A. Version and Commentary of St. Francis de Sales
Prologue
The Great Solomon describes, with a delicately admirable air, the loves of the Saviour and the devout soul, in this divine work which, for its excellence, is called:
1:1. The Canticle of Canticles
And in order to elevate us more gently to the consideration of the spiritual love which exercises itself between God and us by the correspondence of the movements of our hearts with the inspiration of his divine majesty, it makes use of a perpetual representation of the loves of a chaste shepherd and a modest shepherdess.[1]
The divine lover, gasping a profound sigh, begins by saying:
1:2. Let him kiss me, this dear friend of my soul;
Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth?
See how the soul (in the person of the shepherdess), by the first wish which she expresses, seeks a chaste union with her Bridegroom, how it is the one end to which she aspires and for which she breathes. For, I beg you, what eels can this first sigh mean?
From all time the kiss, as though by natural instinct, has been used to represent perfect love, meaning the union of hearts, and this is not without good reason. We express our passions and the movements which our souls have in common with animals by our eyes, our eyebrows, the forehead, and all the rest of our face. “A man is known by his face,” says the Scripture (Eccl. 19:26), and Aristotle, giving the reason why ordinarily only the appearance of great men is portrayed, says: “It is (so), seeing that the face expresses what we are.”
Yet, we do not pour out our discourse and the thoughts which proceed by reason, by which we are different from animals, except by our words and, consequently, by means of the mouth. Hence, to pour out one’s soul and to lay bare one’s heart means nothing else than to speak. “Pour out your hearts before God,” says Psalm 61:9 meaning, express and pronounce the affections of your heart by words. See the devout mother of Samuel saying her prayers, though so beautifully that one hardly noticed the movement of her lips: “I have laid bare my soul before God” (2 Kings 1).
Thus, when persons kiss, one mouth is applied to the other in order to testify that they would like to pour out reciprocally the souls of one into the other, in order to untie them in a perfect union. For this reason, the kiss has always been the sign of love and dilection.
In this way, this sign was employed universally among the first Christians, as the great St. Paul testifies when he says to the Romans and to the Corinthians: “Greet each other mutually by the holy kiss” (Rom. 16:16; 1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12). And, as many witnessed, Judas, in the capture of Our Lord, used the kiss to make him known, because this Divine Saviour ordinarily used to kiss his disciples when he met them, and not only his disciples, but also the small children whom he used to take up lovingly into his arms, as it was (with) that child by whose comparison he so solemnly invited his disciples to the love of one’s neighbour… (Mk. 9:35-10:16; Mt. 18:1; 26:48).
And so, the kiss thus being the living mark of the union of hearts, the Spouse aspires in all her pursuits to be united with her Beloved; “Let him kiss me,” she says, “with a kiss of his mouth,” as if she, herself, had written:
So many sighs and inflamed arrows
that my love unceasingly casts
will they never obtain for me what my soul desires?
I run, ah, will I never reach the prize for which I fly,
the prize of being united heart to heart, spirit to spirit,
with my God, my Bridegroom, and my Life?
When will this be
that I will pour forth my soul into his heart
and thus, blessedly united,
we will live inseparable?[2]
But is there enough propriety, O beloved of the Beloved, between you and the Bridegroom to arrive at the union which you desire? “Yes,” she says, “give it to me, that kiss of union, O dear friend of my soul…”[3]
Listen to the holy Sulamite. She wants first to kiss her Bridegroom even before having greeted him; nor does she even offer an introduction. But have compassion on her passion; she is transported by love. That is why she excuses herself by saying that the loves stronger than wine have intoxicated her. It is necessary to pardon her if she begins without method, for love has not other (method) than ardour.[4]
1:3. Your loves are better than wine
and more fragrant than perfumes.
Your name, itself, is the perfume poured forth;
the young girls have followed you.
1:4. Draw me in pursuit; we will follow
and will run to the scent of your perfumes.
Alas, O my dear Bridegroom, my friend, draw me, I beg you, and tame me under your arm, because I cannot otherwise go. But if you draw me, we will run: you, aiding me by the scent of your perfumes and I, corresponding by my feeble consent and smelling your sweetness, which reinforce me and reinvigorate me, until the balm of your sacred Name be poured forth in me.
See, she would not pray if she had not been excited, but as soon as she is excited and senses the attractions, she prays that she be drawn. Being drawn, she runs, but she would not run if the perfumes which draw her and by which she is drawn had not revived her heart by their precious scent. And as she runs more quickly and approaches nearer to her heavenly Bridegroom, she senses even more deliciously the sweetness which he pours forth, until at last he, himself, flows into her heart by means of a balm poured forth, so that she, herself, cries out:
O my Bridegroom, you are a Balm
poured into my bosom!
(It is) no wonder
the young souls cherish you so.[5]
Thus, the heart of God will be drawn into ours, and he pours forth there his precious balm. And thus is practised that which the holy Spouse says with such joy:
My king has led me into his dwelling;
We will skip with joy,
And we will rejoice in him and with him,
In the recollection of your loves,
Which are better than wine;
The good (ones) love and esteem you.[6]
When the heavenly Spouse wishes to express the infinite sweetness of the perfumes of her divine Bridegroom, she says:
Your name … is an ointment poured forth,
as if she said:
You are so excellently perfumed
that it seems that you are all perfume…
Thus, the soul which loves God is so transformed in the divine will that it merits being called the divine will, rather than obedient or subject to the divine will, for which God, through Isaiah (62), says that He will call the Christian Church by a New Name, which the mouth of the Lord will name, mark and engrave on the heart of the faithful (ones). After explaining this name, he says that it will be “my-will-in-them,” as if he said: among the true children of the Saviour (there) will be that one leading, reigning and universal will which will animate, govern and direct all hearts.[7]
The Fathers, considering this word of the Canticle of Canticles which the Spouse addresses to her Bridegroom (“let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth”), say that this kiss which she desires so ardently is nothing other than the accomplishment of the mystery of the Incarnation, a kiss so waited and hoped for during so long a continuation of years by all the souls which merit the name of lovers.[8]
At last this kiss, which had been refused and put off for such a long while, was accorded to that sacred Lover, Our Lady, who merits above all others the name of Spouse and Lover, par excellence. It was given to her by her heavenly Bridegroom on the day of the Annunciation … at the very moment when she darted forth that most loving sigh: Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth! It was then that the divine union of the Eternal Word with human nature, represented by the kiss, was made in the sacred womb of the glorious Virgin.
See, by grace, how this divine Lover delicately expresses her lovers:
Let him kiss me, meaning let this Word, which is the Word of the Father going forth from his mouth, come to unite itself to me by the mediation of the Holy Spirit, who is the Eternal Sigh of the Love of the Father toward his Son and of the Son, reciprocally, toward his Father.
But when was that kiss given to this incomparable Spouse? At the very instant when she responded to the Angel that word so desired: Let it be done to me as you say (Lk. 1:38).[9]
Thus, this sacred soul says: Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth, breathing into me the breath of the loving life…[10]
To kiss signifies nothing other than the sweet repose of contemplation, where the soul, by a loving affection disengaged from all the things of the earth, occupies itself in considering and contemplating the beauties of its heavenly Bridegroom, without remembering to assist its neighbour and secure fro him all his necessities; to which the divine Bridegroom, who wishes that Charity be well directed, says:
You desire, my sister, my beloved, that I kiss you with a kiss of my mouth so as to unite yourself to me by contemplation. Truly you are right; what you ask is something very good, very excellent and desirable. But this is not enough, for “your loves are better than wine…”
meaning that it is better to assist your neighbour … then to be always occupied by lofty contemplation, so that sometimes it is necessary to leave one for the other. I am not saying that it would not be necessary to mediate and contemplate at all, O certainly not! But I do say that it is necessary to do one in order to render oneself more capable of the other.[11]
It is true that, by waiting for this great kiss of indissoluble union which we will receive on high in glory, he gives us some of it by a thousand slight sentiments of his agreeable presence, because if the soul were not kissed, it would not be drawn, nor would it run to the scent of the Beloved.
For this reason, according to the simplicity (i.e., original) of the Hebrew text and according to the translation of the Septuagint, she wishes for several kisses: “Let him kiss me,” she says, “with the kisses of his mouth!”
But seeing that these small kisses of the present life correspond entirely to the eternal kiss of the future life, s trials and preparatives and pledges of it, the sacred Vulgate Edition has piously reduced the kisses of Grace to that of Glory, expressing the wish of the heavenly love in this way:
As if she said,
Let him kiss me with a kiss of his mouth! Among all the kisses, among all the favours which the Friend of my heart, or the heart of my Friend, has prepared for me, ah, I neither sigh nor aspire (other) than to that great and solemn nuptial kiss which should last eternally and by comparison to which the other kisses do not merit the name of kisses, since they are rather signs of the future union between my beloved and me and are not the union itself.[12]
First Poem (1:5-2:7)
1:5. O daughters of Jerusalem.
I am black, but I am beautiful,
as the tents of Cedar
and the pavilions of Solomon.
1:6 Pay no attention that I am brown…
The sun has given me the tint which I have…
The sons of my mother have fought against me…
They have employed me to look after the vines.
The vineyard which I have looked after was not mine.[13]
Let us listen, by grace, to this holy Sulamite as she exclaims almost in this way: Although by reason of a thousand considerations which my heart gives me I be more beautiful than the rich tenets of my Solomon, I mean more beautiful than the Sky, which is only an inanimate pavilion of his royal Majesty since I am his beloved pavilion, so I am nevertheless entirely black, torn to pieces, dusty, and entirely disfigured by so many wounds and blows which this very love gives me.
Ah, pay no attention to my tint, for I am truly brown, seeing that my beloved who is my Sun, has beamed the rays of his love on me, rays which illuminate by their light but which, by their ardour, have rendered me burnt and blackish and, affecting me by their splendour, have deprived me of my colour.
Loving passion makes me very blessed by giving me such a Bridegroom, who is my King. But this very passion, which holds the place of a mother to me since she alone has given me in marriage and not my merits, has other children who give me incomparable assaults and trials, reducing me to such languish that although on the one hand, I resemble a Queen who is near her King, on the other hand I am like a vinedresser in a pitiful hut who looks after a vineyard, a vineyard, moreover, which is not his.[14]
Here is this admirable Lover who would like only to love the tastes, delights, virtues and spiritual consolations for fear of being diverted, however little this may be, from the unique love which she bears toward her Beloved, protesting that it is he, himself, and not her benefits, which she searches for and in this intention crying out:
Ah, show me, my Beloved
where you graze and repose at noon[15]
so that I may not stray
and may not follow the flocks of your companions.
She fears not being everything to her sacred Shepherd and of being ever so little diverted by those who wish to becomes his rivals…[16]
Here among the twilights of the dawn of day, we fear that in place of the Bridegroom we will only meet some other object which may talk to us and deceive us. But when we find him on high, where he feeds and reposes in the noontime of his Glory, there will no longer be any way for being mistaken, for his light will be very clear, and his fragrance will bind us so closely to his Goodness that we will no longer able to wish to be detached from it.[17]
1:8 (7) If you still do not have an entire understanding,
O most beautiful of women,
because you are beginning, you proceed from the recollection of past pleasures.
follow the path of your flocks:
look for my footpaths in all creatures. Allow yourself to be guided and led there, where they return (by) themselves, and you will find that they will go to rest in the pasture of their first Shepherd.
Graze your kids
near the lodges of the pastors (shepherds).
