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

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discourse 1

​

First Obstacle: The recollection of sensible pleasures

Whoever determines never more to offend God encounters several occasions suggested by the devil to sin.  Whoever is resolved no longer to wish for consolation except in God encounters the world, which presents new temporal pleasures to him.  And not being able to separate oneself from, nor undo, old companions, conversations, and recreations is a great obstacle to comprehending the divine consolations.

      

Therefore, the Spouse (meaning the souls already in grace), wanting to acquiesce in the spiritual life by the kisses of her divine Bridegroom (which are spiritual consolations), suffers a great pain in being dependent on the chorus of women (old conversations) who offer her wines and perfumes (which are temporal pleasures).  whereas the soul is languishing due to the absence of her Bridegroom and desires to unite herself to him by prayer, the chorus of women wishes to comfort her with wines and perfumes, placing her again amid the memory of past pleasures.  notwithstanding this, she requests: Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth (1:1).

      

Remedy: Desires and petitions for spiritual goods

Firstly, she considers that the worldly goods and pleasures, in comparison with the divine, are only vanity; secondly, that God is sweet and desirable in himself; thirdly, that several holy souls have led the way, not having found any pleasure except in God; fourthly, she asks God to take away all earthly affections.

      

Concerning the first, she says: Your loves are better than wine and more fragrant than perfumes.  Concerning the second: Your name is the same perfume poured out.  For the third: The young girls have loved you. And for the fourth: Draw me after you, we will follow you and will run to the fragrance of your perfumes.  And all at once, carried away by a great confidence of obtaining that which she asks, as if it were already done, she adds: My King has led me into his chambers; we will leap with joy and we will rejoice in him and with him by the recollection of your loves which are better than wine; the righteous love you and esteem you (1:1-3).

      

Scruples nevertheless occur unexpectedly by the memory of past sins; for this she says: I am black.  But the integrity of her present conscience causes her to add: but I am beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar and as the curtains of Salma.  The seat of sin in the concupiscence bring about in disgrace, but without it being a reproach to her or imputer to her as sin: Do not therefore consider that I am dark, for my Sun has thus willed to leave me in this struggle; the sun has given me the tint that I have, and it has not come to me by my fault, but by that of the first children of human nature, my mother. The sons of my mother have battled against me.  It was by their sin that I was given to the necessity of taking so much care and of looking after myself as if I were keeping a vineyard: they have placed me to look after the vines against the assaults of concupiscence, and all that, alas! not by my own and actual fault, but by that of others, for which I can say: the vineyard that I have looked after was not mine (1:4-5).

      

Yet still, may confidence return to me, and may I commence to look for my Bridegroom where he is more easily found, by prayer.  O you whom my soul loves, teach me where you pass and where you sleep in the shade of midday, so that I may not run to and fro, straying in the flocks of your companions, that is after creatures.  Teach me where I could find you in prayer, with your lights and consolations, without stopping myself at the creature.

      

First Degree: Consideration of God in corporal things

Do you see this sun, O my spouse, these stars, these heavens, this earth, these heights?  They are so many ways and paths for finding me.  They are not made themselves;[1] they are not without some principle which has made them and which is their last end, which preserves them, which keeps them.  But who is this principle and this end?  It is God.  the mothers of all things are the ideas of them which are in me, in my power and goodness.  But lambs, as soon as the door of the sheepfold is opened, run right to their mother; so man, seeing the creatures, ascends little by little to God; it is a means to find me.

      

If you do not yet have a complete understanding, O most beautiful of women, because you are still beginning, leave the recollection of past pleasures and go forth following the steps of your flocks.  Look for my tracks in all creatures; let yourself be guided and led there where they themselves return, and you will find that they will go to repose in the pastures of their first shepherd: Make your kids graze near the lodgings of the pastors (1:7.

