Sermon XXV. On the Blackness and the Beauty of the Bridegroom and the Bride

"I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem."

You recollect, my brethren, what I said in my last discourse, that the Spouse is compelled to reply to the attacks of certain envious critics, who, in outward seeming, appear to belong to the company of "young maidens" but in disposition and sentiment are far removed from them. She answers them with the words, "I am black, but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem." Evidently they had been maligning her, reproaching her with her blackness. But observe the patience and benignity of the Spouse. Not only does she not return insult for insult, but she even meets malediction with benediction, calling them "daughters of Jerusalem," who, for their malice, deserved to be called daughters of Babylon, or daughters of Baal, or any other opprobrious name that might have occurred to her. Clearly, she has learned from the Prophet, or rather from the unction of grace which teaches mildness, that the "bruised reed" must not be broken, nor the "smoking flax" extinguished. She considered, therefore, that they who of themselves were sufficiently excited, should not be subjected to further provocation, nor have other irritants added to the torturing stings of envy. Rather she endeavoured to be "peaceful with them that hateth peace," knowing that she is a "debtor" even "to the unwise." Hence, she preferred to soothe them with words of gentleness, because she was more concerned to secure the salvation of these weaklings, than to avenge the wrong to herself.

Such perfection, my brethren, should be the ambition of all. But it is especially the ideal after which all prelates are bound to strive. For good and faithful superiors are well aware that it is not dignity and pomp that have been committed to their charge, but the eternal salvation of weak and languishing souls. Hence, whenever they discover, by the symptom of a querulous voice, the internal discontent of any of these, although it be manifested by outbursts of reproachful and contumelious language against themselves, they realise that they are physicians rather than masters, and so instead of taking revenge, they immediately provide a remedy for this spiritual paroxysm. Here, then, is the reason why the Spouse calls her censures "daughters of Jerusalem," after enduring their malevolence and malignity, in order, namely, with words of kindness, to appease their disaffection, to calm their agitation, and to cure their envy. For it is written, "A mild answer breaketh wrath." Nevertheless, in certain respects, such souls are really "daughters of Jerusalem," and the Spouse speaks truth in calling them so. For, on account of the sacraments of the Church, common to them with the good, on account of the common profession of Catholic faith, and the (at least, visible) communion with all the faithful, and the hope of heaven, with regard to which we must not despair of any, so long as they live, no matter how sinful their lives may be — for these reasons, I say, the Spouse is right in giving the title "daughters of Jerusalem" even to the malcontents.

Let us examine what she means by saying "I am black (in colour) but beautiful" (of form— fortnosa). Is there a contradiction in these words, my brethren? God forbid! But I speak on account of the simple-minded, who are unable to distinguish between colour and form. Form has reference and relation to the composition of bodies, whereas colour, such as blackness, belongs only to the superficies. Not everything, therefore, which happens to be black is on this account alone to be considered as deformed. In the eye, for instance, black colour is not displeasing. Black stones have an agreeable effect in ornamentation. Black hair also enhances the beauty and charm of a clear complexion. And your own experience will furnish you with innumerable examples of the same. Countless are the things which, looking to their colour alone, you would pronounce unprepossessing, but which appear really beautiful in form. In this way, perhaps, the Spouse may combine with the loveliness of her form an unsightly defect of colour; yet this can only be the case in the place of her pilgrimage. For the time shall come when, in the fatherland, her glorious Bridegroom will "present her to Himself a glorious Bride, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." But if she said now that she has not blackness, she would deceive herself, and the truth would not be in her. Wherefore, my brethren, wonder not that she confesses her imperfection, saying, "I am black." Yet, at the same time, she boasts that she is beautiful. How, indeed, could she be otherwise, to whom the Bridegroom said, "Come, My beautiful one"? But she who is invited to come, evidently has not yet arrived at her destination. So, perhaps, this word "come" is used lest we should think the epithet "beautiful" applies, not to the discoloured Spouse, who is still advancing laboriously on her way, but to that blessed one that reigns immaculate in heaven.

