Sermon LII. On the Mystical Sleep of the Spouse, and the Two Kinds of Ecstasy

"I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up nor make the beloved to wake till she please."

*' I adjure you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes and the harts of the fields, that you stir not up nor make the beloved to wake till she please." This adjuration, my brethren, is addressed to the young maidens. For they are the "daughters of Jerusalem," so called because although delicate and tender, and still weak and girlish in their actions and affections, nevertheless they cling close to the Spouse, in the hope of advancing towards and ultimately reaching the heavenly Jerusalem. These therefore the Bridegroom charges not to intrude upon His beloved whilst she is taking her repose, and on no account to presume to awaken her until it is her pleasure. For the reason why He places His Hand under her head, hke a most affectionate husband (according to what has been said already), is in order that He may make her rest and slumber on His Bosom. And now the Holy Scripture further tells us that He most lovingly and condescendingly watches over her while she sleeps, lest the young maidens, with their frequent little troubles, should disturb her quiet and compel her to interrupt her repose. Such appears to be the literal connexion of our present text with the preceding. Yet as regards that solemn adjuration "by the roes and the harts of the fields," if we take the words literally they seem to bear no relevant sense, so entirely are they appropriated to the spiritual signification. But however this may be, at all events, "it is good for us to be here," and to spend a little time contemplating the goodness, the sweetness, the gracious condescension of the heavenly Bridegroom. What tenderness, O man, hast thou ever found in any human affection to be compared with that which is revealed to us here from the Heart of the Most High? And the revelation is made by the Holy Ghost Who "searcheth the deep things of God," Who cannot be ignorant of anything contained in the Heart of Him Whose own Spirit He is, and, as being the Spirit of truth, cannot speak anything other than what He finds therein recorded.

Nor is there wanting of our own race one who has been so happy as to merit the joy of being made the object of this divine tenderness, and of experiencing in herself this delightful secrets of heavenly love. To question this would be to doubt the truth of the inspired passage which I am now discussing. For the celestial Bridegroom is clearly represented here as most anxiously concerned for the repose of a human Spouse very dear to Him, whom with affectionate solicitude He holds in His arms whilst she slumbers, fearful lest a sleep so pleasant should be disturbed by any annoyance or agitation. My brethren, I cannot contain myself for joy, when I think of how that infinite Majesty disdains not to stoop so low as to engage thus in sweet and familiar intercourse with our poor nature, when I think of how the Most High God vouchsafes to contract a marriage alliance with the soul even during the time of her exile, and to manifest towards her all the tender affection which the most loving of bridegrooms could show to his bride. I have no doubt that what we read of on earth is perfectly accomplished in the case of every soul in heaven. I believe that we shall fully experience there what we here find described in the holy Book; except that no language can give a true idea of the capacity for love which the soul shall have in the next life, nor even of that with which she is at present endowed. What, think you, is the happiness awaiting her in heaven, when even on earth she is treated so affectionately that she feels herself embraced with the arms of God, fostered on the Bosom of God, guarded by the watchfulness and jealousy of God, lest anything should disturb her slumber and cause her to awake before it is her pleasure?

But now, my brethren, let me explain, if I can, what is this sleep which the Bridegroom wants His Spouse to enjoy, and will not allow her to be awakened out of it except at her own desire. An explanation is necessary, because otherwise, when some one happens to read in the Apostle, "It is now the hour for us to rise from sleep"; or, in the psalms, that verse where David says to God, "Enlighten my eyes that I may never sleep in death," he may easily be puzzled by the ambiguity of the term sleep, and be quite unable to discover any worthy interpretation for the slumber of the Spouse, of which there is question here. Nor has this sleep anything in common with that whereof Christ spoke in the Gospel, when He said, "Lazarus our friend sleepeth; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." For the sleep He meant was the sleep of bodily death, although the disciples understood His words as referring to ordinary slumber. The sleep of the Spouse has nothing to do with the body. It is as distinct from that gentle sleep which for a time sweetly seals up the material senses, as it is from the more terrible which finally extinguishes the life of the flesh. Still less is it identified with the sleep of spiritual death which paralyses the soul whilst she obstinately perseveres in a state of sin. For instead of bringing darkness and torpor, the sleep of the Spouse is wakeful and life-giving; it illuminates the mind, expels the death of sin, and bestows immortality. Nevertheless, it is a true sleep, which transports rather than stupefies the faculties. It is also a true death. This I affirm without the least hesitation, since the Apostle says, in commendation of some who were still living in the flesh, "You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."

