St Teresa of Jesus and the Song of Songs --
The Friendship the Bride Desires
by Fr. Dominic Borg, OCD
The Hebrew title for the Book which we quite often refer to by the title: Song of Songs, is: Shir Hashirim. Many are those biblical scholars who in these two Hebrew words, are able to see and attest to the greatness of this book.
Rabbi Akiba declared: "Heaven forbid that any person in Israel ever disputed that the Song of Songs is holy. For the whole world is not worthy of the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Writings are holy but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies" (Mishnah Yadayim 3.5).
Many are those biblical scholars who, in their interpretation of the Song of Songs, are not reluctant to adhere to the famous expression used by Hudson Taylor, where he said: "The book of the Song of Songs is a Book of union and communion with Christ. Having said this, I venture to add in saying that the Song of Songs, in its superlative meaning: the Song of Songs, that is, the best of Songs, is a poem of the history of love in an excellent relationship. Yes, it is a romance of the highest standard. In this short reflection, entitled: The friendship the Bride desires: St. Teresa of Jesus and the Song of Songs, I ask you to never lose sight of the fact that the entire Bible is a romance, a love story, of God "falling in love" with man.
To live the Carmelite way is to be plunged into the mystery of Mary, Our Mother. Mary's reaction in front of the Word of God, which manifests itself in our daily events, ought to be the reaction of every Christian, and in a very particular way, of every Carmelite: "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." (Luke 2.10). St. Teresa of Jesus has captured very well the meaning of these words. In the Book of the Foundations and in the Book of the Interior Castle, St. Teresa makes it clear that the secret of our communion with God does not lie in thinking much, but in loving much. (F 5.2; Interior:1.7). It does not take much time and energy from the reader of St. Teresa to discover her profound love for the Scriptures. In her writings she quotes the Holy Scriptures more than six hundred times. This alone speaks volumes, especially when we take into consideration the fact that most probably St. Teresa was never in possession of a complete Bible, and for sure she was never in possession of a Bible in the vernacular. In the Book of her Life, she expressed clearly her love for Holy Scripture: "I would die a thousand deaths for the faith or for any truth of Sacred Scripture." (Life 33.5). In the same Book she wrote that it was revealed to her in prayer that "all the harm that comes to the world comes from its not knowing the truths of Scripture in clarity and truth" (Life 40.1)
In the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation entitled "Dei Verbum", in paragraph 2, we encounter this powerful statement: "the invisible God (cf Col 1.15; 1 Tim 1.17), from the fullness of his love, addresses men as his friends (cf Ex 33.11; Jn 15.14-15), and moves among them (Bar 3.38), in order to invite and receive them into his company." Again, in the same document of Vatican II (18 November 1965) paragraph 23 we read: "The spouse of the incarnate Word, which is the Church, is taught by the Holy Spirit. She strives to reach day by day a more profound understanding of Sacred Scriptures in order to provide her children with food from the divine words."
St. Teresa, in her Meditations on the Song of Songs, exactly in paragraph 2 of Chapter 1 tells us: "One word of His will contain within itself a thousand mysteries, and thus our understanding is only very elementary." The reaction of St. Teresa in front the Word of God is clearly stated in paragraph 8 of Chapter 1 of her Meditations: "these words must contain great things and mysteries since they are of such value that when I asked learned men to explain what the Holy Spirit meant by them and what the true meaning was, they answered that the doctors wrote many commentaries and yet never finished explaining the words fully." These words of St. Teresa remind me of the disciple who asked his Rabbi why each volume of the Talmud starts with page 2. All other books start with page 1. The answer of the Rabbi was: My son, each volume of the Talmud starts with page 2 so that each volume will remind you that even if you were to know the whole Talmud by heart, yet you do not know the interpretation of page one of the Bible. It is no wonder, brothers and sisters, that when we come to the interpretation of the Song of Songs we have to be on guard. St. Teresa has this serious exhortation in her book of Meditations: "It will seem to you that there are some words in the Song of Songs that could have been said in another style. In light of our dullness such an opinion doesn't surprise me. I have heard some persons say that they avoid listening to them. Oh, God help me, how great is our misery! Just as poisonous creatures turn everything they eat into poison, so do we ..." "O my Lord, how poorly we profit from the blessing you grant us! You seek ways and means and you devise plans to show your love for us; we inexperienced in loving you, esteem this love so poorly that our minds, little exercised in love go where they always go and cease to think of the great mysteries this language, spoken by the Holy Spirit, contains within itself. What more was necessary than this language in order to enkindle us in His love and make us realize that not without good reason did He choose this style." (Meditations 1.3-4). These words of the Saint remind me of what St. Jerome, a great Biblical Scholar, had to say when he was asked in which order ought we to read the Bible. His response was that we should start with the Book of Psalms and end with the Book of the Song of Songs, because, he said, only after we have trained ourselves in the language of love, will we be in a position to have a glimpse of the great love of God expressed in the Song of Songs! It is by no means a surprise to read what Vatican II has to say when in chapter 6 of the Dei Verbum it says: "In the Sacred books the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them. And such is the force and power of the Word of God that it can serve the Church as strength for their faith, food for the soul, and a pure and lasting fount of spiritual life." (D.V. 6.21).