But hear why she calls herself black, and why beautiful. Does she mean that she is black because of the benighted life she previously led under the power of the prince of darkness, whilst she still bore the image of the earthly man; and that she is beautiful by reason of the heavenly similitude, into which she was after-' wards transformed, when she began to walk in newness of life? But if so, why does she not say in the past tense, "I was black," rather than in the present, "I am black"? If, nevertheless, any one of you be satisfied with this interpretation, with regard to what follows "as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon," it will be necessary to suppose that the Spouse compares herself to the "tents of Cedar" on account of her former evil life, and to the "curtains of Solomon" on account of her present sanctity. Tents and curtains sometimes mean the same in the Scriptures, as in that passage of Jeremias where he says, "My tents are destroyed on a sudden, and my curtains in a moment." According to this sense, therefore, she was black, at first, like the hideous tents of Cedar, but later on she became beautiful as the splendid curtains of the King.

Let us now see whether both her blackness and her beauty cannot be explained with reference to her later and reformed life. If we consider the exterior of the saints, that aspect of them which strikes our senses, how lowly and abject they appear, how wretched and contemptible! And yet they are all the while most admirable in their interior, and "beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." Does it not seem to you, my brethren, that every such soul can truly reply to those who taunt her with her blackness, "lam black but beautiful"? Would you like me to show you one of these souls, at once black and beautiful? "His epistles indeed, they say, are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible." This was St. Paul. "O ye daughters of Jerusalem," do you thus judge St. Paul by his "bodily presence," and despise him as discoloured and deformed, because you perceive him to be a man of diminutive stature, and afflicted "in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, in many more labours, in stripes above measure, in deaths often"? For these are the things that make him black. It is because of these that the Doctor of Nations is reputed inglorious, ignoble, discoloured, obscure, as the "offscouring of all." Yet is not he the one that was rapt up to paradise, who, passing through the first and the second, penetrated, "by reason of his purity," even to the third heaven?

O truly most beautiful soul, which, although dwelling in a weak little body, is yet so honoured as to be admitted to the vision of the celestial loveliness, neither rejected by angelic magnificence, nor repelled by the Divine Glory! And do you caU such a soul black? She is "black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem." She is black in your judgment, but beautiful in the estimation of God and of His angels. And, although black, she is so only in her exterior. But to St. Paul "it is a very small thing to be judged by you," or by those who judge "according to the face." For man "looketh on the face, but God regardeth the; heart." Therefore, even if his exterior is black, he is yet beautiful interiorly; so that he is pleasing to Him to Whom he has striven to approve himself, although not to you, for if he still pleased you he would not be a servant of Christ. O blessed blackness, which begets in us whiteness of soul, luminousness of knowledge, and purity of conscience!

Hear what God promises, through His Prophet, to persons "black" with this kind of blackness, who appear to be discoloured by the humility of penance, or by the fervour of charity, as if by the scorching heat of the sun. "If your sins be as scarlet they shall be made as white as snow; if they be as red as crimson, they shall be white as wool." Surely, then, we ought not to despise in the saints this outward blackness which becomes the source of interior brightness, and so prepares in the soul the seat of wisdom. For, according to the Wise Man, wisdom "is the brightness of eternal life." Hence, truly bright must that soul be which she chooses for her seat. But since we know that "the soul of the just man is the seat of wisdom," I am safe in concluding that the soul of the just man must be also bright and luminous. Indeed, it is likely enough that justice and spiritual brightness mean the same thing. Now, St. Paul was just, since for him was "laid up a crown of justice." Therefore there can be no doubt that his soul was bright, and therein was seated wisdom, so that he could "speak wisdom amongst the perfect," "wisdom hidden in a mystery, which none of the princes of this world knew." Moreover, this brightness of wisdom and justice in him, was either produced or merited by the external blackness of his 'bodily presence," and his "much watch ings "and his "fastings often. "Consequently, even the very blackness of St. Paul is far more precious and attractive than any degree of external beauty, than all the pomp and glory of earthly kings. Not to be compared with it is any comeliness of mortal flesh, any fairness of a skin destined as fuel for the flames, any loveliness of a delicately-tinted complexion, soon to be the spoil of death and putrefaction, any magnificence of dress liable to the corrupting influence of age, any splendour of gold and precious stones, or of anything else that passes away with time.

