Salesian Literature

Part III: The Mystical Exposition of the Canticle of Canticles

::   Foreword   ::   Preface   ::   Discourse 1   ::   Discourse 2   ::   Discourse 3   ::   Discourse 4   ::   Discourse 5   ::   Discourse 6

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Discourse 4

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Fourth Obstacle: Bodily Travail

The soul which attains to these degrees quite often finds herself with a weary and fatigued body, which is why it happens that if God invites her to new considerations and higher degrees, she is in a state of perplexity.  She would surely wish to advance, but the pain frightens her.  And if the Bridegroom calls her anew, she lifts herself to go to prayer, yet with resistance on the sensitive part, which deprives her of delight and makes her scarcely able to think that God is with her.  And, as it happens to those who are extremely weary, she sleeps while awake: I sleep, but my heart lies awake.  Then, turning herself toward her Bridegroom who strikes her heart: It is the voice of my Beloved who knocks, and he excites her to the end that she opens to him and begins anew her prayer: Open to me, my sister, my beloved, my dove, my all beautiful one, and with a fourth degree of prayer, meditate a little on my Passion.  You will find that I have my Head full of the heavenly dew of my blood, and my hair bloodied by the nocturnal points of the thorns: For my head is full of dew and my entangled hairs are thoroughly drenched with the drops of the nights (5:2).

        

The soul would surely love to obey, but weariness causes her to desire a little rest, which makes her say to him: I have cast off my robe, how will I redress?  I have washed my feet, in what way will I dirty them?  Most sweet Jesus, notwithstanding this resistance, you still do not cease to entreat in order to enter.  And, as with the hand of a stronger inspiration, it seems that he would wish, without any help, to take away the bolt of the sensuality which poses an obstacle to him and to enter by the narrow opening of the heart: My beloved has put his hand through the narrow opening.  In this great vocation, the soul is excited (My insides have trembled at his very touch) and resolves that she must open to her Bridegroom and begin a new meditation: I arise in order to open to my Beloved.  But on the other hand, she senses so great a sorrow at not having opened at the first knock, that she overturns the vase of myrrh, meaning that she fills herself up entirely with penitence, by bathing with tears as far as the bolt, that is by making her sorrow pass as far as her sensuality: My hands have exuded myrrh and my fingers are full of true myrrh and of honey (5:3-5).

        

By means of this sorrow, it happens that although the soul, in default of the corporal and sensitive part, opens to her Lord (I have opened the bolt of my door to my Beloved), nevertheless because of this repugnance, she finds so little delight in prayer that it appears that God is not with her: but he has turned himself away and has already passed.  From this, reminding herself to have been so called and yet so lazy, she is grieved and consumed by sorrow: My soul is entirely dissolved since my Beloved has spoken.  She tries to find delight in the first degree of consideration by means of sensible things; but the travail does not permit her to find him there: I have searched for him and have not found him; I have called him, and he has not responded to me.  She passes to the second degree, (the consideration) of spiritual and angelic things; The guards who surround the city have found me.  But when she compares this promptitude with her laziness, she remains transpierced by sorrow; They have beaten and distressed me.  And, what is the worst, if she enters into the third degree, to consider herself in her relation toward God, she effects the same resistance, for which she is displeased with herself.  It seems to her that her face is too unsightly in comparison with that of the Angels, and that, by manner of saying, they take away all her lustre: The guards of the walls have taken away my clock (5:6, 7).  In such a way, wherever she finds herself, she encounters again great difficulties, excited by this fourth obstacle of bodily travails.

        

Remedy: Spiritual Conferences and Conversations

Vocal prayer, or rather spiritual conversations, serve as remedies to the tedium of work.  Thus one sees that one who by sickness has lost delight and appetite, by changing food recovers it, and that in contemplative congregations one interjects some spiritual conferences in prayers.  The soul, therefore, disgusted by the work of prayer, should address herself to some spiritual persons and ask them to aide her in finding her Bridegroom: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that if you find my Beloved, you would tell him that I languish of love for him.  And they, knowing her need, will lead her to discourse about the qualities of the Bridegroom: Who is your Beloved, O beautiful one among women, that, for him, you have so strongly adjured us? (5:8,9).

