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| "Seeing Shadow" by Ctd 2005 -- See below for photo credit |
Abbot Isaac asked those attending the oblate-program retreat November 1-3, 2013 to read the Bible book of the Canticle of Canticles.
In addition to reading the Canticle of Canticles in the Bible, Abbot Isaac asked that we read the commentaries by Saint Teresa of Avila Meditations on the Song of Songs which is available in her Collected works (PDF pages 716 or Volume 2, page 206) and also read Saint John of the Cross — Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom Christ.
Additional Resources Not Selected or Assigned by Abbot Isaac. To help in our further private study on our own, here are online resources. The following materials are from many different traditions and theology, please use sound discretion as you read:
Translations of the Canticle of Canticles
Douay Rheims Bible
Knox Bible
USCCB New American Bible
Translations with Commentary
Haydock’s 1859 edition
Other Saint Commentaries
Francis, de Sales, Saint, 1567-1622 The mystical explanation of the Canticle of Canticles Saint Bernard of Clairvaux --- Sermons on the Song of Songs
Encyclopedia-type Articles
New Advent — Canticle of Canticles of Canticles
Reference.com Song of Songs
Brief References By Popes
Benedict XV Encyclical ON ST. JEROME: (quote below)
"40. To return, however, to the question of the formation of Biblical students. We must lay the foundations in piety and humility of mind; only when we have done that does St. Jerome invite us to study the Bible. In the first place, he insists, in season and out, on daily reading of the text. "Provided," he says, "our bodies are not the slaves of sin, wisdom will come to us; but exercise your mind, feed it daily with Holy Scripture."[69] And again: "We have got, then, to read Holy Scripture assiduously; we have got to meditate on the Law of God day and night so that, as expert money-changers, we may be able to detect false coin from true."[70]
"41. For matrons and maidens alike he lays down the same rule. Thus, writing to the Roman matron Laeta about her daughter's training, he says:
Every day she should give you a definite account of her Bible-reading . . .For her the Bible must take the place of silks and jewels . . . Let her learn the Psalter first, and find her recreation in its songs; let her learn from Solomon's Proverbs the way of life, from Ecclesiastes how to trample on the world. In Job she will find an example of patient virtue. Thence let her pass to the Gospels; they should always be in her hands. She should steep herself in the Acts and the Epistles. And when she has enriched her soul with these treasures she should commit to memory the Prophets, the Heptateuch, Kings and Chronicles, Esdras and Esther: then she can learn the Canticle of Canticles without any fear."[71] "
John Paul II about the Cistercians: (quote below)
"In fact, from the beginning, the Cistercians have been distinguished by a sort of "mystical passion", showing how the sincere search for God on an austere ascetical path leads to the ineffable joy of the spousal union with him in Christ. In this regard St Bernard teaches that those who thirst after the Lord no longer have anything of their own and henceforth have all in common with God. He adds that the soul, in this situation, "it is not for liberty that she asks, nor for an award, not for an inheritance nor even knowledge, but for a kiss [of God]. It is obviously the request of a bride who is chaste, who breathes forth a love that is holy, a love whose ardor she cannot entirely disguise" (Bernard, Super cantica canticorum, 7,2; Song of Songs I, p. 39, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan 1981)."
John Paul II TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: (quote below)
"The Song of Songs is an important moment in the use of this form of revelation. In the words of a most human love, which celebrate the beauty of the human body and the joy of mutual seeking, God's love for his people is also expressed. The Church's recognition of her relationship to Christ in this audacious conjunction of language about what is most human with language about what is most divine, cannot be said to be mistaken.
...
"Such a conversion cannot take place without humble prayer to God for that penetrating gaze which is able to recognize one's own sin and also the grace which heals it. In a particular way, we need to ask this of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the woman in accord with the heart of God, she who is “blessed among women” (cf. Lk 1:42), chosen to reveal to men and women the way of love. Only in this way, can the “image of God”, the sacred likeness inscribed in every man and woman, emerge according to the specific grace received by each (cf. Gn 1:27). Only thus can the path of peace and wonderment be recovered, witnessed in the verses of the Song of Songs, where bodies and hearts celebrate the same jubilee."
John Paul II General Audience: (quote below)
"4. A lively and evocative reference is made to our Psalm in the fifth Homily on the Canticle of Canticles by St Gregory of Nyssa (fourth century), a Father of the Eastern Church: he describes humanity passing from the "ice of idolatry" to the springtime of salvation. Indeed, St Gregory recalls, human nature had, as it were, been transformed into lifeless, "inert beings" who "were made the object of worship", as we actually find written: "Their makers will come to be like them and so will all who trust in them". "And it was logical that this should be so. In fact, just as those who look at the true God receive in themselves the special features of the divine nature, those who turn to the vanity of idols are transformed into the likeness of what they were gazing at, and from the human beings that they were, become stone. Thus, since human nature, turned to stone by idolatry, remained inanimate, frozen in idol worship even before the best of prospects, the Sun of justice shines upon this tremendous winter and turns it into spring with the breath of wind from the south that melts such ice and warms all who are beneath it with the rays of that rising sun; man, therefore, who had been turned into stone by ice, thawed by the Spirit and warmed by the radiance of the Logos, is once more gushing water for eternal life (Omelie sul Cantico dei Cantici, Rome, 1988, pp. 133-134)."