You will be led to Three Who Pasture and one Pastor, to Three Who Create and one Creator. All sensible creatures will lead you there and the most noble even better. Above all (will) human nature…[18]
1:9 I have made you similar to my heifer
harnessed to the chariots of the pharaoh.
1:10 Your cheeks are beautiful, as if there were adorned
with some beautiful ornaments;
Your neck is beautiful, as if it was adorned
with some beautiful quiver.
1:11 We will make you some rings
of gold embellished with silver.
Since I can do nothing else, at least I will love you, O my Bridegroom, and will myself be your royal chamber, which I will perfume with nard, meaning I will fill myself with love:
1:12 While my King will be in his chamber,
my perfume, which is composed of nard,
will embalm this entire place
with the fragrance of its scent.
And, moreover, I will unite myself to him in such a way that I will carry him as a bouquet within my bosom:
1:13 My Beloved is the bouquet of myrrh
that I will carry within my bosom.
1:14 My Beloved is to me a cluster of balm
culled from the vines of Engaddi.[19]
One plants the vine principally for the fruit; therefore, the fruit is the first (thing) desired and supposed, even though the leaves and flowers precede the production of it.
Thus, the great Saviour was the First in the divine intention and in that eternal plan which divine Providence made for the production of creatures. And in the contemplation of this desirable fruit, the Vine of the Universe was planted, and (it) established the succession of several generations, in the guise of the leaves and flowers which came to precede it, as forerunners and preparatives suitable to the production of that Grape which the sacred Spouse praises so much in the Canticle of Canticles and (as) the liqueur in which God and men rejoice.[20]
Certainly human lovers occasionally content themselves in being near or in the sight of the person whom they love without speaking and without chatting, apart from themselves, either of her or of her perfections. (They are) gratified, it seems, and satisfied in savouring this beloved Presence, not by any consideration which they might make of it, but by a certain calm and repose which their spirit apprehends in it. “My Beloved is to me a bouquet of myrrh; he will reside in my bosom.” “My Beloved is mine and I am his, who grazes among his lilies while the day breathes in and the shades (of night) lengthen.” “Show me, therefore, O Friend of my soul, where you rest, where you lie down at noontime.”
See, Theotimus, how the holy Sulamite contents herself in knowing that her Beloved is with her, there in her heart, there in her park, there wherever, provided that she knows where he is. Likewise, she is (a) Sulamite, entirely calm, completely tranquil and in repose.[21]
1:15 O how beautiful you are, my Beloved!
See how beautiful you are;
your eyes are like those of the dove.
1:16 O my Beloved, you are fine and of good grace…
Behold, our blossoming bed.[22]
Your heart, it is the bed of the Bridegroom, for which it is necessary to strew it with flowers.[23]
1:17 The beams of our houses are of cedars.
and our rafters are of cyprus (trees)
2:1 I am the flower of the fields
and the lily of the valleys.
2:2 As a lily (is) among thorns,
so is my beloved among the daughters.[24]
The Bridegroom once praised his Spouse (by) saying that she was like a lily among thorns. (Now) she by mutual exchange responds:
2:3 My Beloved is like an apple three among the thickets;
that tree all laden with leaves, flowers and fruits.
I will rest in its shade,
and I will receive the fruits
which will fall into my lap
and will eat them, and having chewed them
I will relish them in my throat,
where I will find them sweet and agreeable.[25]
Having found a good so eminent above every other, she rests there without looking for more: “I have sat down in the shade of him whom I desired.” And in this spiritual repose the taste of devotion is made: “and its fruit is sweet to my palate” and so sweet that it engenders holy manias and furores in my soul, as if it were intoxicated by love.
2:4 He has led me to the cellar of his wine.
He has unfurled to me
the banner of his veritable love.[26]
In this way, if you take notice, … it is not the desire of something absent which wounds the heart, for the soul senses that God is present: “He has already led her into his wine cellar, (and) he has put on her heart the banner of his love.” But, although he may already see it as entirely his, he urges it on (and) darts to it, in time, a thousand arrows of his love, showing it by new means how much more he is lovable than he is loved. And the soul, which does not have enough force to love him s (it has) love to force itself, seeing that its efforts (are) so foolish in comparison to the desire which it has to love worthily Him whom no force can love enough – alas, it senses itself strained by an incomparable torment, for as many flights which it makes to soar higher in its desirable love, … so it receives just as many blows of sorrow … But the sorrow which one receives cannot be lovable, seeing that whoever desires well to love, loves to desire as well and will esteem himself the most miserable in the universe if he would not continually desire to love that which is supremely lovable. Desiring to love, he receives sorrow; but loving to desire, he receives sweetness.[27]
Thus, the heavenly Spouse, sensing herself scarcely conscious among the violent efforts which she made to bless and magnify the Beloved king of her heart, cries to her companions: “Ah … by contemplation the divine Bridegroom has led me into his wine cellars, making me savour the incomparable delicacies of the perfections of his excellence, and I am so diluted and piously intoxicated by the complacence which I have taken in this abyss of beauty that my soul languishes, wounded by a lovingly mortal desire which urges me to praise forever such eminent goodness.”[28]
Alas, I beseech you,
come to the help of my poor heart,
which goes now to die!
2:5 Uphold it, by grace
and support it by all (your) flowers,
otherwise it may fall swooned…[29]
Sensing it happening unexpectedly, and not wishing to sleep elsewhere than in the arms of her Bridegroom, (she) says:
2:6 Let his left hand be under my head
and by his right hand
let him embrace me intimately.
Now sometimes this repose passes quickly in the tranquillity enjoyed by the entire soul and all the powers which reside therein as sleeping. (It passes) without making any movement or action whatsoever, except the will alone, which itself does nothing else except receive the comfort and satisfaction which the Presence of the Beloved gives it.
For which the divine Shepherd
2:7 adjures the daughters of Sion
by the roes and stags of the fields
that they not at all rouse his beloved
until she wish it,
meaning that she awaken (by) herself.
No, the soul thus tranquil in her God will not leave this repose for all the greatest goods in the world.[30]
Second Poem (2:8-3:5)
Now being entirely retires, concentrated, gathered up and collected in itself around its Beloved, whom it senses there … (and) considering the beauty and goodness of this divine object … the soul then contemplates with ardour and a certain fervour, as almost in eagerness, which stirs the entire soul to press and urge itself around its Beloved, as would a spouse who would unexpectedly have found in her bedroom her bridegroom, returned from some long voyage. O God, how she will be moved! What a loving welcome! What eagerness of caresses, without order or method, because love, surprised by such great contentment, ordinarily loses countenance and seems somewhat beyond itself.
Such was the holy Sulamite in the beginning of her passions; she wishes with an admirable eagerness that he kiss her, that he embalms her by his Name, that he binds her with his perfumes, (and) that he leads her to his wine cellars.
And another time, O God, such agitation of heart does she witness:
2:8 I listen… for the voice of my Beloved;
behold him who comes here,
2:9 leaping over mountains, going beyond the hills.
He is similar to a roe and a small stag.
Behold him who is behind our wall;
he looks in by the windows;
he lies in wait by the lattice.
2:10 Ah, behold him, this Beloved who speaks to me.
See how she brims over in a variety of affections – the voice of my beloved, he is in the mountains, he passes by the hills, he is here in our walls, he is in the windows, he looks in, ah, behold he speaks to me! Behold well, O holy Sulamite, the concerns in a single movement. It is fervour which the meeting of the Beloved excites in us.[31]
See this divine Lover at the door. He does not simply knock; he remains knocking. He calls the soul:
Courage, get up, … hurry…[32]
come forth from yourself; take flight towards me,
my dove, my very beautiful (one)
in this heavenly sojourn,
where all things are joyful
and breathe only praise and blessings.
2:11 Everything blossoms there;
everything pours forth sweetness and perfume;
2:12 The turtle-doves,
which are the most sombre of all birds,
nevertheless resonate there their chirping.
2:13 Come, my all dearly beloved,
and in order to see me more clearly,
come and consider my heart
2:14 in the cavern of the opening of my side,
which was made when my body,
like a house reduced to a hovel,
was so pitifully demolished on the tree of the cross.
Come, show me your face.
Ah, I see it now without your showing it to me.
But then I will see it, and you will show it to me,
for you will see that I see you.
Let me hear your voice,
for I wish to join it with mine.
Thus your appearance will be beautiful
and your voice very agreeable.[33]
But so that one may know that the doves do not make their cooing only on occasions of distress, but also on those of love and joy, the sacred Bridegroom, describing the natural springtime in order to express the graces of the spiritual springtime, says: “the voice… of the turtledove has been heard on our earth,” because in springtime the turtle-dove begins to excite itself with love, to which it testifies by its chirping, which it pours forth more frequently. And soon after, he adds: “My dove, show me your appearance; let your voice resonate in my ears, for your voice is sweet and your face very much becoming and gracious.”[34]
2:15 Catch those small fox cubs
which are rummaging (about)
and damaging the vines,
for our vineyard is blooming.[35]
Seize those small fox cubs, he says in the Canticle, for are they demolishing the vines. Such small gallantries are fox cubs which one hardly sees; they are suitable for lurking about because they are small. They will intrude insensibly through the hedgerow of our resolutions, but they do not make a great havoc on account of the little bit of entry (which) one gives them. The true mark of these fox cubs is that they would like neither to speak not to do that which they say and would like that it be known by anyone. They search for darkness and flee the day.[36]
2:16 My dear friend is everything to me,
and I am everything to him.[37]
Lovers always look to speak secretly, although what they have to say are not secrets or things which merit being taken for such.
The faithful friend tries by all possible means to meet everywhere her dear Beloved, in order to shoot forth into his heart some arrows of her loving passion and render to him some small testimony of her love, thought it could be only the ability to say to him:
You are all mine, and I am all yours.
My Beloved is mine, and I am His,
2:17 who grazes among the lilies
as long as the day lasts
and until the shades (of night) descend.[38]
Return, my Beloved,
and be similar to a roe or to a stag’s fawn
on the mountains of Bether.
3:1 (At) night, in my bed,
I have looked for Him whom my soul loves,
and I have not found him.
3:2 I will arise and will go round the city of this world,
and running, sometimes by the earthly bodies,
sometimes by the heavenly,
I have looked for him, and I have not found him…
On the streets and in the squares I will look
for Him whom my heart loves.
I have looked for him,
and I have not at all found him.[39]
When the soul which is so possessed by this holy affection meets creatures, however excellent they may be, and indeed even when they would be Angels, it does not at all stop for them, except as far as is necessary in order to be aided and helped in its desire:
Tell me, therefore, she says to them,
tell me, I implore you,
have you not at all seen
Him who is the Friend of my soul?[40]
My happiness has wished that I remember the Angels who are like the sentinels of the world:
3:3 The sentinels who guard the city have found me,
and (I) resolved to see if in them I will find the consideration of God more enclosed:
Have you not at all seen the Beloved of my soul?
Beyond the angelic nature, I immediately found the divine:
3:4 A little after having passed them,
I found Him whom my soul loves.[41]
Thus, our heart, by a profound and secret instinct, tends towards and aspires to happiness in all its actions and goes looking for it here and there, although gropingly, without knowing, nevertheless, either where it resides or in what it consists, until Faith reveals it by describing its infinite marvels. And then, having found the treasure which it was looking for, alas, what contentment, what joy, what complacence does this poor human heart have!
Ah, I have found him who my soul was looking for without knowing him. I have finally found him, she says[42], Him whom my soul cherishes;
I take hold of him, and I will not at all leave him, until I am introduced to him in the house of my mother, in the bedroom of her who has begotten me.