        

Then she propounds Jesus Christ, so well in what is natural that it is not possible to represent him better.  He is God, brightness of the light itself,[1]  but made man for us to be able to redeem us in the purple[2] of his blood: My Beloved is white and red.   And, as man, he is so singular that one can know him among thousands, chosen of thousands, because charity, the chief of the virtues, can be said to be of gold in him, meaning very precious: his head is a purest and finest gold.  And the graces and benefits, which like innumerable hairs, proceed from it are the first fruits of the palm trees and are black as crows.  These are the effects of the victory which he accomplished on the tree of the Cross, as worthy of being admired as the black in a horse: His head of hair is like branches of high, lofty palm tress, black as a crow.  He is like a white dove which has in itself all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, represented by the eyes: His eyes are like those of doves on the banks of the waters, that one has washed in milk.  The Holy Spirit, called in another fashion a “stream,” is given to him not by some measure by with all plenitude: and they reside in the full bodies of the waters.  Hence, if you contemplate his examples, as cheeks full, open, and put in view of all, as odoriferant as vases full of aromatic perfumes, they will make themselves felt on all sides: His cheeks are like beds of aromatic flowers that the perfumers themselves have planted.  His doctrine seems to be precious myrrh which sprouts like lilies from his holy lips: His lips are like lilies which exude the most singular myrrh.  His miracles are such that it seems that from his hands hyacinths flow and fall abundantly: His hands are ringlets of gold full of hyacinths (5:10-14).

        

What more?  Whether inside, whether outside, this Bridegroom is admirable.  His heart is of ivory, enriched by precious stones: his deliberations are simple, but prudent: His insides are of ivory, sown with sapphires on the outside.  His actions are strong, but with discretion: His thighs are columns of marble founded on bases of gold.  And, in order to finish here, he is all most dear, all most handsome: His beauty is like that of Lebanon, his bearing like that of a cedar (5:14-15).

        

Fourth Degree: Consideration of our God in himself, but made human

Seeing that the soul discovers God in his humanity, the delights come again to her, and she is constrained to cry out: Alas! His throat is most suave and it is quite desirable; such is my Beloved, and he is my most dear one, O daughters of Jerusalem. And if the persons whom she is with wish to follow and say to her: Where has your Bridegroom gone, O most beautiful one among all women? Where has he turned away? And we will search with you, she wishes no more to entreat them.  But, recognizing that although the travails should make it seem to her that her Bridegroom has withdrawn himself very far, nevertheless he had not gone; on the contrary, he had always dwelled 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 most odoriferant lilies: My Beloved has come into his garden, to the bed of aromatic flowers, in order to delight in the gardens and there to cull some lilies.  And for this, since she knows that he has always been with her and is still present there, she says: I am to my Beloved, and my Beloved is to me, who delights among the lilies.  She has no more need of any other thing than of talking with him, saying: O Lord, when could I please you by my beauty, sweetness, good grace, strength, innocence, devotion and discretion?  When will it be, therefore, that you say to me: O my beloved, you are beautiful, sweet, and graceful like Jerusalem, strong as a well-arrayed army?  Already, Lord, you have shown me by a thousand signs that my eyelids (Love) blessed you, meaning that my intentions are not displeasing to you: Turn your eyes away from me, for they have caused me to go forth from myself; that my hairs, meaning my desires, are pure and spotless: Your hairs are like a flock of kids who  appear on mount of Gilead; that my senses, just as flocks, have been faithfully guarded: Your teeth are like flocks of sheep who leave from the washing, each having two little ones, and none of them is sterile; and that the strengths of my concupiscent part, desiring the good and fleeing the evil without dissimulation, are dear and agreeable to you like two cheeks well-coloured: Your cheeks are like an opened pomegranate, without that which is hidden within (6:1-6).

        

But, O God, says the soul, already here before you, you have praised me for nearly all these parts.  I would desire now to advance and to surpass in devotion so many other devout souls, or those who think to be, and that you would be able to say to me: There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and some young daughters without number, by my dove is all alone.  How do I know?  Could it be I desire too much? I would like that you should be able to call me my perfect one.  I would like to have some rarity in my nature, which is my mother, and that one say of her: She is unique to her mother; she is the chosen of that one who has engendered her.  I would like that one could say further: Behold her whom the daughters have seen and have said to be most blessed; the queens and the concubines have praised her for her innocence, having gone forth from the night of sin.  Who is this here who marches in devotion, as does the dawn when it arises, beautiful as the moon, of prudence and good election, chosen as the sun; and finally of invincible strength, terrible as the squadrons of a well arrayed army (6:7-9).

        

But, besides this, the soul adds: Where have you been, my Lord, it seemed to me that you had left me, when the travail and fatigue did not permit that I should have any delight? I have been, he responds, in you who are my garden, and there I have been with more profit for you than I have been if, at the first knock, I would have given you some delights, giving you occasion of merit, for which I have drawn from my garden a greater fruit of merit:[3] I have gone down to my garden of walnuts in order to see the apple trees of the valleys, and to see if the vine had flowered and if the pomegranates had germinated.

        

Therefore, may you be blessed, O Lord, responds the soul, that in such fashion, making me believe that you were absent, you have given me occasion of merit and have made me walk in a short time farther than the coaches of princes; and for this, since I had not known that you were with me, I can say that my soul has troubled me because of the chariots of Aminadab (6:10, 11).

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[1] Wis. 7:26

[2] A play on words in the French “poupre” includes the figurative meaning of “sovereign dignity.”

[3] Cf. Introduction to the Devout Life, Part IV, Chapter 4.

 

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