Sermons on the Song of Songs9 Sermon IX

Google did you not entreat with many prayers and tears to be permitted but once to touch his feet? ' I remember it,' she replies. ' Very well, then,' they continue, ' after having obtained that grace and received pardon for your offences in the permission to kiss His Feet, did you not again become impatient; and not content with such a condescension, but desiring still greater favour, you asked with the same eagerness, and obtained the second grace, that you should kiss His Hand, and by that grace have obtained virtues neither few nor small?' ' I do not deny it/ she replies again. But they still continue: ' Were you not accustomed to protest and declare with an oath, that if ever it were granted to you to attain to kiss His Hand, that favour would suffice for you, and that you would ask for nothing more?' 'It was even so.' 'What then? Do you complain that anything has been taken away of what has been bestowed upon you?' 'Nothing.' 'Then, do you fear that you will fall again under condemnation for those offences of your past life which you believed had been pardoned?' ' No, not at all.' 2. ' Come, then, say in what way we can satisfy your need.' ' I shall not be at rest,' she replies, 'unless He complete His goodness to me.' I am thankful that I have been permitted to kiss His _Feet; it is still more a cause of gratitude to me to kiss His Hand; but if He has any care for me at all, let Him grant unto me the third i. ' and crowning grace. I am not ungrateful, but I love. I have received, I confess it, favours which are far above my merits, but yet ' they are far below my desires. It is not reason which bears me on, but the vehement yearning of my soul. Do not, I entreat, complain of my presumption, which is but the effect of my ardent love. It is true that shame would withhold me, but love overcomes shame. I am not unmindful that the King's honour loveth judgment (Ps. xcix. 4), but the violence of love does not wait for judgment; it is not moderated by advice, nor restrained by shame, nor controlled by reason. I beg, I supplicate, I entreat again and again that He grant unto me this my request. Lo, in His grace for many years (waw I strive to live chastely and soberly, I apply myself to reading,; I resist all manner of vices, I occupy myself continually in prayer, I I keep watch against temptations, I reflect upon my past years in bitterness of my soul, I study to conduct myself among my brethren as far as in me lies peacefully and without quarrel, I submit myself to the higher powers, going forth and coming in at the command of my elders; I desire not the goods of any other—on the contrary, I have given up all that I have, and my own self also; in the sweat of my face I eat my bread. But yet I go through all these practices of piety from mere custom, and not for the sweetness felt in them. What else am I, to borrow the language of a Prophet, than as Ephraim, an heifer that is taught to tread out the corn? (Hos. x. n). And is it not said in the Gospel, that he who does only that which it is his duty to do is on unprofitable servant 1 (Luke xvii. 10). I fulfil perhaps my appointed tasks as best I can, but throughout them THE BREASTS OF THE BRIDEGROOM all my soul does not cease to be as a land without water. That my offering may be a perfect one, let Him, I entreat, grant the grace for which I pray.

3. I remember that many of you also were accustomed in their private confessions to complain of a similar languor and dryness of soul, and of a kind of heaviness and stupor of mind which rendered them incapable of entering into high or refined thoughts, so that they felt little sweetness of spirit, or none at all. What do those souls yearn for, if not for this? Yes, they long and sigh for the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding; of understanding that they may reach knowledge; of wisdom that they may love and take delight in that which they grasp with the understanding. I suppose that the Psalmist was referring to this disposition of mind when he uttered the prayer: Let my soul be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips (Ps. lxiii. 5). He sought certainly for this mystical kiss, which, after having spread upon his lips the unction of special grace, should be followed by the effect which in another prayer he asks for: Let my mouth be filled with Thy praise, that may sing of Thy glory and honour all the day long (Ps. lxx. 8). Lastly, when he has tasted that heavenly sweetness, he bursts forth: Oh, how great is Thy goodness, O Lord, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee! (Ps. xxxi. 19). We have, however, lingered over [the explanation of this, yet I have not, I fear, even yet expounded it as it deserves. But let us pass now to the rest, for that great truth is better known by the impression it makes [for itself], than by the expressions which are used of it.

