|
Introduction
1. The Bridegroom continues the explanation of his happiness over the blessing the bride has obtained
through the solitude in which she formerly desired to live. This blessing is a stable peace and unchanging
good. When the soul has become established in the quietude of solitary love of her Bridegroom, as has this
one of whom we are speaking, she is settled in God, and God in her, with so much delight that she has no
need of other masters or means to direct her to him, for now God is her guide and her light. He
accomplishes in her what he promised through Hosea: I shall lead her into solitude and there speak to her
heart [Hos. 2:14]. In this promise he reveals that he communicates and unites himself to the soul in solitude.
To speak to the heart is to satisfy the heart, which is dissatisfied with anything less than God. Thus the
Bridegroom continues:
She lived in solitude,
and now in solitude has built her nest;
and in solitude he guides her,
he alone, who also bears
in solitude the wound of love.
Commentary
2. The Bridegroom does two things in this stanza:
First, he praises the solitude in which the soul formerly desired to live, telling how it was a means for her to
find and rejoice in her Beloved alone, withdrawn from all her former afflictions and fatigues. Since she
wished to live in solitude, apart from every satisfaction, comfort, and support of creatures in order to reach
companionship and union with her Beloved, she deserved to discover the possession of peaceful solitude in
her Beloved, in whom she rests, alone and isolated from all these disturbances.1
Second, he states that, insofar as she desired to live apart from all created things, in solitude for her
Beloved's sake, he himself was enamored of her because of this solitude and took care of her by accepting
her in his arms, feeding her in himself with every blessing, and guiding her to the high things of God. He
asserts not only that he guides her, but does so alone without other means (angels, humans, forms, or
figures), for she now possesses, through this solitude, true liberty of spirit that is not bound to any of these
means. The verse states:
She lived in solitude,
3. The soul, represented by the turtledove, lived in solitude before encountering the Beloved in this state of
union. There is no companionship that affords consolation to the soul that longs for God; indeed, until she
finds him, everything causes greater solitude.
and now in solitude has built her nest;
4. The solitude in which she lived consisted of the desire to go without the things of the world for her
Bridegroom's sake - as we said of the turtledove - by striving for perfection, acquiring perfect solitude in
which she reaches union with the Word.2 She consequently attains to complete refreshment and rest,
signified here by the nest that refers to repose. It is similar to saying: She formerly practiced this solitude, in
which she lived, in trial and anguish because she was imperfect, but now she has built her nest in it and has
found refreshment and repose in having acquired it perfectly in God. David, speaking spiritually, says: Truly
the sparrow has found a house and the turtledove a nest where she can nurture her young [Ps. 84:3], that
is: The soul has found a place in God where she can satisfy her appetites and faculties.
and in solitude he guides her,
5. In this solitude, away from all things, the soul is alone with God and he guides, moves, and raises her to
divine things. That is: he elevates her intellect to divine understanding, because it is alone and divested of
other contrary and alien knowledge; he moves her will freely to the love of God, because it is alone and
freed from other affections; and he fills her memory with divine knowledge, because it is now alone and
empty of other images and phantasies. Once the soul disencumbers these faculties and empties them of
everything inferior and of possessiveness in regard to superior things, leaving them alone without these
things, God engages them in the invisible and divine. It is God who guides her in this solitude, as St. Paul
declares of the perfect: Qui spiritu Dei aguntur, and so on (they are moved by the Spirit of God) [Rom.
8:14]. This is like saying; In solitude he guided her,
he alone, who also bears
6. The meaning of this is not only that he guided her in her solitude, but it is he alone who works in her
without any means. This is a characteristic of the union of the soul with God in spiritual marriage: God works
in and communicates himself to her through himself alone, without using as means the angels or natural
ability, for the exterior and interior senses, and all creatures, and even the soul herself do very little toward
the reception of the remarkable supernatural favors that God grants in this state. These favors do not fall
within the province of the soul's natural ability or work or diligence, but God alone grants them to her. And
the reason he does so is that he finds her alone and does not want to give her any other company, nor
does he want her to trust in or profit by any other than himself alone.
Since the soul has left all and passed beyond all means, ascending above them all to God, it is fitting that
God himself be the guide and means of reaching himself. And having ascended above all things, in solitude
from all things, she profits by no other than the Word, the Bridegroom, who helps her to ascend further. He
is taken with love for her and wants to be the only one to grant her these favors. And he goes on:
in solitude the wound of love.
7. That is, he is wounded with love for the bride. The Bridegroom bears a great love for the solitude of the
soul; but he is wounded much more by her love since, being wounded with love for him, she desired to live
alone in respect to all things. And he does not wish to leave her alone, but wounded by the solitude she
embraces for his sake, and observing that she is dissatisfied with any other thing, he alone guides her,
drawing her to and absorbing her in himself. Had he not found her in spiritual solitude, he would not have
wrought this in her.
|