Therefore, she finds this Beloved, for he makes her feel his Presence by a thousand considerations. She holds him, for this sentiment produces strong affections by which she presses him and embraces him. She protests that she will never leave him, O no, because those affections become eternal resolutions. Yet, nevertheless, she does not think to kiss him with the nuptial kiss until she is with him in the house of her mother, which is the heavenly Jerusalem (Gal. 4:26).
But see, Theotimus, that she thinks of nothing less, this Spouse, than of holding her Beloved at her mercy as a slave of love, for which she imagines that it is hers to lead him in her pleasure and to introduce him to the fortunate abode of her mother where, nevertheless, she will herself be introduced by him…
The eager spirit of loving passion always gives itself a little further to the one whom it loves, and the Bridegroom, himself, confesses that his Beloved has ravished his heart, having bound it by a single hair of her head, (thereby) acknowledging himself her prisoner of love.[43]
She had conceived (of) Him who, being all love, had produced love itself in such a way that one can apply to him, better than to any other, those words of the Canticle of Canticles when the sacred Bridegroom, contemplating his Beloved in her sweet repose, was seized by a holy complacence which made him adjure the daughters of Jerusalem not to waken her at all, saying:
Daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you,
by the deer and the goats of the fields,
not at all to waken my beloved,
who is my love;
let her will or desire it.
Or, rather, according to another version (Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic):
Daughters of Jerusalem,
I adjure you not to arouse
dilection and love itself;
let her will it.
And this dilection and love is my beloved, meaning the sacred Virgin, who not only has love, but is love, itself.[44]
Thus, after having heard all the praises which so many different creatures, in envy of one another, render unanimously to the Creator, when at last one listens to that of the Saviour one finds there a certain infinity of merit, of value, (and) of gentleness which surmounts all hope and expectation of the heart. Then the soul, as aroused from a profound sleep and suddenly ravished by the extremity of the sweetness of such (a) melody, cries out: Ah, I listen to him, O the voice of my Beloved, the queen voice of all voices, the voice in comparison with which the other voices are only a mute and mournful silence.
See how this dear Friend soars up: “Behold him who comes, leaping over the highest mountains, passing beyond the hills.” His voice resounds above the Seraphim and all creatures.
He has the sight of the roe in order to penetrate farther than any other into the beauty of the sacred object which he wishes to praise. He loves the melody of the glory and praise of his Father more than all; that is why he offers bounds of praises and blessings above everything.
Consider, behold it, this divine love of the Beloved, as it is behind the wall of his humanity. See how he shows a glimpse of himself through the wounds of his body and the opening in his side, as through windows and a lattice through which he looks at us.
Yes, certainly, Theotimus, the divine love seated in the heart of the Saviour as on his royal throne looks, by the cleft of his side, at all the hearts of the children of men, for this heart, being the King of hearts, always holds his eyes upon their hearts.
But (just) as those who look through lattices see but are only imperfectly seen, so the divine love of this heart, or rather the heart of this divine love, always sees ours closely and looks on them with the eyes of his dilection. But we do not see him, however; we only catch a glimpse of him. For, O God, if we would see him as he is, we would die of love for Him, since we are mortals, as he himself, dies for us while he was mortal and as he would still die if he were not now immortal.[45]
But the Spouse, entirely smitten by the love of her divine Bridegroom, does not content herself with the hope of possessing him one day in eternal glory; she wishes still t delight in his Presence as early as (in) this mortal life. And in order to obtain this good, see (with) what diligence she works in order to find him, after which, through the negligence which she had in opening the door to him, he passed by: “I will arise,” she says, “and will look for Him whom my soul cherishes in all the streets and crossroads of the city.”
See, I beg you, with what promptitude she runs after him and how she passes among the guards of the village without fearing any difficulty. Afterwards, at last having found him, see with what ardour she hurls herself at his feet and, embracing him by his knees (and) all transported by joy, says: “ah, I hold him, … the Beloved of my soul. I will not at all let him go before I have introduced him into the house of my mother.”
But consider, I beg you, the ardent love of this Spouse. Certainly, nothing can content her other than the Presence of her Beloved. She does not at all wish for blessings, nor to stop at the hope of some goods to come, as (did) Jacob. S he wants only her God, and provided that she possess him, she is content:
At last, she says, I have found Him whom I love. I hold him, and I will not at all leave him before I have introduced him in the house of my mother, which is the heavenly Jerusalem, which is nothing else than Paradise.
And then, still, I will not at all leave him, because not only would I not like to leave him, but I will then be so perfectly united with him, that never will any other thing be able to separate me (from him).
Behold, therefore, what the love of the Spouse is toward her Beloved.[46]
---- Tenui nec Dimittam ----
Third Poem (3:6-5:1)
The Spouse of the Canticle of Canticles astonishes the Angels and causes them to say:
3:6 Who is she who comes from the desert
and who ascends like a shaft of scented smoke
composed of myrrh and of incense
and of all the good scents of (the) perfumer
and who (is) supported (by) her Beloved?
3:7 Behold how sixty men, the strongest in Israel
surround the bed of Solomon,
all (of them) holding their swords and expert in war,
3:8 each of whom holds his sword upright on his thigh
because of the fears of the night.
3:9 King Solomon, himself,
has made a litter of wood of Lebanon;
he has made the pillars of silver,
the back of gold; the slope is of purple (cloth).[47]
The middle, meaning the average parts of the back,
he has decorated with charity, with Himself,
who is the love and the delights
of the Spouse and of souls.
and this, in favour of the Daughters of Jerusalem.
The word ferculum, used by Solomon, comes from ferendo, “to carry” (and signifies a) portable throne, a stately and triumphal carriage.[48]
This holy lover had plenty of daughters, who used to consider carefully all the traits of loving passion which her divine Lover and she intercommunicated; hence, she cries in this way:
3:11 O daughters of Jerusalem,
ah, by grace, I entreat you
to put all your heads to the windows
in order to consider my Beloved
in the day of his joy
and to see the crown
with which his mother crowned him
on the day of his betrothal.
These words of the Spouse are understood diversely by the Fathers. Some of them say that this “crown” was the sacred humanity of Our Lord and that his very holy “Mother” had given it to him in order to adorn the head of his divinity…. The very holy humanity was much less than the divinity of the Saviour, but nevertheless, his divine Majesty wished to serve this sacred humanity in order to enable us to know the grandeur of his Wisdom, Goodness and Mercy. And in this way she had been as a royal crown which enabled us to comprehend in such fashion, according to our capacity, the dignity of the master whom she surrounded and adorned.
The rest of the Fathers… hold that when she invited these daughters of Sion to look upon the crown of her Beloved, with which his mother (the Synagogue) had crowned him on the day of his joy and gaiety, she intended to speak of the crown of thorns which he carried on the day of his Passion. But if that is (the case), why does she say on the day of his joy, since it is on the day of his sorrow and death…?
Who can doubt that the day of the Passion of Our Lord and Master is not a day of joy and delights for the Angels and for men, since it is on this (day) that he showed the great love which he bore for us, as he himself attests; “No one has greater Love than He who expends his soul, meaning his life, for those whom he loves” (Jn. 15:13).[49]
4:1 How beautiful you are, my beloved,
how beautiful you are!
Your eyes are of doves,
without what is hidden within.
Your hairs are like the herd of goats
who come from Mount Galaad.
4:2 Your teeth are like (a) flock of ewes,
freshly shorn, who return from the washing;
each has his two twins and not one is barren.
4:3 Your lips are like a strip of purplish colour
and your speech is completely sweet.
Your cheeks are like a slice of pomegranate
without what is hidden within.
4:4 Your neck is like the Tower of David
constructed with ramparts;
a thousand bucklers are hanging on it
4:5 and all sorts of weapons for strong men.
Your two breasts are like two fawns
which one grazes among the lilies.[50]
In the Canticle of Canticles, the sacred Spouse possesses hands which distil myrrh, a liqueur (which preserves) from corruption. Her lips are bands of a ribbon, the mark of the modesty in her words. Her eyes are (those) of (a) dove, by reason of their distinctness. Her ears have earrings of gold, tokens of purity. Her nose is among the cedars of Lebanon, (which is) incorruptible wood.[51]
Finally, the Bridegroom, whom since the Ascension has gone to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of incense, to Heaven at the right hand of the Father, as he had predicted:
4:6 Before the day wanes
and the shades (of night) subside,
I will go to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of incense,
will praise the soul saying:
4:7 You are beautiful, o my beloved,
and there is not one small spot on you.
And he will invite her to pass from the militant Jerusalem to the triumphant, saying:
4:8 Come from Lebanon, my spouse.
Come from Lebanon, come.
You will be crowned from the top of Mt. Amana
from the top of Sanir and of Hermon
from the dens of the lions,
from the mountains of the leopards.
4:9 You have wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse.
You have wounded my heart with one of your hairs,
and one of the hairs of your neck.[52]
(So as to devote herself) more ardently to the heavenly love, the sacred Spouse used to close one of her eyes so as to unite her sight more strongly in the other one and, by this means, to aspire more precisely to the middle of the heart of her Beloved, which she wishes to wound with love. For this (reason), she holds her wig (her hair) so pleated and gathered together in its tress that she seems to have only one single hair, which she presses close together like a chain to bind and ravish the heart of her Bridegroom, whom she renders enslaved to her dilection.[53]
The Bridegroom says that his Beloved has ravished his heart by one of her eyes and by one of her hairs which hangs down upon her neck. These words are a quiver full of most agreeable and most sweet interpretations; behold here, one entirely pleasing:
When a husband or a wife has some affairs in their household which compel them to separate themselves, if it happens by chance that they meet each other, they may look upon each other in passing, but it is only with one eye, because one cannot do it well with both.
Thus, this Bridegroom wishes to say: Though my Beloved be strongly occupied, (even) so, she does not fail to look upon me with one eye, protesting to me by this glance that she is all mine. She has ravished my heart by one of her hairs which falls on her neck, meaning by a thought which descends from near her heart.[54]
4:10 How beautiful are your breasts,
my sister, my spouse!
Your breasts are more beautiful than wine.
The scent of your perfumes
is above all fragrant composition.[55]
O eternal God, when by your Sweet Presence you cast the scented perfumes into our hearts, perfumes delighting (us) more than delicious wine and more than honey, then all the powers of our souls enter into an agreeable repose, with a rest so perfect that there is no longer any sentiment (other) than that of the will, which, like a spiritual sense of smell, abides sweetly engaged in sensing, without itself perceiving, the incomparable good of having its God Present.[56]
4:11 Your lips are a dripping honeycomb;
that which is under your tongue is milk and honey.
The scent of your dress
is like the scent of incense.[57]
The Holy Spirit teaches that the lips of the divine Spouse, meaning the Church, resemble scarlet and the honeycomb which distils its honey, so that one may know that all the doctrine which she announces consists of sacred dilection, more brilliant in vermilion than scarlet on account of the blood of the Bridegroom who inflames it (and) sweeter than honey on account of the gentleness of the Beloved who fills her up with delight.[58]
Remember that the Spouse of Our Lord is called (a) Sulamite, meaning pleasing and that under her tongue is milk and honey, (and) on her lips (is) the dripping honeycomb, as it is said in the Canticle.[59]
4:12 A closed garden is my sister, my spouse;
she is a garden closed and enclosed;
she is a sealed fountain.
