been so united in brotherly love? Or, so united, why so parted? O most mournful lot! But it is my fate that is pitiable, not his. For thou, sweet brother, if separated from thy dear ones, art now united to others still more dear. But what consolation remains now to wretched me, after losing thee, my only comfort? Our bodily companionship was a source of enjoyment to both of us, on account of the conformity of our wills and sentiments, but I alone have suffered from our separation. The enjoyment was common, but I am left the monopoly of the sadness and the sorrow. “Wrath hath come upon me”; “wrath is strong over me.” Sweet was the presence of each to other, sweet our companionship, sweet our conversation. But whilst I have lost the happiness of us both, thou hast only exchanged it for better. For in this exchange “there is a great reward.”

With what usuary of delights, with what wealth of benedictions, art thou compensated for our absence to-day, O my dearest brother! In return for my company, thou art now enjoying the presence of Christ. Nor canst thou deem it a loss to be separated from us, associated, as thou surely art, to the angelic choirs above. Thou, therefore, hast no cause to complain of thy separation from us, since the Lord of Majesty has so generously admitted thee to the society and fellowship of Himself and of His angels. But what have I obtained in place of thee? How I should like to know what sentiments thou dost now entertain towards me, that “only one” of thine, distraught and overwhelmed as I am with sufferings and solicitudes, and bereft of thee, the staff of my weakness!—if indeed it be permitted to one who has been plunged into the abyss of Light Divine, and submerged in the ocean of everlasting felicity, to concern himself still with his miserable friends on earth. For, although thou didst formerly know us according to the flesh, perhaps now thou dost no longer know us. Perhaps, having “entered into the powers of the Lord,” thou wilt henceforth “be mindful of justice alone,” and forgetful of us. “But he who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit,” and is completely transformed into a sort of divine affection, so that, being filled with God, he can no longer take interest or pleasure in anything but God and in the things in which God takes interest and pleasure. Yet “God is charity,” and the more closely the creature is united to Him, the more full he is of charity. Again, although God is not passible, He is yet compassionate, for to Him “it is proper to have mercy and to spare.” Therefore, must thou, too, dearest brother, be merciful, since thou cleavest to One so merciful, even though misery has now no access to thee. Thou must still feel compassion, though suffer thou canst not. Hence, thy affection, far from failing, has but been transformed. In putting on God, thou has not put off thy care for us, because even “He hath care for us,” as we learn from St. Peter. Thou hast laid aside only thy infirmity, not also thy piety. And as “charity never falleth away,” thou wilt not “forget me unto the end.”