Benedict XVI — ENCYCLICAL LETTERDEUS CARITAS EST: (quote below)
"6. Concretely, what does this path of ascent and purification entail? How might love be experienced so that it can fully realize its human and divine promise? Here we can find a first, important indication in the Song of Songs, an Old Testament book well known to the mystics. According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love. In this context it is highly instructive to note that in the course of the book two different Hebrew words are used to indicate “love”. First there is the word dodim, a plural form suggesting a love that is still insecure, indeterminate and searching. This comes to be replaced by the word ahabà, which the Greek version of the Old Testament translates with the similar-sounding agape, which, as we have seen, becomes the typical expression for the biblical notion of love. By contrast with an indeterminate, “searching” love, this word expresses the experience of a love which involves a real discovery of the other, moving beyond the selfish character that prevailed earlier. Love now becomes concern and care for the other. No longer is it self-seeking, a sinking in the intoxication of happiness; instead it seeks the good of the beloved: it becomes renunciation and it is ready, and even willing, for sacrifice.
...
"The philosophical dimension to be noted in this biblical vision, and its importance from the standpoint of the history of religions, lies in the fact that on the one hand we find ourselves before a strictly metaphysical image of God: God is the absolute and ultimate source of all being; but this universal principle of creation—the Logos, primordial reason—is at the same time a lover with all the passion of a true love. Eros is thus supremely ennobled, yet at the same time it is so purified as to become one with agape. We can thus see how the reception of the Song of Songs in the canon of sacred Scripture was soon explained by the idea that these love songs ultimately describe God's relation to man and man's relation to God. Thus the Song of Songs became, both in Christian and Jewish literature, a source of mystical knowledge and experience, an expression of the essence of biblical faith: that man can indeed enter into union with God—his primordial aspiration. But this union is no mere fusion, a sinking in the nameless ocean of the Divine; it is a unity which creates love, a unity in which both God and man remain themselves and yet become fully one. As Saint Paul says: “He who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17)."
Benedict XVI about Saint Teresa of Avila: (quote below)
"The Saint draws inspiration from Sacred Scripture, particularly the Song of Songs, for the final symbol of the “Bride and Bridegroom” which enables her to describe, in the seventh room, the four crowning aspects of Christian life: the Trinitarian, the Christological, the anthropological and the ecclesial.
"St Teresa devoted the Libro de la fundaciones [book of the foundations], which she wrote between 1573 and 1582, to her activity as Foundress of the reformed Carmels. In this book she speaks of the life of the nascent religious group. This account, like her autobiography, was written above all in order to give prominence to God’s action in the work of founding new monasteries.
"It is far from easy to sum up in a few words Teresa’s profound and articulate spirituality. I would like to mention a few essential points. In the first place St Teresa proposes the evangelical virtues as the basis of all Christian and human life and in particular, detachment from possessions, that is, evangelical poverty, and this concerns all of us; love for one another as an essential element of community and social life; humility as love for the truth; determination as a fruit of Christian daring; theological hope, which she describes as the thirst for living water. Then we should not forget the human virtues: affability, truthfulness, modesty, courtesy, cheerfulness, culture.
"Secondly, St Teresa proposes a profound harmony with the great biblical figures and eager listening to the word of God. She feels above all closely in tune with the Bride in the Song of Songs and with the Apostle Paul, as well as with Christ in the Passion and with Jesus in the Eucharist. The Saint then stresses how essential prayer is. Praying, she says, “means being on terms of friendship with God frequently conversing in secret with him who, we know, loves us” (Vida 8, 5). St Teresa’s idea coincides with Thomas Aquinas’ definition of theological charity as “amicitia quaedam hominis ad Deum”, a type of human friendship with God, who offered humanity his friendship first; it is from God that the initiative comes (cf. Summa Theologiae II-II, 23, 1)."
General Commentaries
The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (see page 84)
Song of Songs on Feast of the Visitation
Saint Teresa of Jesus and the Song of Songs — Discalced Carmelites Malta
Jewish Resources
From an article about Rabbi Akiba and the Song of Songs:
"No doubt because of this surface meaning, the ancient Rabbis, while accepting the Solomonic authorship, debated whether the book should be considered part of the sacred Scriptures. The Mishnah (Yadaim 3:5), after recording this debate, gives the view of Rabbi Akiba, eventually adopted by all the Rabbis, that no one ever debated that the Song of Songs is sacred: 'for all the ages are not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the Ketuvim are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.'"
Interpretations of the Song of Songs
By Judith Berinstein - in PDF
At Jewish Encyclopedia
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Photo Credit:
The photo is "seeing shadow" by Ctd 2005 and is used subject to license.
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