And do you not know that it is she (the Holy Virgin) who is this closed and enclosed garden of the Canticle, which is all ornamented and adorned? … repetition (of expression) which is not without mystery.[60]
Will they bring about, therefore, that which is written in the Canticle of the Spouse who is an enclosed garden, a sealed fountain or spring, a well of living water, who is all beautiful and without any stain, or as the Apostle says, glorious, without wrinkle, holy and immaculate?[61]
4:13 That which you send and place outside
is like a paradise…
of pomegranates, of fruits of apple trees,
of balm with nard, and of saffron, sugar cane,
and cinnamon, and all sorts of fruits
4:14 of the trees of Lebanon, myrrh and aloes,
with all sorts of the most excellent perfumes.
In sum, the soul is a fountain of good works which spring up to the skies with impetuosity, similar to those of the water come from Lebanon;
4:15 the fountain of the gardens,
the well of living waters,
which flow impetuously from Lebanon.
But in all this, two things are required on the part of God: that he expels the north wind of temptations and that he sends the south breeze of his prepossessing grace, saying:
4:16 Flee, Aquilon (cold blast of north wind)
and come, O Midi (south wind)
blow in my garden,
and the scents of it will be spread abroad.
Take yourself away from her, O north wind, and come, O south breeze, and blow in my garden, and the perfumes will come forth there abundantly. O my very dear daughter, how I wish (for you) this gracious wind which comes from the south wind of divine Love, this Holy Spirit which gives us the grace to aspire to him and to breathe for him.[62]
Let my Beloved come into his garden
and let him eat of the fruit of his apple trees.
Now the divine Bridegroom comes into his garden when he comes into the devout soul, for since it pleases him to be with the children of men, where can he better live than in the region of the spirit which he has made in his image and likeness? In this garden he, himself, plants the loving complacence which we have in his Goodness and on which we graze, as in the same way his Goodness is pleased and grazes on our complacence. And so, our complacence increases anew, by which God is pleased to see us pleased in Him, so that these reciprocal pleasures from love by an incomparable complacence by which our soul, made the garden of its bridegroom and having from his Goodness the apple trees of delights, renders him fruit, since he is pleased by the complacence which it has in him.[63]
The divine Bridegroom, as the Shepherd who he is, prepared a sumptuous feast n the rural fashion, which he describes in (a) way that mystically presented all the mysteries of human Redemption:
5:1 I have come into my garden, he says;
I have gathered in my myrrh with all my perfumes;
I have mixed my wine with milk;
I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey;
Eat my friends, and drink,
and intoxicate yourselves, my very dear (ones)
Theotimus, ah, when in see it, I beg you, that Our Lord came into his garden, if not when he came into the most pure, most humble, and most sweet womb of his Mother, full of all the flowering plants of holy virtues?
And what in Our Lord is this gathering in of his myrrh with his perfumes, if not to accumulate sufferings upon sufferings until death, and death on the Cross, and joining by it (his death) merits to merits, treasures to treasures, in order to enrich his spiritual children?
And how did he eat his honeycomb with the honey, if not when he lived a New Life, reuniting his soul, sweeter than honey, to his body, pierced and wounded by more holes than a honeycomb?
And when, rising to heaven, he took possession of all the circumstances and appendages of his divine Glory, what else was it, if not to mix the glad wine of his Essential Glory with the delectable milk of the perfect Felicity of his body, in such a way even more excellent than he had ever made until then?
And in all his divine mysteries, which include all the others, what is there for all the dear friends to eat and drink well, and with what do they intoxicate themselves? Some eat and drink, but they eat more than they drink and do not intoxicate themselves; the others eat and drink, but they drink more than they eat, and these are those who intoxicate themselves. Now to eat is to meditate … (and) to drink is to contemplate, … but to intoxicate oneself is to contemplate so frequently and so ardently that one be completely outside of oneself in order to be completely for God.
(A) holy and sacred ecstasy, in contrast to the corporal, alienates us not from the spiritual sense, but from the corporal sense, which neither daze nor stupefy us but make us angels and, in a manner of speech, divinize us. (It) puts us outside ourselves not in order to disparage us and rank us with the beasts, as the earthly ecstasy does, but in order to make us rise above ourselves and to rank us with the Angels, so that we might live more in God than in ourselves, being attentive to and occupied by love to see his Beauty and to unite ourselves to his Goodness.[64]
Therefore, let us not believe, my dear souls, that our spirit is rendered stupid and asleep in the abundance of the enjoyment of eternal happiness; on the contrary, it will be greatly awakened and agile in its different actions. And if it is written that Our Lord will intoxicate his beloved (ones), saying, “Drink, my friends, and intoxicate yourselves, my very dear ones,” this intoxication will not render the soul less capable of seeing, considering, intending and making its different movements, in the same way as we have declared it, according as the love of its Beloved will suggest to it. Moreover, this will excite it always further to redouble its movements and loving flights, as beign always more inflamed by the ardours.[65]
Fourth Poem (5:2-6:3)
The language of lovers is so particular that no one other than they hear it:
5:2 I sleep, the sacred lover used to say,
yet my heart keeps watch,
and behold, that my beloved speaks to me.
Who might have been able to guess that this Spouse, being asleep, had nevertheless chatted with her Bridegroom? But where love reigns, one does not have need of the clamour of exterior words nor of the use of the senses in order to converse and to reveal oneself to the other.[66]
Hence, without awaking, she watches with him, meaning she watches and speaks to her Beloved heart to heart, with such sweet tranquillity and gracious repose, as if she were sleeping gently.[67]
I used to sleep, says this devout Spouse
and my Bridegroom, who is my heart,
used to keep watch;
ah, behold that he awakens me,
calling me by the name of our loves,
and I know well that it is he by his voice.[68]
Open to me, my spouse, my sister.
He calls her “my spouse” on account of the grandeur of his love and “my sister” in order to testify to the purity of his affection.
Open to me, he says, but open to me quickly,
because I have my hair all full of dew
and the tufts of my (head of) hair
full of the drops of the night.
Now the dew and the drops of the night are only one same thing.
What do you think this Beloved of our souls might wish to signify, if not that he desires ardently that his Spouse open promptly to him the door of her heart so that he might pour forth the gifts and grace which he had so abundantly received from his Father as a dew and most precious liqueur.[69]
We call inspirations all the attractions, movements, interior reproaches and remorses, lights and understandings that God works in us, predisposing our heart by his blessings, by his care, and (by his) paternal love, so as to awaken, excite, urge and attract us to the holy virtues, to heavenly love, to good resolutions, in short, to all that sends us on to our eternal welfare.
It is this which the Bridegroom calls to rap or knock on the door and to speak to the heart of his Spouse, to awaken her when she is sleeping to cry out and reclaim her when she is absent, to invite her to his honey and to gather the apples and fruits in his garden, and to chant and make her sweet voice resonate in his ears.[70]
It cannot be said how much the Saviour desires to enter into our souls by this love of dolorous complacence:
Alas, he says, open to me, my dear sister,
my love, my dove, my all pure (one),
because my head is full of dew
and my hair of the drops of the night.
What is this dew and what are the drops of the night, if not the afflictions and pains of his Passion?
Ah, the divine lover of our souls wishes to say,
I am burdened by the pains and sweat of my passion,
which was passed almost entirely
either in the darkness of the night,
or in the night of the darkness,
which the sun, being obscured,
made in the (brightness) of midday;
therefore, open your heart towards me,…
and I will pour forth on you the dew of my passion
which will be converted to pearls of consolation.[71]
Let us represent the sweet Jesus at Pilate’s (place), where, for love of us, the ministers of death stripped him of all his clothes, one after the other, and, not content by that, deprived him even (of) his skin, tearing it to pieces by (the) blows of whips and rods; wherefore, his soul was stripped from his body and the body from his life, by the death which he suffered on the cross. But three days later, by his most holy Resurrection, the soul clothed itself in his glorious body and the body, in his immortal skin, dressed itself with different garments, either of (the) pilgrim or of (the) gardener or another sort, according as the salvation of men and the glory of his Father required it…
In that case, the soul is right in exclaiming:
5:3 I have taken off my clothes;
how will I clothe myself?
I have washed my feet; …
how will I dirty them anew?
5:4 My Beloved has put his hand through the keyhole…
He puts his hand into the lock in order to see if he could open (it)[72] In this great vocation, the soul is stirred up:
My stomach has trembled by his single touch…
and resolves that she must open to her Bridegroom…
5:5 I have gotten up in order to open to my beloved.
But on the other hand, she senses so great (a) sorrow fro not having opened at the first knock that she overturns the vase of myrrh… bathing the door (with tears) down the bolt…
My hands have dropped the myrrh,
and my fingers are full of true myrrh
and the best (myrrh).
5:6 I have opened the bold of my door to my Beloved
but he had turned away and had already left.
For which, remembering to have been so called and (yet) so lazy, she is grieved and consumed by sorrow:
My soul completely dissolved
as soon as my beloved spoke.[73]
This was what happened to the Spouse, for although the sweet voice of her Beloved had touched her heart with a holy comfort, so it is, nevertheless, that she did not open her door to him but excused herself with a frivolous excuse; whereupon the Bridegroom, justly indignant, passed by and left her.
Likewise, the gentleman who, after having searched for a single woman for a long time and having rendered to her his agreeable service, finally will be rejected and scorned will have many more causes of discontentment (than) if the search had not been accepted or favoured.[74]
I have looked for him, and I have not found him;
I have called him and have not been answered.[75]
5:7 The guards who surround the city have found me;
they have beaten and wounded me;
the guards of the walls have taken my cloak from me.
The Spouse in the Canticle of Canticles says that her Beloved, having knocked at her door, passed by. And she, having opened and not finding him, goes after him in order to look for him. Then, meeting the guards of the village, she asks the if they (the guards) have not seen her Beloved:
Ah, by grace, if you meet him
announce to him that I languish of love.
And afterwards she adds that the guards of the village have completely wounded her.[76]
The divine Spouse proceeds completely in tears and languished by love because she does not quickly find the Beloved whom she looks for. The love of the Beloved had created in her Desire, the desire had brought forth Ardour for the pursuit, and this ardour caused her Languor, which might have annihilated and consumed her poor heart if she did not have any hope of meeting, at last, the one whom she was pursuing.[77]
Thus, the sacred Sulamite, completely dissolved in her dolorous loves, speaking to the Daughters of Jerusalem, (says):
5:8 Alas,… I implore you,
if you meet my Friend, announce to him my pain,
because I languish entirely wounded by his love.[78]
The companions of the sacred Spouse had asked her what sort (of man) was her Beloved:
5:9 Of what sort (of man) is your Beloved,
O beautiful (one) among women,
that for him you have adjured us so strongly?
And she responds to them by admirably describing all the parts of his perfect beauty:
5:10 My beloved is beautiful to behold;
all sorts of perfections are in him.[79]
I have chosen him (from) among thousands.
His tint is white and ruddy.
5:11 his heart of gold,
his hairs as a branch of flowers of palm (trees)
not yet in full bloom.
The spouse calls her Bridegroom “white and ruddy,” but at once she says that he has black hair.[80]
His head of hair is like braches of palms,
lofty and leafy, black as a raven.
5:12 His eyes are like doves on the shores,
of the waters
which one has washed with milk
and (which) reside in full streams of waters.
5;13 His cheeks are like (a) bed of fragrant flowers
which the perfumers have planted.
His lips are of lilies
which distil the most precious myrrh.
5:14 His hands are rings of gold full of hyacinths.
His stomach is of ivory set with sapphires outside.
5:15 His thighs are of columns of marble
established on bases of gold.