Therefore I also can be guilty of no absurdity when I describe the ecstasy of the Spouse as a kind of death, not the death which terminates life, but that which delivers her true life from danger, so that she may say with the Psalmist, "Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the snare of the fowlers." For in the present life the soul is always surrounded by the snares of temptation, which, however, have no power to frighten her as often as she is transported out of herself by some holy and irresistible attraction, if yet the mental exaltation and ravishment be so great as to lift her above the common and usual modes of thinking and feeling. So we read in Proverbs, "A net is spread in vain before the eyes of them that have wings." For what has such a soul to fear from sensuality, since she has lost even the faculty of sensation? No longer conscious of material impressions, though remaining still the principle of life to the body, she is necessarily inaccessible to temptations from the senses. "Who will give me the wings of a dove and I will fly and be at rest? "Would to God that I could often endure a death of this kind and thus escape the snares of a more terrible death! So should I be insensible to the fatal allurements of luxury; so should I be unconscious of the stings of the flesh, of the suggestions of avarice, of the swellings of anger and impatience, of the torments of anxiety and the miseries of care. "Let my soul die the death of the just," so that deception v" may no longer have power to ensnare me nor sin to seduce! Happy death which destroys not life, but changes it to better! Happy death which lifts the soul to heaven without laying the body low!

Yet this manner of dying is peculiar to men. Therefore, "Let my soul die the death of the angels "also (if I may use the expression), so that escaping from the memory of all present things, she may strip herself, not alone of the desires, but even of the images of inferior and corporeal objects, and may converse spiritually with them whom she resembles in spirituality! The name contemplation, as it seems to me, belongs either solely or principally to such a mental ecstasy.¹ It is the part of human virtue to live on earth unfettered by earthly desires; but to be able to contemplate truth without the help of material or sensible images is the characteristic of angelic purity. Yet each of these two is the gift of God. Each is a true ecstasy. In each the soul rises above herself, but in the second far higher than in the first.² Blessed is the soul which can say in this sense, "Lo, I have gone far off, flying away; and I abode in the wilderness "! It is not enough for her that she is transported out of herself, unless she can fly far away and be at rest. Thou hast obtained such a victory over the temptations of the flesh that thou dost no longer gratify its concupiscence nor yield assent to its enticements. This certainly is progress. Thou hast truly gone forth from thyself. But thou hast not yet flown afar, unless, by the purity of thy mind, thou art ableto rise above the images of sensible objects, which are constantly rushing in upon thee from every side. Until thou hast attained to this, do not promise thyself any rest. Thou art in error if thou thinkest that the place of repose, the quiet of solitude, the perfection of light, and the dwelling of peace can be found any nearer. But show me the man who has arrived at this point, and I shall unhesitatingly pronounce him to be at rest and qualified to say, "Turn, O my soul, into thy rest; for the Lord hath been bountiful to thee." Here truly is a home in solitude, and a dwelling in the light, and, according to the Prophet Isaias, "a tabernacle for a shade in the day-time from the heat, and a security and covert from the whirlwind and from the rain-" It is of the same the Psalmist sings, "For He hath hidden me in His tabernacle; in the day of evils He hath protected me in the secret place of His tabernacle."

It appears to me, therefore, that it is into this solitude the Spouse has retired, and there, overpowered by the beauty of the place, has sweetly fallen asleep in the arms of her Beloved. In other words, she has been visited by the slumber of spiritual rapture, and this is the sleep out of which the young maidens are forbidden to awaken her, until she herself pleases. But let us examine the mode of the Bridegroom's prohibition. It is not a mere warning, couched in the usual mild and simple language, but is expressed in the form of an earnest entreaty, accompanied with the very strange and solemn adjuration, "by the roes and the harts of the field." Now these animals are chiefly remarkable for keenness of sight and powers of leaping, and for that reason have been fittingly selected, as I

