Stanza XXIII
Note
WHEN the soul has been raised to the high state of spiritual marriage, the Bridegroom reveals to it, as His faithful consort, His own marvellous secrets most readily and most frequently, for he who truly and sincerely loves hides nothing from the object of his affections. The chief matter of His communications are the sweet mysteries of His incarnation, the ways and means of redemption, which is one of the highest works of God, and so is to the soul one of the sweetest. Though He communicates many other mysteries, He speaks in the following stanza of His incarnation only, as being the chief; and thus addresses the soul in the words that follow:
Beneath the apple-tree,
There wert thou betrothed,
There I gave thee My hand,
And thou wert redeemed
Where thy mother' was corrupted.
THE Bridegroom tells the soul of the wondrous way of its redemption and betrothal to Himself, by referring to the way in which the human race was lost. As it was by the forbidden tree of paradise that our nature was corrupted in Adam and lost, so it was by the tree of the Cross that it was redeemed and restored. The Bridegroom there stretched forth the hand of His grace and mercy, in His death and passion, ' making void the law of commandments '1 which original sin had placed between us and God.
' Beneath the apple-tree/
- That is the wood of the Cross, where the Son of God was conqueror, and where He betrothed our human nature to Himself, and, by consequence, every soul of man. There, on the Cross, He gave us grace and pledges of His love.
' There wert thou betrothed,
there I gave thee My hand/
- ' Help and grace, lifting thee up out of thy base and miserable condition to be My companion and My bride/
' And thou wert redeemed where thy mother was corrupted/
' Thy mother, human nature, was corrupted in her first parents beneath the forbidden tree, and thou wert redeemed beneath the tree of the Cross. If thy mother at that tree sentenced thee to die, I from the Cross have given thee life/ It is thus that God reveals the order and dispositions of His wisdom: eliciting good from evil, and turning that which has its origin in evil to be an instrument of greater good. This stanza is nearly word for word what the Bridegroom in the Canticle saith to the bride: ' Under the apple-tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted; there she was defloured that bare thee/2
It is not the betrothal of the Cross that I am speaking of now — that takes place, once for all, when God gives the first grace to the soul in baptism. I am speaking of the betrothal in the way of perfection, which is a progressive work. And though both are but one, yet there is a difference between them. The latter is effected in the way of the soul, and therefore slowly: the former in the way of God, and therefore at once.
The betrothal of which I am speaking is that of which God speaks Himself by the mouth of the prophet Ezechiel, saying: ' Thou wert cast out upon the face of the earth in the abjection of thy soul, in the day that thou wert born. And passing by thee, I saw that thou wert trodden under foot in thy blood; and I said to thee when thou wert in thy blood: Live: I said to thee, I say; in thy blood live. Multiplied as the spring of the field have I made thee; and thou wert multiplied and made great, and thou wentest in, and earnest to the ornaments of woman; thy breasts swelled and thy hair budded: and thou wert naked and full of confusion. And I passed by thee and saw thee, and behold, thy time, the time of lovers; and I spread My garment over thee and covered thy ignominy. And I swore to thee; and I entered a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God; and thou wert made Mine. And I washed thee with water, and made clean thy blood from off thee: and I anointed thee with oil. And I clothed thee with divers colours, and shod thee with hyacinth, and I girded thee with silk and clothed thee with fine garments. And I adorned thee with ornaments, and put bracelets on thy hands, and a chain about thy neck. And I put a jewel upon thy forehead and rings in thy ears, and a crown of beauty on thy head. And thou wert adorned with gold and silver, and wert clothed with silk, and embroidered work, and many colours: thou didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil, and wert made beautiful exceedingly, and advanced to be a queen. And thy name went forth among the nations because of thy beauty.'3 These are the words of Ezechiel, and this is the state of that soul of which I am now speaking.
Footnotes
Chapter 24 of 41