Cânticos 5
Bernard of Clairvaux
Cânticos 5:1
Living in the Spirit of the Son, let such a soul recognize herself as a daughter of the Father, a bride or even a sister of the Son, for you will find that the soul who enjoys this privilege is called by either of these names. Nor will it cost me much to prove it, the proof is ready to hand. They are the names by which the Bridegroom addresses her: "I come into my garden, my sister, my bride." She is his sister because they have the one Father; his bride because joined in the one Spirit. For if marriage according to the flesh constitutes two in one body, why should not a spiritual union be even more efficacious in joining two in one spirit? And hence anyone who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 8
Cânticos 5:2
There is a place with the bridegroom from which he decrees his judgments and arranges his counsels, he who is the governor of the universe, establishing laws for every creature, weight and measure and number. And this place is high and secret, but by no means quiet. For even though he, as far as he is concerned, disposes all things sweetly, he nevertheless disposes; and he does not permit the one contemplating, who may perhaps have reached that place, to be at rest; but wondrously, though delightfully, he wearies the one who searches and marvels, and renders him restless. Beautifully the bride expresses both these things in what follows, namely the delight of this kind of contemplation and the restlessness, where she confesses both that she sleeps and that her heart watches (Song 5:2). For in the sleep of most sweet amazement and placid wonder she signifies that she feels rest; but in the wakefulness of no less restless curiosity and laborious exercise she signifies that she suffers weariness. Hence blessed Job: "If I sleep," he says, "I say, When shall I rise? and again I await the evening" (Job 7:4). Do you perceive in these words a holy soul wishing at times to decline, in a certain way, a burdensome sweetness, and again to desire the same sweet burden? For he would not have said, "When shall I rise?" if the repose of his contemplation had altogether pleased him: but also if it had altogether displeased him, he would not again have awaited the hour of rest, that is, the evening. — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 23
Cânticos 5:10
But is he still black? Far from it! Your beloved is radiant and ruddy. Beautiful indeed is he whom the flowers of roses and the lilies of the valleys surround; that is, the choirs of martyrs and of virgins: and I who sit in the midst am in harmony with both choirs, a virgin and a martyr. For how am I not in accord with the bright choirs of virgins, I a virgin, the son of a Virgin, and the bridegroom of a virgin? How am I not in accord with the rosy choirs of martyrs, I who am the cause, the power, the fruit, and the pattern of martyrdom? Touch me, such a one, in such a way, and say: My beloved is radiant and ruddy, chosen out of thousands (Song 5:10). Thousands upon thousands are with the beloved, and ten hundred thousands around the beloved, and none is equal to the beloved. Will you need to fear lest perhaps by some mistake you fall upon one of the multitude, when seeking him whom you love? You will not at all be in doubt whom to choose. Easily will the one chosen out of thousands meet you, more distinguished than all, and you will say: This one is beautiful in his robe, striding in the multitude of his strength (Isa 63:1). — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 28
Cânticos 5:15
But those spiritual feet of God, which the penitent must first kiss spiritually, I ought not to pass over. I know your curiosity, which allows nothing to pass by altogether uninvestigated of its own accord. Nor indeed should it be held in contempt to know with what feet Scripture so frequently commemorates that God now stands, as there: We will worship in the place where his feet have stood (Ps 131:7); now walks, as there: And I will dwell in them, and I will walk among them (Lev 26:12; 2 Cor 6:16); now even runs, according to that: He exulted as a giant to run his course (Ps 18:6). If the Apostle rightly judged it fitting to refer the head of Christ to the Divinity (1 Cor 11:3), I think it may also not unfittingly seem to us that the feet pertain to the humanity; of which let us name the one mercy, and the other judgment. These two words are known to you; and from many places of Scripture both together, if you reflect, come to mind. That God indeed took up the foot of mercy in the flesh to which he united himself, the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches, declaring that Christ was tempted in all things according to our likeness without sin, that he might become merciful (Heb 4:15). What of that other one, which has been called judgment? Does not God the man himself openly signify that it too pertains equally to the humanity he assumed, where he declares that power to execute judgment has been given to him by the Father, because he is the Son of Man? (Jn 5:27) With these two feet, then, fittingly coming together under the one head of the divinity, born of a woman, made under the law, the invisible Emmanuel was seen on earth and conversed with men (Bar 3:38). With these certainly he passes through even now, doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil, but spiritually, but invisibly. With these feet, I say, he walks through devout minds, unceasingly examining and searching the hearts and inward parts of the faithful. But see whether perhaps these are those legs of the Bridegroom which the Bride so magnificently commends in what follows, comparing them, if I am not mistaken, to marble columns set upon bases of gold (Song 5:15). Most beautifully indeed; since in the incarnate Wisdom of God, which is designated by gold, mercy and truth have met together (Ps 84:11); for all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth (Ps 24:10). — Sermons on the Song of Songs, Sermon 6