II. G suppose, to symbolise the holy souls which have parted from the body, and the blissful angels who dwell with God. For both orders of spirits are known to be gifted with analogous endowments, whereby they can either soar to the loftiest things or penetrate the most profound. Again, the roes and harts are described as living at large in the open fields, because in this they typify the free and unconfined flights of spiritual contemplation. Why, then, are the young maidens adjured by the harts and the roes? Doubtless, to remind them that they should not through wantonness or levity call away the Spouse from the society of blessed spirits, human and angelic, to which she gains admittance as often as she is rapt in ecstasy. Very properly, therefore, are the daughters kept in check by the authority of these heavenly princes, from whose company, as they know, their importunity will recall their mother. Hence, let the young maidens bear in mind against whom they offend whenever they needlessly disturb the Spouse; and let them not so far presume on her maternal love as to have no fear of intruding rashly into this celestial assembly; and finally, let them know that they are guilty of such irreverence and rudeness every time they oblige their mother, without just cause, to interrupt her contemplation. It is for her alone to determine how much of her time ought to be devoted to the care of herself, and how much to the interests of her daughters. This is plain from the fact that they are not allowed to awaken her until she herself pleases. Well does the Bridegroom know with what ardent charity His beloved is inflamed even with respect to her neighbours, and with what motherly affection she keeps anxious watch over her daughters' spiritual progress, so that she is always ready and willing to put herself at their service as often as occasion requires. He therefore considers that this administration may be safely entrusted to her prudence. For she is not like so many other superiors whom we may observe to be incurring the Prophet's malediction, for that they take to themselves the fat and the strong and cast the weak away as nothing worth. Surely it is not the sound whom the physician should seek but rather the ailing. And if sometimes he does visit the hale, it is only as a friend not as a healer. Pray, tell me, good master, whom wilt thou consent to teach, if thou rejectest all that are ignorant? To whom, I ask, wilt thou show thyself a zealous instructor in discipline, if thou avoidest or repellest the wayward? To whom shalt thy patience be proved if, excluding the perverse, thou admittest none but the docile?

Nevertheless, my brethren, "there are some of them that (sit) here," whom I could wish to see more exactly observing what our present text enjoins. They would not then forget the reverence due to their superiors, whose repose they so often disturb without necessity, and thus make themselves displeasing even to the citizens of heaven; and perhaps they would begin at last to give me also a little more peace than usual, and might not as now intrude upon my leisure with as little good cause as good manners. They are well aware that, even though they treated me with all consideration, the duty of attending to our visitors would seldom leave me an hour to myself. However, I feel somewhat scrupulous about complaining in this manner, lest some pusillanimous soul should overtax her powers of endurance by concealing her necessities, because she is afraid of disturbing me. I shall therefore say no more on the subject. Otherwise, instead of edifying the weak, I should rather appear to be setting them an example of impatience. The "little ones" of the Lord are they who believe in His name. I will not allow them to take scandal from me. I will not make use of my authority to protect myself from their importunity. Let them use me as much as they like. I shall be content, provided only they save their souls. They will spare me most by not sparing me at all; and I shall be never more at ease than when they fearlessly invade my hours of repose for the relief of their necessities. I am determined to accommodate myself to their desires as far as my powers may permit me. So long as I live, I will serve the Lord by serving my brethren "in charity unfeigned." I will not seek the things that are my own; neither will I judge that to be profitable which advances my personal interests, but rather what is of use to the brotherhood. This only I ask, that my ministry may be made acceptable and fruitful to my brethren. So perhaps, "in the evil, day," I may find mercy, for their sakes, in the eyes ' of their heavenly Father, and of the Bridegroom of the Church, Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who is over all things, God blessed for ever. Amen.

Footnotes

1. St. Bernard gives several accounts of contemplation which appear to be inconsistent with each other. But he does not always intend his words to be taken as strict definitions. Sometimes, imitating St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, he gives special prominence to the activity of the will, which, although the more salient element, is also the less essential. Thus in the Scala Claustralium he speaks of contemplation as "an elevation of the soul, held suspended in God and tasting the joys of His eternal sweetness"; and in the fifth book of his De Consideratione he declares that the "first and highest ↩

2. The difference between the two kinds of ecstasy here mentioned seems to be that whilst both interrupt the activity of the external senses, the latter but not the former, suspends also the operations of the imagination and memory, leaving free only the spiritual faculties of intellect and will; hence it is called an angelic sleep or death. The two states are plainly mystical, and seem to correspond to St. Teresas Prayer ol Ouiet and Prayer of Union, which she thus describes {Int. Cast M v c. i): "Do not imagine that this state of prayer (Praver of Union) like the one preceding it (Prayer of Quiet) is a sort of drowsiness— I call it drowsiness because ttie soul seems to slumber, being neither quite asleep nor wholly awake. In the Prayer of Union the soul is asleep, fast asleep, as regards the world and herself; and m fact during the short time it lasts, she is deprived of all feeling whatever, being unable to think on any subject even if she would." — (Translator.) contemplation is admiration of majesty." But in the second book of the latter treatise he says, "Contemplation may be defined as the true and certain intuition of any object or the certain apprehension of truth." Here he makes the intellectual act the formal constituent of contemplation, m which he is followed by St. Thomas. Sum. TheoL, II. ii. q. clxxx. a. m. Ecstasy is merely an effect of divine contemplation. Ct. Suarez, t. xiv. 1. ii. c. ix.-xvii. — (Translator.) ↩