4. The text goes on to say: Thy breasts are better than wine, and their fragrance than the choicest perfumes (Cant. i. 1, 2, Vulg.). Whose are these words, the author does not say, and thus leaves us at liberty to assign them freely to the person they best befit. There seem to me to be reasons for attributing them not unsuitably to the Bride, or to the Bridegroom, or even to the Bridegroom's companions. First I will state those in favour of attributing them to the Bride. While she is conversing with the friends of the Bridegroom, He draws near who is the subject of their discourse. He is wont to approach those willingly who are speaking of Him. It was thus that He joined Himself to those who were going to Emmaus, and discoursing of Him by the way, and to them He showed Himself a pleasant and conversible companion (Luke xxiv. 15). It is this very thing which is promised in the Gospel: Where two or three are gathered together in My Name, there am in the midst of them 1 The monks under the charge of St. Bernard were in the habit of revealing to him their faults of negligence (as the Saint calls them in Sermon I. for the Day of the Circumcision, tt. 5); and they did this in private. Guy, the fifth Prior of the Chartreuse, gives this name to confessions made in private cells; those which were made on Saturday, though in private, he calls common or public. See 4 Life/ Bk. i., n. 28.

a Speeialis. Another reading is spiritualis.

5. Now, let us consider after what manner the breasts of the Bridegroom are thus praised. These are the two evidences of His goodness by nature, that He patiently waits for the sinner, and receives the penitent with clemency. It is the very essence of sweetness, I repeat, that abounds in the Breast of the Lord Jesus, and it is twofold: patience in waiting for the sinner, and freeness in granting pardon to him when penitent. This is not a discovery of my own; you may read of it in the Scripture, as with regard to His patience: Despisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance and longsuffering 1 And again, Knowest thou not that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? (Rom. ii. 4). To this end, indeed, it is that He long suspends the execution of His vengeance against the despisers, in order that He may show the grace of remission to the penitent. For He desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live. Let us give also some examples respecting [what I have called the other breast—that is, of willingness to pardon. Of this you read, In the hour when the sinner shall lament for his sin, it shall be remitted unto him (Ezek. xxxiii. 11, 12); and again, Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon (Is. lv. 7). David sums 1 Dulcedo suavitatis.

The BREASTS OF THE BRIDEGROOM both these attributes beautifully in few words: The Lord is merciful and gracious; slow to anger, andplenteous in mercy (Ps. ciii. 8). It is just because the Spouse has made proof of this double goodness that she is emboldened, as she confesses, even to venture to ask of Him this grace. ' What wonder is it,' she says, ' O my Spouse, if I presume to ask so much of Thee, since I have had experience of such abundance of sweetness from Thy breast? It is the sweetness of Thy breast, not any confidence in my own merits, which encourages me to be so bold in my request.' 6. Of that further saying, Thy Breasts are better than wine, the meaning is this: The unction of grace, which flows from Thy Breasts, is more efficacious to me for my spiritual advancement than the severe reprimand of those set over me. Not only better than wine, but their fragrance than the choicest perfumes, because, not content with nourishing those who are present with the milk of inward sweetness, you sprinkle over those who are absent the pleasant odour of a good reputation, and make them to have a good report both from those who are within and from those who are without. You have, I say, milk within and perfumes without, since there will be none for you to nourish with milk, if you do not first attract them to you by the sweet odour of your perfume. We shall see later on whether those perfumes contain any meaning worthy of consideration when we come to that passage, We will run after the odour of Thy perfumes (i. 3). Now let us consider, as I promised, whether the words which hitherto we have attributed to the Bride have any fitness for the Bridegroom also.

