Salesian Literature

Chapter 9:  Love seeks union

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Solomon gives a wonderful description of love between God and a devoted soul; so charming, his treatment of it, the work is called the Song of Songs.  With the idyllic love of a chaste shepherd and modest shepherdess for his theme, he gently lifts our minds to the spiritual romance between ourselves and God – the response of the human heart to God’s inspirations.  Solomon gives the first line to the bride suddenly betrayed into an exclamation of love: A kiss from those lips! (Song 1:1).  Notice that the first thing the shepherdess wants – and she represents the human soul, Theotimus – is chaste union with the bridegroom.  It is all she lives fro.  What else does it reveal, I ask you? – that initial sigh of hers : A kiss from those lips!

 

Instinctively, it seems, the kiss has always been used as a symbol of perfect love – union of hearts.  In this way, lips meet lips in a kiss, symbolic of that mutual outpouring of soul for the achievement of perfect unity.  That is why, in every age and among the world’s most saintly men, the kiss has been a sign of love and affection.  The early Christians always used it for this purpose, as St. Paul shows when he tells the Romans and Corinthians: Greet one another with the kiss of saints (Rom. 16:16;  1 Cor. 16:20; 2 Cor. 13:12).  It has often been pointed out that Judas indicated our Lord in this way at the time of his arrest (Mt. 26:48,49), since it was the Saviour’s custom to greet his disciples with a kiss.  Our Lord even gave it to the little children he took lovingly in his arms (Mk. 10:16).

 

To indicate perfection of love, the Holy Spirit nearly always uses words expressing unity or connection.  There was one heart and soul, says St. Luke (Acts 4:32), in all the company of believers.  Praying to his Father for all the faithful, our Lord asked that they may all be one (Jn. 17:21).  St. Paul warns us to be eager to preserve that unity the Spirit gives … whose bond is peace (Eph. 4:3).  Such unity of heart, soul and mind symbolizes the perfection of love – the union of many souls.  So it is said that David’s heart was knit to the heart of Jonathan by a close bond (1 Kings 18:1); in other words, as Scriptures add, Jonathan loved David … as dearly as his own life.

 

Hatred divides; love unites.  So love has only one object: the union of the lover with what he loves.

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