His beauty is like that of Lebanon,
his bearing like (that) of a cedar.[81]
Thus does she proceed, meditating (on) this sovereign beauty in detail until finally she concludes by manner of contemplation, putting all the beauties into one:
5:17 His throat, she says, is very sweet,
and him, he is completely desirable;
such is my beloved and he is my dear Friend.[82]
O how beautiful is my Beloved;
how I love him; he is my most dear (one).[83]
See in the Canticle of Canticles this mystical bee, the royal soul of this divine lover, fluttering now on her eyes, now on her lips, now on her cheeks, now on the head of hair of her Beloved, in order to draw from all that she finds there tastes, gentlenesses, contentments and loving passions, noticing all things in particular in order to provoke herself to love him.
Now, in this section she speaks to God, she interrogates him, she aspires, she recognizes the grandeur of God and his own misery, (and) she admires him. And God inspires her, touches her heart, pours forth splendours and lights without end… Love urges the yes always to look more attentively and urges the heart always to love more ardently.[84]
And if the persons whom she is with want to persist and say to her:
6:1 Where has your Bridegroom gone, O most beautiful among women?
Where has turned away? And will we look for him with you?
she no longer wishes to entertain (i.e., listen to) them. But, recognizing further that her toils have made (it) seem to her that her Bridegroom had withdrawn far away, nevertheless he, himself, had not gone. On the contrary, he had always resided with her as in his garden or as in a cabinet of perfumes. And drawing from this (the) greatest occasion of merit, she can say that he has culled some very sweet-smelling lilies:
6:2 My Beloved has come into his garden,
to the bed of fragrant flowers,
in order to feed in the garden
and there to gather the lilies.
And for this (reason), since she knows that he has always been with her and is still present, she says:
6:3 I am to my Beloved,
and my Beloved is to me,
who feeds among the lilies…
she no longer has need of anything else than of entertaining herself with him, saying:
O Lord, when will I be able to please you
by my beauty, sweetness, good grace, strength,
innocence, devotion, and discretion?[85]
The Blessed… not only may they see God, who is what felicity consists of, but further they may hear him speak and may speak with him, and here is one of the principal points their felicity.
But what language is it that they possess, and what speech do they use? Their speech and their language is nothing other than that of a father with his children; it is completely filial and full of love, for as this place is the lodging of the children of God, likewise their language is completely filial and full of dilection, since Heaven is the place of love and only those who possess charity and who love God enter there.
And what words of love do they say?
Something like these:
You will always be with me;
and I will always be with you.
I will never withdraw myself
for (however) little this may be.
Henceforth, you will be everything to me,
and I will likewise be everything to you;
you are completely mine,
and I will be completely yours.
What are these words about?
Nothing else than of God, himself, who will say them to the heart of the faithful and blessed soul which, by a reciprocal love, will respond (with) these sweet and gracious words of the Spouse:
My friend is everything to me,
and I am everything to him;
at this time he is completely mine,
and, henceforth, I will be completely his.
And if, being still in this valley of misery, the Spouse pronounced these words of love with such gentleness, O God, what joy and what jubilation do we think there will be for the Blessed in this dialogue which they will make in that felicity.
There Our Lord will disclose to them some great secrets. He will speak to them about that which He has suffered, about that which He has done for them. He will say to them: Once I suffered such things for you. He will converse (with) them about the mystery of the Incarnation, about salvation and Redemption, saying to them: I have done such things in order to save you and draw you to me. I have waited for you so long, going after you when you would do cantankerous (things), compelling you by a sweet violence to receive my grace. I once used to give you that movement and such inspiration. I serve you in such a way in order to attract you to me.
In sum, he will disclose to them his secret judgements and the inscrutable way (cf. Rom. 11:33) that he used in order to take them away from evil and dispose them to grace.[86]
Fifth Poem (6:4 – 8:5)
6:4 O my beloved, you are beautiful
sweet, and of good grace,
like Jerusalem, strong as an army well arrayed.
Already, Lord, you have shown me by a thousand signs that my glances have wounded you, meaning that my intentions are not displeasing you.
6:5 turn your eyes away from upon me,
for you have wounded me, …
for they have made me go out from myself…[87]
Do you think that it is in order to prohibit her from drawing her arrows that he speaks thus? O no, without doubt, it is rather in order to wound her reciprocally, for you will confess to me that it was good to wound her lovingly, but by a wound nevertheless sorrowful, that of saying to her that she turn away her eyes from upon Him.[88]
Your hairs are like a herd of kids
who graze on the mount of Galaad.
6:6 Your teeth are like (a) flock of sheep
which emerge from the wash house,
each having two small (ones),
and not one is barren.
6:7 Your cheeks are like a sliced pomegranate
without what is hidden therein.
But, O God, says the soul, already you have praised me for almost all these parts. I will desire now to progress and surpass in devotion many of (the) other devout souls or (those) who think to be (so), that you may be able to say to me:
6:8 There are 60 queens and 80 concubines,
and some young girls without number,
but my dove is all alone.
How do I know? Could I desire so much? I would like that you be able to call me “my perfection.” I would like to have in my nature, my mother, some rarity (so) that one may say (of me):
6:9 She is unique of her mother;
she is chosen of her who has engendered her,
I would like that one could further say:
Behold that the daughters have seen,
and have declared (her) to be blessed;
the queens and the concubines
have praised her innocence
having emerged from the night of sin.[89]
Seeing that the great king Solomon, delighting further in the divine Spirit, composed the sacred Canticle of Canticles, he had, according to the permission of that time, a great variety of women and girls dedicated to his love in diverse conditions and under different qualities.
There was “one” who was (a) uniquely unique friend, completely perfect (and) completely rare, like a singular dove, with which the others only came in comparison. This (one) he called by his name “Sulamite.”
There were sixty (others) who, after her, held the first rank of honour and esteem, and who were named “queens.” Besides them, there were, further, eighty women who were not really queens but who, nevertheless, had (a) part in the royal bed, in (their) quality of honourable and legitimate friends. And finally, there were some young girls without number, reserved in waiting, in the quise of (a) nursery (of trees), in order to be put in the place of the preceding (ones) in (the) measure that they would default.
Now in the idea of what used to happen in the palace, he described the divine perfections of the souls who in the future would adore, love and serve the great, peaceful King, Jesus Christ, Our Lord.[90]
Of these souls so perfect, there (are) so few that each of them is called “unique of her mother,” who is divine Providence. She is (the) “unique dove” who loves only its mate. She is named “perfect” because by love she is rendered one same thing with the sovereign perfection, for which she can say with a most humble truth:
I am only for my Beloved,
and he has turned completely towards me.
Now, here is only the most holy Virgin, Our Lady, who has perfectly attained this degree of excellence in the love of her dear Beloved. For she is a dove so uniquely unique in dilection that all the others being placed after her in paragon (in comparison) merit the name of crow rather than of dove.
But leaving this peerless Queen in her incomparable eminence, one has certainly seen some souls who are found in the state of Pure Love which in comparison to others could hold (the) rank of queens, of unique doves, and of perfect friends of the Spouse.[91]
6:10 Who is this who proceeds like the dawn in its rising,
beautiful as the moon, chosen as the sun,
chosen as a battalion of arrayed soldiers?[92]
But, in addition to that, the soul adds:
Where have you been, my Lord, when it seemed that you had left me, when labour and fatigue did not permit that I might have some taste? I have been, he responds, in you, yourself, who are in my garden, and (I) have been there with more profit for you than I might have been if, in the first stroke, I had given you some tastes, (thereby) giving you occasion of meriting, by which I have drawn from my garden a greater fruit of merit.[93]
6:11 I have descended into the garden of the walnuts
in order to see the apple trees of the valley
and to see if the vine flowered
and if the pomegranates have germinated.
Therefore, may you be blessed, O Lord, responds the soul, that by such fashion, making me believe that you had been absent, you have given me occasion of meriting, and you have enabled me to cover in a short time more distance than the carriages of the princes. And for this (reason),
6:12 since I have not known … that you had been with me
I can say that my soul is troubled
on account of the chariots of Aminadab.[94]
O God, what distress a soul who loves God has, not only of knowing whether He is in it or not, but whether the Divine Love for which it struggles is completely extinct or not!
But it is the fine flower of the perfection of heavenly love which makes the lover suffer and battle for love without knowing if he has the love for which and by which he struggles[95].
Everytime this Goodness ceases to send forth its virtue into our hearts, as it happens when sin, dividing us from God, eclipses that great Sun of Justice, alas, then we live without charity and without love.
7:1 Ah, says the divine Bridegroom of our souls,
return, return Sulamite, return, return,
so that we may look upon you.
Certainly he desires that we look at him, and so that we may look at him, he desires to look upon us, knowing that we could not know to look at him unless He first looks upon us, nor to love him unless He first loves us.[96]
What will you see in the Sulamite,
if not the choirs of the armies?
But this war is peaceful; peace triumphs. It is in the peace of the soul that one carries away victory over the demon and in the trouble of the soul (that) the demon triumphs.
The Sulamite, the peaceful (one), possesses some armies, and these armies, arrayed in choirs composed of a multitude of chanters, do battle.[97]
7:2 How beautiful are your steps in their footwear,
O daughters of (the) prince.[98]
The Bridegroom in the Canticle of Canticles, after having considered his Spouse in detail, cast his eyes upon her footwear, that which contented him so strongly that he confessed of being completely in love: “Oh,” he says, “your footwear is agreeable to me; how you have decorum in your march!”[99]
The joints of your thighs are like jewels
put in work by the hand of a good workman.
7:3 Your navel is like a round bowl
which never has need of beverage.
Your stomach is like a heap of wheat
encircled by lilies.[100]
Listen to the Bridegroom in the Canticle of Canticles when he says to her “Your stomach, O my Beloved, is like a heap of grains of wheat which is completely surrounded by lilies of the modesty of virginity.”
What can this divine Lover mean, if not that Our Lady has carried all Christians in her bosom?
And so well (that) she produces only this “grain” of which it is written “if it is cast to the earth, it will live all alone” (Jn. 12:24) and if it is cast there and covered, it will germinate and will produce several (others). To whom, I beg you, must one attribute the production of those other grains, if not to Her who has produced the first, Our Lord being the Son, by nature, of Our Lady?
Although in effect she had carried only Him in her bosom, she has nevertheless carried all Christians in the Person of her divine Son, for this “blessed grain” has produced us all by his Death.[101]
7:4 Your two breasts are like two fawns,
twins of a goat.
7:5 Your neck is like a tower of ivory.
Your eyes are like the ponds of Hesebon
which are at the door
of the daughter of the multitude.[102]
“Your eyes are like ponds in Hesebon.” The eyes are doors or windows, and by them we see the interior of the house. “Who (ever) sounds at the door” means in Christ. “The door of the daughter of the people” means (the door) of the Church. “Hesebon” (means the) belt of sorrow when God girds himself by sorrow.
Your nose is like the tower or Lebanon
which looks toward Damascus.
7:6 Your head is like Mount Carmel,
and your braids (are) like royal dignity,
like scarlet.
It is no wonder that her sacred heart was completely filled with love and desire for the salvation of men, since she carried in her chaste womb Love, itself, the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. It seems to me that it is to her that one must apply those words of the Canticle of Canticles: Your head resembles Mount Carmel.
See, when the divine Bridegroom describes the beauty of his Spouse in detail, he begins with her head. But what can this divine Lover intend when he says that the head of his Beloved resembles Mount Carmel? Mount Carmel is completely variegated by sweet-smelling flowers, and the trees which are found on it carry only perfumes. What do these flowers and perfumes signify, if not charity, which is a most beautiful and sweet-smelling virtue, which is never alone in a soul?
