Sermons on the Song of Songs

Would to God I were certain that thou art not lost to me for ever, but only gone on before! Would to God I had assurance that, even though late, yet at length I shall follow thee, whithersoever thou hast gone! I have no doubt at all but that thou art now with those whom, about the middle of thy last night on earth, thou didst invite to praise the Lord, when, with beaming face and exulting voice, to the astonishment of all present, thou didst suddenly cry out in the words of David, “Praise ye the Lord from the heavens; praise ye Him in the high places.” For on thee, brother mine, though it was still midnight, the dawn had then already broken, and thy “night was illuminated as the day.” And assuredly that “night was thy light in thy pleasures.” I was summoned to witness this miracle, the miracle of a man triumphantly awaiting the approach of death and mocking at its terrors. “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” No, it had not any sting of fear or pain for him, but only an impulse to jubilant song. For he sang as he died and he died as he sang. O death, the mother of sorrows, thou art now become a source of joy! Thou, the enemy of glory, art now forced to subserve the interests of glory! The gate of hell, thou art changed to the portal of heaven! The very pit of perdition, thou art made the means of salvation! And all that accomplished by a sinful mortal! Justly indeed, since thou in thy rashness didst impiously usurp dominion over the just and innocent Man. Thou art dead, O death! Thou hast been caught in that Divine Hook Which thou didst so incautiously swallow, and Whose words we read in the Prophet, “O death, I will be thy death; O hell, I will be thy bite.” Pierced, I say, with that Divine Hook, thou dost now afford to the faithful who pass through the midst of thee, a broad and pleasant passage into life. It was through thy open jaws that Gerard entered the fatherland, not alone with confidence, but even with joy and with songs of praise. When, therefore, I had reached his bedside, and had heard him completing the psalm with a clear voice, raising his eyes to heaven, he exclaimed, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Then, repeating the same words, with frequent cries of “Father, Father,” he turned to me, his countenance radiant, and said, “Oh, what a condescension on the part of God to become the Father of men! And what glory to men to be the sons and heirs of God! ‘For if sons, heirs also.’” So sang he, my brethren, whom we now lament. And I confess that the remembrance of this almost changes my mourning into joy, for when I think of his glory, I all but forget my own misery.

But bitter grief recalls me to myself. Anxious solicitude quickly turns away my attention from that consoling vision, as if awakening me from a light slumber. I will weep, therefore, but only for myself, since reason forbids me to weep for him. I believe, if he were now permitted to hold communication with us, that he would say, “Weep not over me, but weep for yourselves.” King David had reason to mourn for his parricidal son, because he knew that for him the exit from the womb of death was for ever blocked by the obstruction of his crime. Good cause had he also to sorrow over Saul and Jonathan, who were both swallowed up together in a common destruction, without any hope of a future deliverance. They shall rise, indeed, but not to life. Or rather, they shall even rise to life, but only in order that, living in everlasting death, they may die the more miserably. Yet I feel some hesitation, and not without cause, about including Jonathan in this sentence of doom. But although I have not the same reasons for my lamentation as King David had for his, I am not in want of others. In the first place I grieve over my own loss and over the loss sustained by the community. I grieve, in the second place, on account of the necessities of the poor, to whom Gerard was as a father. I grieve, thirdly, for the sake of our whole Order and of the religious state in general, which derived no little support and edification from the influence of thy zeal, the counsels of thy wisdom, and the example of thy life, O my brother. I grieve, lastly, although not over thee, dearest Gerard, yet on account of thee. This, this is the cause of my greatest affliction, my passionate love of thee. And let no man be troublesome to me, telling me that I should not allow myself to be so overcome by natural feelings. For the kind-hearted Samuel was permitted to indulge his sorrow over the reprobate King Saul, and the pious David over the treacherous Absalom, and that, without the least prejudice to their faith, or the least opposition to heaven’s appointment. “Absalom, my son!” wailed holy David; “my son, Absalom!” “And behold, a greater than” Absalom “is here.” The Saviour Himself, looking upon Jerusalem, and foreseeing the fate that was soon to befall it, “wept over it.” And shall not I be suffered to feel my own desolation, which is not future but actually present? Must I remain insensible and irresponsive to the smarting of my fresh and grievous wound? Surely I may weep from pain since Jesus wept from compassion. For at the grave of Lazarus He certainly did not reprove the mourners, nor command them to desist; but, on the contrary, He united His own tears with theirs. “And Jesus wept,” says the Evangelist. Those tears of His, most assuredly, betrayed no want of confidence, but only testified to the reality of His Human Nature. For He immediately called upon the dead man, in order to show us that faith suffers no loss from the affection of sorrow.

So neither is my weeping a sign of a weak faith, but only an indication of my condition. From the fact that I cry out with pain on being smitten, it must not be supposed that I blame Him Who smites me. I only appeal to His compassion, and endeavour as best I can to soften His severity. Hence, though my words are full of grief, they are yet free from murmuring. Have I not acknowledged the perfection of His justice Who, by one compendious sentence, assigned to Gerard the reward, and to me the chastisement due to our respective merits? And still I say, the “sweet and righteous Lord” has done well by us both. “Mercy and judgment I will sing to Thee, O Lord.” Let the mercy, which Thou hast shown to Thy servant Gerard, sing to Thee. And let the judgment, under which I groan, sing to Thee also. In the one Thou shalt be praised for Thy goodness, in the other for Thy justice. Or is there praise for goodness only? Yea, and for justice as well. “Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy judgment right.” Gerard Thou gavest, Gerard Thou hast taken away; and if we lament his removal, we do not forget that he was but a loan. So we feel thankful that we were accounted worthy to have him even for a while. And our unwillingness to lose him is proportionate to the need which we had of him.