Meditations on the Song of Songs-I sleep, but my heart is awake
Meditations on the Song of Songs
The spiritual people read this book and grow in the love of God. But the carnal need a guide when reading it, lest they misunderstand it and descend from its sublime meaning to worldly ones…
Today we speak about the Virgin’s words in the Song:
“I sleep, but my heart is awake… It is the voice of my beloved! He knocks, saying: ‘Open for Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My perfect one; for My head is covered with dew, My locks with the drops of the night.’ I have taken off my robe; how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet; how can I defile them?” (Song of Solomon 5:2–4).
“I sleep, but my heart is awake”
This passage is amazing in explaining the relationship between the soul and God: it describes the state of spiritual lukewarmness in the soul and the state of divine withdrawal from the side of grace.
“I sleep, but my heart is awake.”
The Lord says, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” “Watch, for you do not know at what hour the Son of Man comes, lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping.”
Therefore, every sleeping soul is one that is neglectful of its salvation—heedless, lazy, unaware of its state, forgetting the warning of Scripture: “lest coming suddenly He find you sleeping.”
But this soul that says, “I sleep, but my heart is awake,”—what a strange state! Does she deceive herself, claiming wakefulness while asleep?
How can she think her heart awake while she sleeps? Many say, “I love the Lord with all my heart. God is everything in my life.” But if you ask them about their prayers, meditations, spiritual readings, confessions, and Communion, they answer:
“Truly, I am negligent in all this, but still, I love God… My spiritual life is stagnant, my soul is asleep, yet my heart is awake.”
Even stranger, another person says, “I am deep in sin, but I still love God. My soul sleeps, but my heart is awake.”
And you wonder: how can the love of God dwell in such a heart that lives in deep sin? Did not the Lord say, “He who loves Me keeps My commandments”? How then does he not keep them and still claim, “I love Him”? Did not Saint John the Beloved say, “Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him” (1 John 3:6)?
Apparently, some believe that the emotion of love toward God exists only in the heart, without showing in deeds, conduct, or visible expression.
But the wakefulness of the heart alone is not enough if life itself is asleep. The awakened heart must push a person into spiritual work. Faith without works is dead (James 2:26). What is the use of love in the heart if one sleeps in laziness and does nothing that love requires? What is the meaning of a living branch if it neither blossoms nor bears fruit?
And strangely, despite this laziness, the soul still says, “My beloved… the voice of my beloved knocking… my beloved put his hand through the latch opening, and my heart yearned for him… I arose to open for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone.”
Is He truly your Beloved? Then where is the “labor of love”?
God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son. The Lord loved us and died for us. You say you love Him—what have you done to express it?
Your Beloved knocks at the door, yet you do not open! He waits until His head is covered with dew, and His locks with the drops of night, while you sleep, excusing yourself that you have removed your robe and washed your feet! And you dare to call this love?
Theoretical love is useless. Our love must be practical. Saint John said, “Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18).
This soul thinks of herself more than of God—of her robe, her feet, her comfort—but not of her Beloved standing outside in the dew. Self-centeredness prevents her from giving; love of comfort hinders her.
This soul wants to unite God and the world, the love of God and the love of self. She refuses toil. She will not enter the narrow gate. She wants love without a cross!
But what if God had loved us without going up to the Cross? What if He had loved us without offering Himself for us?
Why then do we not imitate His self-giving love? Yet this poor soul in the Song wants to love God while sleeping—as if saying: “I love You, Lord, and I love sleep too. Can I not have both together?”
This bride says, “My heart is awake.” Is it truly awake? If so, where is the effect of that wakefulness?
There is intellectual wakefulness, and another that is practical.
The heart may be awake, aware that something is wrong, yet still falls into it. It can discern God’s voice from that of strangers, yet does not follow it. Saint Paul described this in Romans: “To will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Romans 7:18–19).
Thus, the heart may be awake, but the will weak. The conscience alert, but without resolve or strength. And through weakness, the person falls into the very evil he does not wish to do—like Peter when he denied his Master.
“It is the voice of my beloved; he knocks: Open for me…”
The Lord’s words, “Open for Me,” mean that she has shut herself to Him. She has enclosed herself within her ego—within her robe, her feet, her comfort, and her sleep.
Very often, the self stands as an obstacle before God.
You ask someone to pray, and he says: my time, my work, my studies… You ask him to fast: my health, my weakness… You speak to him about loving God, he replies: my desires, my pleasures, my body, my thoughts… Always the self first, and God last.
And even if such a person prays, his “self” remains the center of his prayer. He forgets God and remembers only his requests. His ego is his concern, not love for God.
These excuses reveal that the soul has “left her first love.” The love that once burned within her—love that many waters could not quench, that no excuses could hinder.
Now she can recognize the voice of her Beloved, but cannot respond to it. Her Beloved is in her heart only, for the heart is awake, but not in her will, for it sleeps.
“Open for Me, My sister, My love, My dove, My perfect one, for My head is covered with dew, My locks with the drops of the night.”
Tender, moving words that could melt stone—yet some hearts are so hard that they do not soften, no matter how lovingly the Lord speaks.
How often hardness of heart stands between the soul and God! That is why the Apostle warns, “If you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”
And in the story of the bride in the Song, we find that despite her hardness, refusal, and lack of response, she continues to justify herself with excuses:
“I have washed my feet; how can I defile them?”
Saint Augustine contemplates this from the perspective of service:
It is as though the bride excuses herself from serving, content with rest and contemplation. She says to the Lord: “In walking toward You, in serving You, I will tread the earth; my feet will touch dust and matter, and I will be defiled… I will face people, obstacles, and stumbling blocks, and be defiled. I have washed my feet in baptism and came out pure; how then can I soil them?”
Yes, your feet may be soiled in the way of service, but our comfort is that the Lord Himself washed the disciples’ feet and said to them, “You are clean.”
So enter into service; strive, face obstacles, and trust that the hand of God will be with you and cleanse whatever becomes soiled.
Moses, the meekest man on earth, entered into service and grew angry, breaking the tablets written by God’s own finger. Saint Paul too had to change his tone in service, saying, “Shall I come to you with a rod?” He even said, “O foolish Galatians!” and, “I have become a fool in boasting; you compelled me” (2 Corinthians 12:11).
And in all this, Christ washed the feet of His apostles and disciples.
“I sleep, but my heart is awake.”
Does this phrase show love without works, or lukewarmness, or self-indulgence of the soul, or an excuse from service?
We wish to complete this meditation in the next issue.
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Article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine, Sixth Year, Issue No. 6, 7 February 1975.
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