And although one appropriates these words of the Canticle to the Church, which is the true Spouse of Our Lord, in which like a Mount Carmel, all sorts of flowers of virtues abound and which is sweet-smelling in all holiness and perfection, so it is that one can intend this for the Sacred Virgin, who is the faithful Spouse of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, having this charity in so great (a) perfection, she resembles Mount Carmel for the frequent acts (of this charity) which she used to produce, as much towards God as towards the neighbour. And this charity, like a tree of perfumes, used to cast a very agreeable scent and sweetness.
But the Rabbis and some others seem further to understand better that the divine Bridegroom, speaking of the head of his Beloved, wishes to signify charity, for they translate: “Your head resembles scarlet,” and elsewhere, “the cheeks of the Spouse are comparable to the grains of the pomegranate which are all red.” And what is this, if not the charity of the Holy Virgin simply represented, since not only did she have charity, but she had received it in (such) complete plenitude that she was charity itself? She had conceived Him who, being all love, had rendered her love itself.[103]
7:7 How beautiful you are; how you are of good grace
most dear in delights.
7:8 Your stature, your bearing, is like a palm (tree),
and your breasts are full, like clusters of grapes.
7:9 I will ascend into the palm tree,
and I will take your fruits,
and your breasts will be like clusters of grapes.
The scent of your mouth is like that of apples.[104]
Very remarkable, this passage of the Canticle, … for the just (one) extends his branches on the superior part, like the palm tree (Ps. 91). It is always green; its flowers appear only if its shell and its covering are split by tribulations.
The hairs of the Spouse are like the “tendrils” of palm trees which envelop the flowers; when the “tendrils” open themselves, the flowers appear white. Thus, when the hairs of the Spouse are separated, the remarkable beauty of her face appears, such a bouquet of flowers, and with such a whiteness that (her) head of hair seems jet black.
He who has received too much of the fruit of the palm tree (milk) and of the spiritual victory and who has drunk the wine, meaning an immoderate joy, his head is made dull by vain glory, and he is intoxicated of arrogance.
There are many considerations to make on the ascent of the palm tree.
One of the devout shepherds who followed the sacred Sulamite … assures (us) that holy doctrine is like a precious wine, worthy not only of being drunk by the pastors and doctors (of the Church), but of being carefully savoured and, by manner of saying, chewed and ruminated. She says:
7:10 Your throat, …
in which the holy words are formed,
is a very good wine for my Beloved to drink
and for his lips and teeth to ruminate.
7:11 I am all to my Beloved, …
and his return is before me.
For it is the same as if she said:
I am united to my dear Friend,
and reciprocally he returns to me,
in order (that) by uniting himself more and more to me,
he may likewise render himself completely mine.[105]
Thus, desire of the secret had incited her to make this supplication to her Bridegroom:
7:12 Come, my dear Beloved,[106]
let us leave the fields;
let us sojourn to the villages.
7:13 Let us arise in the morning
in order to go to the vines;
let us see if the vineyard is blooming,
if the flowers will carry the fruit,
if the pomegranates are blooming.
There I will give you my breasts.
O my daughter, hold well this divine Infant in your arms, and give him your breasts. He feeds on the milk of humility.[107]
The mandrakes have given their scent.
O my Beloved, I have closed for you
within our doors
all sorts of fruits, old and new,
8:1 alone and outside:
who will give you to me, my brother,
sucking the breast of my mother,
that I may find you outside, all alone?
(A) consideration which piously distracts men makes them dance before the Ark (2 Kgs. 6:14). Thus (it) happens that until the soul has arrived at the affection of contempt of itself, it always has some shame. That is why it desires solitude:
so that I may kiss him, she says,
without (any) persons seeing us.[108]
(This) consideration is a “deposit” of the enjoyment of Heaven, by which it is admitted to the soul that it be there already, saying:
o God, when we will be in the true house and in the true bedroom of human nature, which is Heaven, when
8:2 I will lead you into the house of my mother
and into the bedroom of her who has engendered me, there I will see all that appertains to my happiness “as in a mirror”;
there you will teach me,
and when you will have drawn from me, for my felicity, the wine of the vine and “the must (i.e., wine not fermented) of the pomegranates,” the essential and accidental glory,
and I will give you a beverage of composed wine
and the must of my pomegranates,
behold, the tastes which will arrive; behold the ecstasies, behold the sleeps of the powers, by (such) fashion that the Spouse asks for pillows in order to sleep:
8:3 Let him put his left hand under my head
and let him embrace me with his right hand.
The Bridegroom, on his part, endeavours to make (sure) that she be not at all roused:
8:4 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem,
that you neither rouse nor arouse my Beloved
until she wishes it.[109]
It seems that the Assumption of Our Lady was, in (a) certain fashion, more glorious and more triumphant than the Ascension of Our Lord, seeing that in the Ascension there were only Angels who came to Him from above, but in the Assumption of his most holy Mother, the King of Angels came there Himself. That is why the angelic troops, as completely astonished, exclaimed:
8:5 Who is this who ascends from the desert
supported by her Beloved?
Then we can understand that Our Lady ascended so well to Heaven, as completely pure, in spite of her purity, (that) she was nevertheless supported by the merits of her Son, in virtue of which she entered into glory.[110]
O most sacred and most blessed Lady
who is on high in the Paradise of Felicity,
alas, have pity on us
who are in the desert of misery;
you are in abundance of delights,
and we are in the abyss of desolations;
obtain for us the strength
to bear well all afflictions,
that we may always be supported
by your Beloved,
sole support for our hopes,
sole recompense for our labours,
sole medicine for our sickness.[111]
The Denouement (8:5,6)
At last, the soul has attained so great (a) perfection of devotion that no pleasure of the world excites it, no empty appearance diverts it, no praise weakens it, no labour makes it fear, (and) no human respect restrains it; but in the sight of all the world, she freely caresses her Bridegroom and dances before the Ark, not concerned that the wisdom of the world, after having said to her: “who is this who ascends from the desert affluent in delights,” follows her still in order to reprove her for that (to) which she adheres “supported by her Beloved.”
On the contrary, she always speaks with her Bridegroom of the great Sign of Love that He gave there where He had been the most offended and (where) He resolved to die for us after Adam and Eve had disobeyed him.
8:5 I have roused you under on apple tree;
there your mother has been corrupted;
there she who has engendered you has been violated.
The soul will no longer find any difficulty in labours, for nothing is difficult in love, which it has engraved on its heart, (not) even exterior actions:
8:6 Place me as a stamp on your heart
and as a seal on your arms.
so well that love combats death:
Love is strong as death.
Hell cannot terrify it:
Jealousy is unyielding as hell.
Flames and fires are frozen in comparison with her love:
Its lamps are lamps of flames and of fires.
The sea could not know to extinguish them:
all the waters could not know
to extinguish charity,
nor (could) all the rivers drown it.
Nothing is comparable to it:
If a man would like to give
all the subsistence of his house for dilection,
he would value it no more than (as) nothing.[112]
**********************
To this union, the divine Shepherd provoked his Sulamite: “Place me,” he said, “as a seal on your heart, as stamp on your arm.”
(Now) in order to imprint a stamp properly on wax, one not only joins it, but presses it very close; thus, he wishes that we unite ourselves to Him by a union so strong and pressed close that we live marked by his traits. “The holy love of the Saviour presses (impels) us” (2 Cor. 5:14); O God, what (an) example of excellent union (that is).
He was joined to our human nature as a vine to its young elm in order to render it, by such fashion, (as) participating in his fruit. But seeing that this union was, in such fashion, undone by the sin of Adam, he made a closer and more pressing union in the Incarnation, by which our human nature dwells forever joined by (being) united to (the) Person in the Divinity. And so that not only human nature, but all men could unite themselves intimately to his Goodness, he instituted the Sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, in which each one can participate in order to unite his Saviour to himself, really and by manner of food. Theotimus, this sacramental union solicits us and aides us in the spiritual (union) of which we speak.[113]
**********************
Place me, says the divine Shepherd to the Sulamite,
place me as a stamp on your heart,
as a stamp on your arm.
Certainly, (the) Sulamite had her heart completely full of heavenly love for her dear Lover, who, although he may have everything, is not satisfied. But by a sacred defiance of jealousy, (He) wishes further to be on the heart which he possesses and to stamp it with himself, so that nothing of the love which is for him may escape and (so) that nothing which might make a mixture may enter there. Because he is not satiated with the affection with which the soul of the Sulamite is filled up, so she is invariable, completely pure, completely unique for him.
And in order to enjoy not only the affections of our heart, but also the effects and operations of our hands, he wishes further to be “as a stamp” on our right arm, so that it may extend itself and be employed only for the works of his service.
And the reason for this demand of the divine Lover is that (just) as death is so strong that it separates the soul from all things and from the body itself, likewise sacred love, (which has) attained the degree of zeal, divides and removes the soul from all other affections and purifies it from all mixture, seeing that it is not only “likewise strong as death,” but is austere, inexorable, hard and without pity in chastising the injustice which is done to it when one receives some rivals to it, “as hell” is violent to punish the damned. And entirely in the same way (as) hell, full of horror, rage and treason, does not receive any mixture of love, likewise jealous love does not receive any mixture of other affection, wishing that all be for the Beloved.[114]
Love is strong as death in order to make us leave all. it is magnificent as the Resurrection in order to adorn us with Glory and Honour.[115]
Love is strong as death, and the joys of love surmount the sorrows of death, because death cannot make them die, but revives them. Hence, as there is a fire which marvellously nourishes itself in a fountain near Grenoble, in a way we know very assuredly and which even the great St. Augustine likewise attests, (so) holy charity is so strong that it nourishes its flames and its consolations amid the most sorrowful anguishes of death, and the waters of tribulations cannot extinguish its fire.[116]
**********************
Perfect love, love which has attained zeal, can suffer neither intervention, interposition nor the mixture of any other affection in the heart which it possesses, not even of the gifts of God, because it does not even wish that one be fond of Paradise except in order there to love God more.
Its lamps do not even have oil or wax; they are all fire and ardent flames which the water of all the world could not know to extinguish.
Therefore, the soul which has loving zeal cannot suffer in itself any imperfection which it believes to be disagreeable to its Beloved.
The adulterer fears her husband and so, likewise, does the chaste spouse, but differently, because, as the great St. Augustine says, the adulterer fears his presence, (while) the chaste spouse fears his absence. The one fears that he may come; the other fears that he may go. The one fears being chastised; the other fears not being loved. But the latter does not fear so much not being loved as she fears not loving enough…
The former is not at all jealous, because she is not at all loving; the latter is (so) very loving that she is completely jealous. But she is not jealous of her own jealousy; she is jealous of the jealousy of her bridegroom. She does not fear not being loved, as do other jealousies, which is the jealousy which looks out for its (own) interest; but she fears not loving enough, which is the jealousy which looks to the interest of her bridegroom.
Thus, the Apostle, jealous of the souls of the Corinthians (2 Cor. 2:2), protests that it is not for him that he is jealous, but for his Master: “I am jealous of you, or if it is necessary thus to say, I envy you by the jealousy of God, because I have promised to present you to Him (as) a chaste virgin.”
That is why this jealousy is one of the properties of the perfect and most pure love towards Our Lord, which extends itself to the neighbour, towards whom we have some zeal and some jealousy as we have love, so that he be perfectly faithful to our common Saviour, (and thus we are) ready to die in order to prevent him from perishing.[117]
Appendices (8:8-14)
The Bridegroom in the Canticle of Canticles uses admirable terms in order to describe the modesty, chastity and most innocent candour of his divine loves with our dear beloved Spouse.