7. The Bride is speaking of the Bridegroom; suddenly, as I have before explained, He is present; He gives assent to her petition; He gives her the embrace asked, and fulfils in her the Scripture, which says: Thou hast given him his heart's desire, and hast not withholden the request of his lips (Ps xxi. 2), of which the fulness of breasts is a witness. For so great is the efficacy of it, that the Bride, on receiving it, becomes fruitful, and thus gives testimony to its power. Those whose desire and endeavour it is to pray frequently, they have made proof of what I say. Often we approach the altar and begin to pray with a heart lukewarm and dry. But if we steadily persist, grace comes suddenly in a flood upon us, our breast grows full of increase, a wave of piety fills our inward heart; and if we press on, the. milk of sweetness conceived in us will spread over us in fruitful flood. The Bridegroom then speaks thus: 'Thou hast, O my Spouse,—' that which thou prayedst for; and this is a sign to thee that thy breasts have become more precious than wine. Thence shalt thou know that thou hast received it because thou hast become fruitful. Therefore have thy breasts filled with abundance of milk better than the wine of worldly knowledge, which inebriates indeed, but with curiosity, not with charity, which fills but does not nourish; which puffs up instead of edifying; which gluts but strengthens not' 8. But, again, let us attribute these words to the attendants. Unjustly it is, they say, that you murmur against the Bridegroom, because Google that which He has already granted to you is of more value than that which you ask for. For that is, indeed, for your own delight and gladness; but the breasts from which you nourish the children you bring forth are better—that is, more necessary, than the wine of contemplation. The one is that which maketh glad the heart of one man alone; but the other that which edifies many. For, although Rachel be the fairer, Leah is the more fruitful. Do not, therefore, linger too much over the sweetness of contemplation, for the fruits of preaching are the better.

9. There occurs to me still another sense, which I had not thought of, but I cannot pass it over. Why should we not say that the words befit those who are as little children, and are the first care, as little children are to their mother or their nurse? For souls still young, as it were, and tender, do not bear patiently to see those whose duty it is to instruct them fully in the faith, and to train them by their own examples, giving themselves wholly to the repose of contemplation. And is it not just such souls as these who become the prey of distress and inquietude of mind at a later time, when they are forbidden with solemn charges to disturb the repose of the Beloved until she please (ii. 7)? Seeing that the Bride sighs for the grace of her Beloved, that she seeks retreat, that she flies from the world, that she avoids crowds, and prefers her own repose to the care which she ought to take of others, they cry, Do not thus, do not thus; for in the helpfulness [of preaching there is more fruit than in all the sweetness [of solitude]: for it is by the former that you deliver us from the desires of the flesh which war against the soul, that you take us from the world and gain us for God. It is this that they express in these words: Thy breasts are better than wine. The spiritual delights which thy breasts distil upon us are better than all the pleasures of the flesh, with which we were formerly enthralled and intoxicated as with wine.

10. It is with great beauty and fitness that they compare carnal desires to wine. For as the grape once pressed has nothing more to yield, but is condemned to lasting dryness, so the flesh, under the pressure of death, is exhausted of all its delights, and never after revives to the enjoyment of its passions. Wherefore the Prophet saith: All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth (Is. xl. 6, 7); and the Apostle: He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption (Gal. vi. 8); and again, Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them (r Cor. vi. 13). But see how that comparison suits, not only the flesh, but also the world. For the world, too, passeth away, and the lust thereof; all things that are in the world have an end, and their end is unending. But not so with those things of which the Breasts are the type. For when they are exhausted they are renewed from the fount of the maternal breast, to nourish those who draw sweetness from them. Rightly, therefore, is it said that the breasts of the Bride are better than the love of the THE THREE SPIRITUAL PERFUMES flesh or of the world, since they are never drawn dry by the number of those who receive of them, but are fed from the deep fount of Charity, and so flow ever new. Truly these streams come forth from the body of Charity, and [in him who receives them become a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John vii. 38 and iv. 14). The praise of them far surpasses that of the choicest perfumes, because they are nourished not only with the taste and the savour of words, but they exhale the sweet fragrance which good deeds send forth. What remains to be said of them, with what milk it is that they are expanding, with what sweet odours they are perfumed, these things I will, Christ helping me, treat of in another sermon. Who with the Father and the Holy Ghost liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end. Amen.