Sermons on the Song of Songs

Another way of vision is that whereby the fathers were often graciously admitted to delightful familiarity with God as present, although not even they were privileged to see Him as He is in Himself, but only as He condescended to appear. Neither did He show Himself in the same form to all, but, as the Apostle speaks, “at sundry times and in divers manners,” although one in Himself. For “the Lord thy God is one God,” as He Himself said to Israel. This revelation was not indeed common, yet it was made exteriorly, that is to say, through sensible images or spoken words. There is still another mode of contemplating the Divinity, differing from those mentioned, in that it is more interior. In this manifestation, God vouchsafes to visit in person the soul that seeks Him, provided, however, that she devotes herself with all desire and love to this holy quest. And a sign of His coming to us in this manner shall be, as we learn from one who has had the experience, that “A fire shall go before Him and shall burn His enemies round about.” For it is necessary that the ardour of holy desire should go before His Face unto every soul which He intends to visit, in order to burn out the rust of vice and sin and prepare a place for the Lord. And then shall the soul know that “the Lord is nigh,” when she feels herself inflamed with that fire; and she shall exclaim with the Prophet Jeremias, “From above He hath sent fire into my bones and hath chastened me,” or with the Psalmist, “My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire shall flame out.”

When, as sometimes happens, the Object of her desires, so ardently sought after, compassionately reveals Himself to the soul that sighs often, prays unceasingly and afflicts herself in the impatient eagerness of her longing; then, as I think, she will be able, from her own experience, to cry with the Prophet, “Thou art good, O Lord, to them that hope in Thee, to the soul that seeketh Thee.” And the angel guardian of that soul, who is one of the friends of the Bridegroom and by Him deputed to be the minister and witness of this secret and mutual intercourse—Oh! how he exults! How he shares in the joy and the bliss of his protégé! Turning to the Bridegroom, he exclaims, “Thanks to Thee, O Lord of Majesty, because ‘Thou hast given her her heart’s desire, and hast not withholden from her the will of her lips.’” He it is, who, as the solicitous companion of the soul in every place, does not cease to urge her forward and to admonish her with constant suggestions, saying, “Delight in the Lord, and He will give thee the petitions of thy heart”; or, “Expect the Lord and keep His way”; or, “If He make any delay, wait for Him, for He shall surely come and He shall not be slack.” But to the Lord he says, “‘As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so’ does this soul ‘pant after Thee, O God.’ She ‘hath desired Thee in the night,’ and Thy Spirit within her in the morning early hath watched for Thee.” And again, “All the day long has she spread out her hands to Thee. ‘Send her away because she crieth after Thee.’ ‘Return a little’ and ‘be entreated’ in favour of this soul. ‘Look down from heaven, and see, and visit, this desolate one.’” So does this faithful paranymph, who is the confidant, without envy, of the mutual love of the Bridegroom and His Bride, seek not his own but his Master’s interests. He acts as an intermediary between the Spouse and her Beloved, presenting to Him her prayers, and bearing back to her His favours. His exhortations reanimate the Bride, and His intercessions appease the Bridegroom. Sometimes also, although rarely, he actually brings them together into each other’s presence, either snatching her up to Him, or leading Him down to her dwelling. For he is a domestic, a familiar in the palace, having no fear of meeting with a repulse, and daily seeing the “Face of the Father.”

But take care, my brethren, that you do not understand me as conceiving the union between the Word and the faithful soul to be something corporal and perceptible to the sense. I am only speaking the language of St. Paul, who has said that “He who is joined to the Lord is one Spirit.” The ecstatic elevation of the pure soul to God and God’s loving descent to the soul I am trying to describe as well as I can with human words “comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” The union whereof I speak, therefore, is a spiritual union, because “God is a Spirit,” and He desires the beauty of the soul which He observes to be walking in the Spirit, and not “making provision for the flesh in its concupiscences.” More especially if He beholds her inflamed with His love. Such a Spouse, then, so disposed and so beloved, can by no means be content either with that manifestation of her Bridegroom which is given to the many by the things that are made, nor yet with that which is vouchsafed the few in visions and dreams. She will not be satisfied, unless, by a special privilege of grace, He descends into her from the height of heaven so that she may embrace Him with her tenderest and strongest affections, and in the very centre of her heart, and may have thus intimately united to her the Divine Object of her heart’s desire, not in bodily form, but by a spiritual indwelling; not as beheld in vision, but as clasped and clasping in a close embrace of mutual love. Nor does it admit of any doubt that this mode of the divine presence is only all the more delectable for being so interior. For the Word of God is not a sounding but a “piercing” Word, not pronounceable by the tongue, but “efficacious in the mind,” not sensible to the ear, but fascinating to the affections. His Face is not an object possessing beauty of form, but rather is the Source of all beauty and all form. It is not visible to the bodily eye, but rejoices the eye of the heart. And It is pleasing, not because of the harmony of Its colour, but by reason of the ardent love It excites.