Good reason have the saints, therefore, for devoting and giving themselves up with all diligence to the business of caring for and embellishing the inward man, who is made to the image of God and M renewed day by day"; whilst they contemptuously refuse any adornment or superfluous attention to their outward man "who is corrupted." For they feel convinced that nothing can be so acceptable to God as His own image, provided it has been restored to its original beauty. Therefore, "all "their "glory is within," not outside, that is to say, not in the flower of the field, or in the mouths of the multitude, but in the Lord. Hence do they say, "This is our glory, the testimony of our conscience," because the only witness of their conscience is God, Whom alone they desire to please, and in pleasing Whom the only true and sovereign glory consists. Certainly, no small glory is that which is within, in which even the Lord of glory disdains not to glory, as David tells us when he says, "All the glory of the King's daughter is within." Besides, each one's glory is all the more secure, the more he possesses it within himself, and not in another. However, it is not alone in the interior brightness, but also in the exterior blackness that there is found occasion for glorying, lest anything in the saints should go for loss, but that all things might "co-operate unto good "for them. Hence we see them glorying in tribulations as as well as in hope. "Gladly," says the Apostle, "will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me." O infirmity worthy to be desired with all ardour, which is compensated for by the power of Christ! Who will grant me not only to be infirm, but to be utterly forsaken and abandoned by my own strength and my own power, in order that I may be propped up by the power and strength of the "Lord of virtues "! For "power is made perfect in infirmity," as Christ bears witness. Hence St. Paul could affirm, 1 When I am weak, then am I powerful."

This being so, the Spouse most skilfully turns to her own glory what her censurers taunted her with as a reproach, boasting not only of her beauty, but also of her blackness. For she is not ashamed of this blackness, knowing that the same kind of blackness appeared even in her Bridegroom. And what matter for glorying it is to be assimilated to Him! Therefore, in her eyes there can be nothing so glorious as to "bear the reproach of Christ." Hence that "voice of exultation and of salvation," "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of my Lord, Jesus Christ." The ignominy of the cross is gratifying to him who is not ungrateful to the Crucified. It is blackness indeed, but it is also the image and likeness of the Lord. Go to the Prophet Isaias, and he will describe for you how he beheld Him in spirit. For whom but Christ does he call the "Man of sorrows and acquainted with infirmity," adding that "there is no beauty in Him nor comeliness "? And he goes on, "And we have reputed Him, as it were, a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins, and by His bruises we are healed." Behold what makes Him black! Add to this the testimony of holy David, "Beautiful in form above the sons of men," and you will have verified in the Bridegroom all that the Spouse witnesses of herself when she says, "I am black but beautiful."

Does it not, then, seem to you, my brethren, that according to what has been said, He also could have replied to the Jews who reproached Him, "I am black but beautiful, O ye" sons "of Jerusalem." Black assuredly was He in Whom there was "no beauty nor comeliness." Black also as being "a worm and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the people." Again, why should I be afraid to call Him black Who even made Himself "sin," as the Apostle declares? Lastly, contemplate Him, clad in a ragged and dirty mantle, livid with wounds, defiled with spittle, pale with the pallor of death, and surely now at least you will acknowledge Him to be black. Then question the apostles as to the appearance He presented on the mountain; or ask the angels what is it that makes them desire to gaze upon Him, and you will doubtless marvel at what they shall tell you of His beauty. Therefore, He is beautiful in Himself, but black for our sakes. Yet even in Thy Human Form, according to which Thou art my Brother, how beautiful Thou art to me, O Lord Jesus! Not because of the mighty miracles of Thy divine power, which render Thee so illustrious, but "on account of Thy truth, and Thy meekness, and Thy justice." Blessed is the man who diligently studies Thee conversing as a Man amongst men, and endeavours to imitate Thee in the practice of these virtues, to the utmost of his power! Already has Thy "beautiful one" obtained this part of her beatitude, the first fruits, as it were, of her dowry, being neither slow to copy what is beautiful in Thee, nor ashamed to participate in the sufferings which make Thee black. For this reason also she said, "I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem." And she added the comparisons, "as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon." But these latter expressions are obscure, and we are too weary now to enter upon their exposition. You shall therefore have an opportunity for "knocking" by prayer at the door of Wisdom. If you knock sincerely, there is One Who will come to open for you these mysteries. Nor will He delay to open, since it is He Himself Who invites you to knock. For He it is that "openeth and no man shutteth," the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Who is blessed for evermore. Amen.