Therefore, he says this:
8:8 Our sister, this small little girl
alas, how small she is!
She does not even have breasts.
What will we do to her on the day
that it will be necessary to speak to her?
8:9 And if it is a wall, a tower,
let us make some ramparts of silver for it;
and if it is a door,
it is necessary to reinforce it
and to double the boards of cedars.
Behold how this divine Bridegroom speaks of the purity of the most holy Virgin, of the Church, or of the devout soul. But he addresses himself principally to the most holy Virgin, who was this divine Sulamite, par excellence, above all the others.
“Our sister, she is small; she does not even have breasts,” meaning she does not even think of marriage. One commonly says: such a girl is grand, she is ready to be married. But Our Lady, in the same way that her heavenly Bridegroom assures her, does not even think of marriage, for she has neither the heart nor the care for that: “What will we do to her on the day that it will be necessary to speak to her?” what does this mean: “on the day that it will be necessary to speak to her?” The divine Bridegroom, does he not always speak to her when it pleases him? “On that day that it will be necessary to speak to her” means (to speak) the principal word, which is when one speaks to the girls about marrying them, seeing that it is a word of importance, since it proceeds from the choice and election of a vocation and of a state in which it is necessary afterwards to live.
“And,” says the sacred Bridegroom, “if it is a wall, let us make ramparts of silver for it; if it is a door, on the contrary, let us wish to dig to the bottom of it; let us double it and reinforce the boards with cedar, which is an incorruptible wood.”
The most glorious Virgin was a “tower” and (made) of ramparts very high in the enclosure of which the enemy could by no means enter, (having) no sort of other desires than of living in perfect purity and virginity.
“What will we do to her?” For she must be married, he who has given her this resolution of virginity having thus ordered it.
“If it is a tower or a rampart, let us establish above ramparts of silver,” which, instead of battering down the tower, will further reinforce it. What is the glorious St. Joseph, if not a strong rampart who has been established above Our Lady, since, being his spouse, she was subject to him and he had care of her?
Therefore, on the contrary to St. Joseph’s (being) above Our Lady in order to make her break her vow of virginity, he had been given to her for her companion and so that the purity of Our Lady could be more admirably preserved in its integrity under the veil and shade of holy marriage and of the holy union which they had together.
“If the most holy Virgin is a door,” says the Eternal Father, we do not wish that she be opened, for it is an oriental door by which no one can enter or exit. On the contrary, he doubles and reinforces it with incorruptible wood, meaning (by) giving her a companion in her purity, who is the great St. Joseph, who by this effect came to surpass all the Saints, and even the Angels and the Cherubim themselves, in this so highly recommended virtue of virginity, (a) virginity which rendered him similar to the palm tree, in the same way (as) we have said.[118]
8:10 I am a wall, and my breasts (are) like a tower
which I have made
finding repose and peace in him.
My Bridegroom (has) made me lick such a wall and like such a tower that I am very pleasing and agreeable.
In the rest, no care of herself can deter her: Little, says the soul, is necessary to (one) who can live in the peace of Our Lord and with modesty. “A thousand pieces of silver” of some other great price is (a) thing of too little value:
8:11 The man who has peace in himself
has a vineyard in which (there) are poplars;
he has opened it to his guards,
and one renders to him for the fruits of it
a thousand pieces of silver.
And me, says the soul, I do not at all have concern of such things:
8:12 My vineyard is before me,
in the same way as a thousand peaceful (ones).
On the contrary, I wish further to give “two hundred” for alms to those poor who, with their prayers, guards our goods:
And two hundred to those who guard its fruit.
I know, says the soul, that my Beloved does not wish to endure rivals and that with the consolations which he gives me, he does not want that I mix the consolations that others than he could give me. But he commands me that, (by) awaking and resigning myself from all (entirely) to Him (and) with a clear and open protestation, I renounce all other bridegrooms:
8:13 You who inhabit the gardens,
your friends listen to you:
make me hear your voice.
And, consequently, behold me, ready to obey him; no more the world nor its pleasures, no more any mortal thing, O God, my God, you are my only Beloved; you alone are my Good; it is you alone whom I seek.[119]
The Canticle of Canticles is the wedding song of the Church and of Christ. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Solomon begins by a desire for union: “Let him kiss me.” (What does it mean, if not that he comes and unties himself to me by the Incarnation, that mystery of Wisdom, going forth from the mouth of the Most High, uniting itself to our flesh (Eccl. 19:1)…) And he finishes by the Ascension:
8:14 Flee, my Beloved, he says,
and be similar to the roe
and to the fawn of the doe
on the fragrant mountains.
The Blessed Bernard, in accord with most of the commentators, applies these words to the Ascension of the Lord…
The soul, says St. Bernard, does not wish, like St. Peter, to inhabit a tabernacle built on an earthly mountain; it wants Heaven. It does not wish, like Mary Magdalene, to touch Our Lord on earth; on the contrary, it exclaims: “Flee; and be similar to the roe…”, (for) the roe gains the summit of the mounts in order to see more distinctly all things at its feet and (to be) nearer to contemplate the Sun.
“Flee, but be similar to the roe,” who looks behind him in fleeing… (send us another Paraclete Jn. 16:16-20)… “and to the fawn of the does,” which, although it mounts by leaping, looks, at each instant, at where it has left its mother.
Thus, Christ looks at human nature by his returning, (by) sending it the gift of the Holy Spirit.[120]
And, to conclude, nothing remains for us to do (other) than to pray Our Lord that he wishes by his mercy to draw us to himself, so that, being already united with him by Grace, we may further (united) by Devotion, (and) so that after death, we could be eternally (united) by Glory. And in all his holy unions, let him kiss us, this divine Bridegroom, with a kiss of his sacred mouth.[121]
(Such is) infinite happiness, which has not only been promised to us, but of which we have (a) deposit in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, (the) perpetual Banquet of divine Grace. For in it we receive the blood of the Saviour in his flesh and his flesh in his blood, his blood being applied to us by his flesh, by substance by his substance, to our corporal mouths, so that we may know that in this way he will apply to us his Divine Essence in the Eternal Banquet of Glory.
It is true that here this favour is really done for us, but in a hidden way, under the sacramental species and appearance, whereas in Heaven, the Divinity will give itself in an open way, and we will see it (the Divinity) Face to Face, as it is(*).[122]
(*) This concludes the choice of texts of St. Francis de Sales commenting on the Canticle of Canticles. Five narratives, inspired directly by the Canticle follow.
Part II: Salesian Commentary
B. Inspired Narratives
First Narrative
2:5,6 Sustain my heart… comfort it…
otherwise it falls swooned…
Let us employ a parable, since this method has been so agreeable to the Sovereign Master of the love which we teach.
A very great and brave king, having espoused a most amiable young princess and having one day led her to a very secluded room in order to entertain himself with her more easily[123], after some discourse saw her fall swooned before him, by some unexpected accident.
Alas, that astonished him extremely and he was himself on the point of fainting and falling of at her side.[124]
Nevertheless, the same love which gave him this great attack of sorrow gave him equally the strength to sustain it, and he put it in action in order to remedy, with an unparalleled promptitude, the sickness of the dear companion of his life. Hence, opening quickly a buffet which was there, he took an infinitely precious water cordial, and having filled his mouth, he opened by force the lips and clenched teeth of this beloved princess. Then, blowing and casting this precious liquid, which he held in his mouth, into that of his poor swooned (one) and sprinkling the rest of the phial around her nose, on her temples, and on the place of her heart, he made her return to herself and regain her senses. Then he lifted her up again gently, and by (the) strength of remedies, he reinvigorated and revived her in such (a) way that she began to get up on her feet and walk all beautifully with him, but not, however, without his aid, for he continued raising and sustaining her by his arm. Finally, he put on the place of her heart an epithem (tropical remedy) of so great and precious virtue that then, sensing herself entirely restored to her former health, she marched all alone, her dear bridegroom no longer sustaining her so strongly but only holding her gently, his right hand between hers and his arms folded on her bosom and on her chest.[125]
He continued entreating her thus, and he made in this four most agreeable services: 1) he testified to her (of) his loving, solicitous heart for her; 2) he always continued comforting her a little; 3) if some feeling of her past faintness should have returned, he would have sustained her; 4) if she should have met some step or some rough and difficult place, he would have held her again and would have supported her, (and) on the steps or when she wished to go a little faster, he powerfully sustained and supported her.
Therefore, he remained close to her with this care until the night, and he wanted still to assist her when she was placed in her royal bed.
The soul is espoused to Our Lord when it is just, and because it is not at all just unless it is in charity, likewise it is not at all espoused unless it is led “into the room” of those delicious perfumes of which it is spoken in the Canticle…
Nevertheless, although by means of charity poured forth into our hearts (Rom. 5:5) we could march in the presence of God and make progress in the way of salvation, so it is that the divine Goodness assists the soul to which he has given his love, holding it continually by his holy hand.[126]
Second narrative (1:4)
“Ah do not consider my tint,
for I am truly brown,
seeing that my Beloved, who is my sun,
has beamed the rays of his love on me…”
it is (a) well known fact that human love has the strength not only of wounding the heart but of rendering sick the body, even to death. Seeing that a passion and the temperament of the body have much power to incline the soul and to draw it after itself, likewise the affections of the soul have a great strength in order to stir the temperaments and to change the qualities of the body.
But beyond that, love, when it is vehement, so impetuously carries the soul by the thing loved and occupies it so strongly, that it lacks all other operations, whether sensitive or intellectual. Hence, in order to nourish this love and promote it, it seems that the soul abandons every other concern, even every other exercise of itself.
For (this) Plato has said that love was “poor, torn, naked, laid bare, pitiful, homeless, lying outside on the hard ground (or) in the doorways, (and) always indigent.”
It is “poor” because it leaves everything for the thing loved.
It is “homeless” because it makes the soul leave its home in order to follow always the one who is loved.
It is “pitiful,” pale, meagre and worn out because it loses sleep, drink and food.
It is “naked and laid bare” because it leaves all other affections in order to take those of the things loved.
It lies “outside on the hard ground” because it lives uncovered (in) the heart which loves, manifesting its passions to him by sighs, lamentations, praises, conjectures (and) jealousies.
It is completely outstretched, as a beggar “in the doorways,” because it makes the lover perpetually attentive to the eyes and mouth of the things which it loves and always attached to its ears in order to speak (to) it and to beg its favours, with which it is never satiated. Now the eyes, the ears, and the mouth are the doors of the soul.
And finally, its life is that of being always “indigent” since once it is satisfied, it is no longer ardent, and consequently, it is no longer love.
Certainly, I know well that Plato spoke in that way of object, vile and pitiful love. But, for all that, these properties are nevertheless to be found (even) in heavenly and divine love.[1][127]
Third Narrative (4:9)
“You have wounded my heart…"
one has seen such a young man enter into conversation free, healthy and very happy who, not taking guard of himself, sense well before leaving that love helped itself to the regards, the deportments, the words, and indeed event eh hairs of a (feeble and) weak creature. (And) seeing that the arrows will have smitten and wounded his pitiful heart in such (a) way, behold him completely sorrowful, gloomy and astonished. Why, I beg you, is he sorrowful? It is, without doubt, because he is wounded. And what has wounded him? Love.[128]
Fourth Narrative (7:7)
“How beautiful you are…”
To contemplate…
Sometimes we look at only one of the perfections of God, as for example, his infinite Goodness, without thinking of his other attributes or virtues.