      

You will be conducted to three pastures and one Pastor, to three creating ones and one Creator.  All sensible creatures will lead you there, and the most noble better still.  Above all, human nature will be profitable to you in your first meditations.  You will the supernatural goods which are in it and also that it is the dwelling place God, his throne and almost his chariot; for which God can say to it: O my beloved, I have made your similar to my steeds harnessed to the chariots of Pharaoh. You will see there natural goods, for human nature is also beautiful in itself as it if had all the ornaments of the world: your cheeks are beautiful as if they are adorned by some beautiful ornaments; your neck is beautiful as if it were adorned by some beautiful jewel.  You will see these accidental goods,[2] such as that all the world has been made for your use, ornament and service: we will make you rings of gold which will be inlaid with silver.  These are benefits so grand, that the soul meditating on them is inflamed with love and is constrained to exclaim: Since I can do no other thing, at least I will love you, O my Bridegroom, and I myself will be your royal chamber, which I will perfume with nard.  That is, I will fill myself up with love: seeing that my King will be in his chamber, my perfume, which is composed of nard will embalm all that place with the suavity of its fragrance.  What is more, I will unite myself so closely with him that I will carry him as a bouquet within my bosom: My Beloved is the bouquet of myrrh that I will carry always between my two breasts.   He will always be my dearest balm and my greatest treasure: My Beloved is to me a cluster of balm culled in the vines of Engaddi (1:8-13).

      

These affections make the Bridegroom love the soul and praise it, saying: O how beautiful you are, my Beloved! Behold how beautiful you are; your eyes are like those of the dove.  The soul on its part, recognizing that all its light depends upon its Sun, which is God, confesses that he alone is beautiful by essence: O my Beloved, you are beautiful and graceful, and you embellish so much our essence when it pleases you, that even our bed, which is our body, is beautiful; behold our bed flourishing and even this world, our dwelling place.  The rafters of our houses are (made) of cedars and our joists are (made) of Cyprus (1:14-16); therefore, what marvel if I am the flower of the field and the lily of the valleys?  Avowing this, the Bridegroom shows that several souls are clearly of a contrary condition by the malice of their wills, for they are like thorns; as a lily between thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters (2:1-2).

      

Dear praises which the soul neither accepts nor refuses, but, charmed by her Bridegroom, she returns to consider him in sensible things themselves, no more by meditating in order to love him, but by contemplating in order to be delighted, confessing him the highest among all created things: as an apple tree is among the trees of the forests, so is my Beloved among the children of men. And so, having found a good so eminent above every other, she reposes herself there without searching more; I myself am at rest in the shade of that which I desired. And in this spiritual repose is given the taste of devotion: and his fruit is sweet to my taste.  And it is so sweet that it engenders holy fancies and outbursts of enthusiasm in my soul, as if it were inebriated with love; for which she exclaims: He has led me to the cellar of his wine; he has deployed over me the standard of his charitable love.[3]  But particularly by their frequent communication, they engender the habit of spiritual joy in which, languishing sweetly, they sense themselves to swoon and faint away.  And for this she says: Ah, comfort me again with flowers; put apples around me, for it is with love that l languish (2:3-5).

      

What more?  There is rapture, mystically signified by sleep.  The soul, sensing it coming suddenly upon her and not wanting to sleep elsewhere than between the arms of her Bridegroom, says: Let his left hand be under my head and let his right hand embrace me tightly.  Then God takes care that base things do not impede this divine consolation; for which he says to the chorus of ladies: I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the goats and by the stags of the fields, that you not awaken nor cause to awaken my beloved until she would will it (2:6,7).  Then the soul begins to experience and to understand that there is no sweetness which equals that which is found in mental prayer.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Cf. Ps. 94:3

[2] “Accidental” is a philosophical term for those goods which are not part of the “substance” of a thing, or that which makes it what it is.

[3] In this translation of 2:4, Francis juxtapose the Hebrew and Septuagint (Greek) texts.

​

Back to Top

​