Romance in Scripture – Members Content
“Through the witness of the lovers’ duet in the Song of Songs, we come to understand that the body ‘speaks’ a language of divine love, of holiness. Not only does it speak, the body sings. And it not only sings, but it sings the greatest of all songs; the Song of Songs.”
– Christopher West
Why is the Song of Songs favoured by mystics? What is it about this book in the Bible that attracts so much attention? Surely the answer is that the language – poetic, erotic and sensual – speaks profoundly to the hearts of those who hunger for intimacy with the lover of our souls.
This unusual book in the Jewish Scriptures (Old Testament) is a dialogue of love between King Solomon and his bride. St Pope John Paul II warns against the tendency to disembody the Song, seeing it only as an allegory of God’s ‘spiritual’ love. Rather, it is “to be taken simply as what it manifestly is: a song of human love” (TOB n95, p108).
At first reading, the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) is somewhat shocking, scandalous perhaps. What place does such overtly sexual language have in the sacred scriptures? In our modern sexualised culture it is difficult not to mock the text or question its right to be included among the Scriptures.
Yet mystics and saints have found great beauty among its pages. We are used to hearing how God loves us with a paternal affection, how he has adopted us as his spiritual children, how he shepherds and guides us in our lives, protects us and provides for our needs. This text invites us to experience a different love, a unique aspect of God’s yearning for us. God loves us passionately, urgently, totally as a bride groom loves his bride. God longs to ‘marry’ us, to draw us into an eternal embrace of love.
We are accustomed to seeing the things of the body as evil or dirty or base. Or at least, separate from the spiritual, holy, and sacred. Yet this passage invites us to reimagine sexual love… could it be that the erotic love of husband and wife is a sacred representation of Jesus’ passionate (not erotic) love for us?
Holiness does not reject the body. Holiness (as in ‘wholeness’, the integration of our body with our soul), is what enables us to express ourselves authentically in, with, and through our own bodies, by donating our bodies in love.
Reflect: Song of Songs
- Settle quietly and ready yourself to recieve the Word of God. Ask the Lord to open your mind and heart to his wisdom.
- Read the excerpt from Song of Songs, slowly, allowing the words to penetrate your mind and heart. Let the words rest, and then read it a second time.
- What phrase or word speaks most powerfully to you? Share it.
- Ask God to reveal its meaning more deeply to you. How is God inviting you to respond to his Word?
- Offer a Glory Be.
He stands out among thousands.
My best friend.
he is all delight.
Such is my lover, and such my friend,
His mouth is sweetness itself. He is all delight (Very profound and insightful).
It’s important that we are lovers and best friends. This has strengthened our relationship and understanding of each other.
He is not just my lover but also my best friend.
lovable romance ,Oh he is all delight
His stature is like the trees of Lebanon,
imposing as the cedars.
note Not just the physical characteristics and or image of someone , but the internal / mental identity each person has, that they display outwards ,personality wise , each is grand in its own way as there are no 2 trees the same on earth
He stands out among thousands