(It is) like a bridegroom fixing his sight on the beautiful tint of his spouse, who by this means would truly look at all her appearance, seeing that her tint is poured forth on nearly all her parts. Yet, (he) would be attentive neither to her traits, nor to her grace, nor to the other parts of her beauty…
Sometimes we are likewise attentive to look at several of the infinite perfections in God, but by one simple sight, without distinction.
(It is) like the one who, by a trait of the eyes, passing his view from the head to the feet of his richly adorned spouse, would have attentively seen all in general and nothing in particular, not knowing exactly to say what necklace or what gown she wore, what countenance she possessed, or what look she had, but only that all was beautiful and agreeable…
and finally, at other times we do not look at several or only one of the divine perfections, but only (at) some action or divine work to which we are attentive.
Thus, (it is) like a bridegroom who would not consider the eyes, but only the gentleness of the look which his spouse casts on him. (He) would not at all consider her mouth, but (only) the sweetness of the words which follow…
But, in whatever of the three fashions one proceeds, contemplation has always this excellence, that it is made with pleasure, seeing that it presupposes that one has found God and his holy love, which one enjoys and takes delight in, saying:
I have found Him whom my soul cherishes;
I have found him, and I will not at all leave him.[129]
Fifth narrative (8:6)
“Love is stronger as death”
Cf. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 12: A remarkable story of the knight who died of love on Mount Olivet
A very illustrious and virtuous knight went one day across the sea to Palestine in order to visit the Holy Places where Our Lord had performed the works of our Redemption. In order to begin worthily this holy exercise, before all things he confessed and communicated devoutly.
Then (he) goes, in the first place, to the village of Nazareth, where the Angel announced to the Virgin the most sacred Incarnation and where the very adorable Conception of the Eternal Word was accomplished. There this worthy pilgrim begins to contemplate the depth of heavenly Goodness which had designed to take human flesh in order to draw men back from perdition.
From there he passes to Bethlehem, to the place of the Nativity, where one could not imagine how many tears he pours forth, contemplating those with which the Son of God, small Infant of the Virgin, had watered that holy stable, kissing and rekissing a hundred times that sacred ground, and licking the dust on which the first infancy of this divine Baby had been received.
From Bethlehem he goes to Bethara and passes as far as the small place of Bethany where, remembering that Our Lord had stripped himself in order to be baptized, he likewise strips himself. Entering into the Jordan (and) washing himself and drinking its waters, he perceives seeing there his Saviour receiving Baptism by the hand of his Precursor and the Holy Spirit descending visibly on him under the form of (a) dove, with the heavens still opened, from where, it seems to him, the voice of the Eternal Father descends, saying: “This is my beloved Son in who I delight” (cf. Mt. 3:16-4:11).
From Bethany he goes into the desert and sees, by the eyes of his spirit, the Saviour fasting, struggling with, and conquering the enemy. Then (he sees) the Angels who served him admirable foods.
From there he goes up to the mountain of Tabor, where he sees the Saviour transfigured (and) then to the mountain of Sion, where, again it seems to him, he sees Our Lord kneeling down in the (room of the) Last Supper, washing the feet of his disciples and later distributing to them his Divine Body in the Sacred Eucharist.
He passes the stream of Cedron and goes to the garden of Gethsemene, where his heart is found in the tears of a most lovable sorrow when he pictures to himself his dear Saviour, sweating his blood in that extreme agony which he suffered there (and) then soon after, bound, tied, and led to Jerusalem, where he makes his way also, following everywhere the footprints of his Beloved. And in imagination (he) sees him dragged here and there, to Annas, to Caiaphas, to Pilate, to Herod, whipped and condemned to death, burdened by the cross which he carries, and carrying it, (he) has the pitiable meeting with his Mother, completely weakened by sorrow, and the women of Jerusalem, weeping over Him.
(And) so, at last, this devout pilgrim climbs Mount Calvary, where he sees, in spirit, the Cross spread out on the earth and Our Lord all naked, whom one very cruelly threw down and nailed hands and feet on it.
He looks at the poor sacred Virgin, entirely pierced through by the sword of sorrow. Then he turns his eyes on the crucified Saviour, from whom he listens to the seven words with unparalleled love. And finally, he sees him dying, then dead, then receiving the thrust of the lance and showing by the opening the wound of his Divine Heart, then taken off the cross and carried to the sepulchre, where he goes following him, casting a sea of tears on the places moistened by the blood of his Redeemer. Hence, he enters into the sepulchre and entombs his heart near the body of his Master.
Then, rising with him, he goes to Emmaus and sees all that passed between the Saviour and the two disciples. Finally, returning to Mt. Olivet, where the mystery of the Ascension took place, and seeing there the last marks and vestiges of the feet of the divine Saviour, (he) prostrates on them, and kissing them (a) thousand and thousand times with sighs of an infinite love, he begins to withdraw into himself all the forces of his affections… Then, getting up again (and) raising his eyes and stretching out his hands toward Heaven, he says:
O Jesus, … my gentle Jesus,
I no longer know where to look for you
and follow (you) on earth.
Ah, Jesus, my love, grant to this heart
that it may follow you and go after (you) there on high.
And with these ardent words he hurls his soul toward Heaven…, (and) like (a) divine archer, he directs (it) to the (centre of the) target of his very blessed object.
But his companions and servants who saw this poor lover suddenly fall to his death, astonished by this accident, run by force to the doctor, who came (and) found that he actually passed away…
“Without doubt,” said the doctor, “his heart burst by the excess and fervour of love.”
And in order to affirm better his judgement, he wished to open him. And (after doing so he) found that brave heart split open, with this sacred phrase engraved on the interior of it:[130]
Jesus, MY LOVE!
-----------------------------------------
[1] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 4, p. 50. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 9.
[2] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 50. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 9.
[3] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 74. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 1, Chapter 15.
[4] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 393. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 7 to Chapter 11.
[5] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 162. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 21.
[6] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 17. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse I, p. 3.
[7] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 78. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 8, Chapter 7.
[8] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 423.
[9] oeuvres, Tome 10, p. 44.
[10] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 379. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 2 to Chapter 4.
[11] oeuvres, Tome 10, p. 465.
[12] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 188. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 6.
[13] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 26, p. 17. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse I, p. 3.
[14] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 358. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 15; Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 421. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13.
[15] Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 217. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 14.
[16] Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 217. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 14.
[17] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 217. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 4, Chapter 1.
[18] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 18. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse I, p. 5.
[19] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 19. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse I, p. 6.
[20] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 103. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 5.
[21] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 331. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 8.
[22] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 19. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse I, p. 6.
[23] Oeuvres, Tome 15, p. 17.
[24] Oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 144.
[25] Oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 55. Letters, 11.
[26] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 20. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse I, p. 7-8.
[27] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 350. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13; Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 415. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13 to Chapter 15.
[28] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 287. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 9.
[29] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 287. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 9.
[30] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 331. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 8.
[31] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 5, p. 323. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 12, Chapter 3.
[32] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 118. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 8.
[33] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 295. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 11.
[34] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 309. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 2.
[35] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 22. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse II, p. 12.
[36] Oeuvres, Tome 14, p. 107.
[37] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 278. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 7.
[38] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 331. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 8.
[39] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 26, p. 23. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse II, pp. 12-13.
[40] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 278. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 7.
[41] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 23. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse II, p. 13.
[42] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 278. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 7.
[43] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 23. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse II, p. 13.
[44] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 138. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 15.
[45] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 188. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 6.
[46] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 161.
[47] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 4, p. 294. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 11.
[48] Oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 471.
[49] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 25. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse III, pp. 15-16; Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 304. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 1.
[50] Oeuvres, Tome 8, p. 143.
[51] Oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 213.
[52] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 26. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse III, pp. 17-19.
[53] Oeuvres, Tome 3, p. 182. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 3, Chapter 13.
[54] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 27. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse III, pp. 19-20.
[55] Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 324. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 12, Chapter 3.
[56] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 71. Sermons, 27-28.
[57] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 9, p. 71. Sermons, 27-28.
[58] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 27. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse III, p. 20.
[59] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 335. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 9.
[60] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 27. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse III, p. 20.
[61] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 3. Treatise on the Love of God, Preface.
[62] Oeuvres, Tome 16, p. 105.
[63] Oeuvres, Tome 10, p. 60.
[64] Oeuvres, Tome 1, p. 55.
[65] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 28. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse III, p. 21.
[66] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 4, p. 304. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 1.
[67] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 340. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 11.
[68] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 274. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 9.
[69] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 316.
[70] oeuvres, Tome 3, p. 109. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2, Chapter 18.
[71] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 274. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 5.
[72] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 114. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 8.
[73] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 29. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse IV, pp. 23-24.
[74] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 3, p. 110. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part 2, Chapter 18.
[75] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 30. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse IV, p. 24.
[76] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 172.
[77] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 136. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2, Chapter 16.
[78] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 349. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13.
[79] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 193.
[80] oeuvres, Tome 1, p. 156.
[81] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 31. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse IV, pp. 27-28.
[82] oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 319. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 5.
[83] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 69. Sermons, 25.
[84] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 383. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 2.
[85] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 32. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse IV, p. 29.
[86] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 117.
[87] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 26, p. 32. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse IV, p. 29.
[88] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 197.
[89] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 33. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse IV, p. 29-30.
[90] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 176. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 4.
[91] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 183. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 5.
[92] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 345.
[93] oeuvres, Tome 3, p. 299. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Chapter 4.
[94] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 33. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse IV, p. 31.
[95] oeuvres, Tome 3, p. 299. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Chapter 4.
[96] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 5, p. 363. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 2.
[97] oeuvres, Tome 8, p. 205.
[98] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 34. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse V, p. 32.
[99] oeuvres, Tome 9 p. 63
[100] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 34. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse V, p. 32.
[101] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 93.
[102] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 34. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse V, pp. 32-33.
[103] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 161.
[104] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 35. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse V, p. 33.
[105] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 13. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 2.
[106] oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 38. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 9.
[107] oeuvres, Tome 17, p. 119.
[108] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 36. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse V, p. 35.
[109] oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 36. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse V, p. 36.
[110] oeuvres, Tome 9, p. 191.
[111] oeuvres, Tome 7, p. 461.
[112] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 26, p. 37. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse VI, p. 36-38.
[113] oeuvres, Tome 5, P. 14. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 2.
[114] oeuvres, Tome 5, P. 211. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 13.
[115] oeuvres, Tome 5, P. 163. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, Chapter 16.
[116] oeuvres, Tome 4, P. 271. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 5, Chapter 4.
[117] oeuvres, Tome 5, P. 433 (213). Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 13 and Treatise on the Love of God, Book 10, Chapter 14.
[118] Oeuvres de St. Francois de Sales. Annecy: Religieuses de la Visitation, 1893-1993), Tome 6, p. 357.
[119] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 38. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, trans. Henry Benedict, Canon Mackey, D.D., O.S.B. (publication information unknown), Discourse VI, p. 38-40.
[120] Oeuvres, Tome 8, p. 120.
[121] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 39. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse VI, p. 40-41.
[122] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 202. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 11.
[123] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 18. The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles, Discourse I.4.
[124] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 18. The Mystical Exposition, Discourse 4.9.
[125] Oeuvres, Tome 26, p. 18. The Mystical Exposition, Discourse 2.6; Discourse 8.3
[126] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 174. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 3, Chapter 3.
[127] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 355. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 15.
[128] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 348. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 13.
[129] Oeuvres, Tome 4, p. 322. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 6, Chapter 6.
[130] Oeuvres, Tome 5, p. 45. Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 12.
Books | Quotes | 27 Volumes | Pictures | Videos | Audio Books | Articles | Prayers