Memories of love with God
We continue our meditations on the Song of Songs, in the words of the bride:
“By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but I did not find him” (Song 3:1) …
And we would like to address, from this entire subject, “Memories of love in the relationship of the soul with God.”
Memories of love with God (1)
Life experiences with God:
How beautiful it is to see the human soul here recording its spiritual memories with God, recounting its experiences, its fellowship, and its history…
Just as Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes, when he recounted his life with the Lord, his relationship with Him, and how he passed through varied emotions until he reached God… a kind of confession told by the soul through its experiences…
Every person in the world has a story with God, or a collection of stories. I wish you would review your lives with God and write to us your spiritual experiences and the stories of your long fellowship, and we will publish what is fitting…
The story of the Song is the story of a soul that lived with God and tasted the sweet and the bitter. It experienced delight in the taste of God, and it experienced distance from Him.
It experienced the Mount of Transfiguration, just as it experienced the Garden of Gethsemane. It said in its experience: “The voice of my beloved! He knocks: ‘Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one.’” And it also said: “I called him, but he gave no answer.”
It experienced: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,” “His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me.”
And it also experienced transfiguration and deprivation when it said: “My beloved turned and passed by,” “I sought him, but I did not find him”…
It experienced how it could be dark, and how it could be beautiful…
It heard the phrase: “You are beautiful, my love; your eyes are doves.”
And in contrast it said: “My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards”…
It walked on the long road of the Lord, with its calmness and its troubles, with its successes and its failures. And I still tell you that among the most truthful descriptions of it is the Lord’s saying to Noah after the flood (Gen 8:22):
“As long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
You will not live, beloved ones, in a perpetual day, or in constant heat, or in continual warmth. There will also be in your lives: night and cold and winter…
You will experience this, no matter how much you are children of light and children of the day…
And this bride recounts periods of deprivation and distance, her search for God without finding Him, the watchmen striking her, and taking away her veil from her… Yet despite all this, she did not lose her love for God. And in times of deprivation she would say: “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”
A relationship of love:
She never lost her love for God at all, even if she sometimes lost His fellowship. Love was always in her heart, no matter how weak the flesh became, and no matter how outwardly she appeared distant, seeking and not finding…
Her relationship with God is a relationship of love, not a relationship of formalities, nor of duties and commandments, nor merely of rituals or law—which the Lord criticized in the Book of Isaiah (Isa 1)—nor is it a relationship of fear…
Rather, it is a relationship of love, built continually on deep foundations…
When she speaks about God, she does not say “my God,” but in every occasion she calls Him: “my beloved,” “him whom my soul loves.” And He also taught us to say in prayer, “Our Father,” as a sign of love…
Thus this soul says: “My beloved is mine, and I am his,” “Like an apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons,” “Under his shadow I desired to sit, and his fruit was sweet to my taste”…
Do not look at God as merely a mighty ruler who governs in heaven, but love Him with all your heart. Thus Christianity has taught us…
The love of God is the foundation; it is the great commandment. All virtues, all commandments, and all spiritual practices spring from this love. There is no commandment that stands independently by itself. All virtues are but an expression of a person’s love for God, or a result of this love…
The Lord says: “He who loves me keeps my commandments,” meaning that as a result of his love, he keeps the commandments. But keeping the commandments without love is not a spiritual work, nor is it a Christian virtue. There are people who behave well on a moral level or a social level, but they are not spiritual. Their reputation is good, but their good conduct does not spring from their love for God.
Reasons for the soul’s love for God:
The love of the bride for the Lord in the Song has many reasons, among them:
First: Above all, the love of God is her delight and her pleasure.
She says to Him: “Your love is better than wine.” A love that intoxicates, in which the soul rejoices. She even says more than this: “I am sick with love,” meaning that the love of God has stirred her inner being, and she can no longer bear that mighty energy of divine love.
Her body is weaker than the energies of the spirit, so the body can no longer bear the spiritual love, and she becomes sick with love…
A person’s bodily temperature rises when he is physically ill; and another person’s spiritual temperature rises with love, so he becomes sick with love, overwhelmed by divine love. Just as it was said to Paul: “Your great learning is driving you mad, Paul.”
This holy Pauline ecstasy is something we all desire to be struck by…
A person, from the intensity of the love within him, speaks words that people do not understand and feels feelings that people do not perceive, so they think he is delirious…!
Our problem is that the love of the world struggles against the love of God within us. The flesh lusts against the spirit. We love God, and we delight in the world, and within us there is contradiction and conflict.
But the person who truly loves God, and for whom the love of God is his delight, has no conflict or struggle. He does not tire in fulfilling the commandment, because it is his pleasure.
He sings the commandments of God, as David sang of them in his psalms: “Your commandments are my meditation; they are my delight. A lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I found your words and ate them like honey.”
And the name of God is also sweet in his mouth, as we say: “Sweet is Your name and blessed in the mouths of Your saints,” and as David said: “Beloved is Your name, O Lord, for it is my meditation all day long.” And as the virgin of the Song says: “Your name is ointment poured forth,” which we translate in the liturgy: “Your holy name is a sweet fragrance poured out.”
“Your name is ointment poured forth; therefore the virgins love You.”
The virgins are the souls that have not given themselves to another, and that love the Lord with all their heart, whether they are celibate or married. Therefore, Scripture called all who are saved “five wise virgins.”
Second: The bride loves God because she finds no equal to Him among the gods.
As we sing to Him in the doxology: “Who among the gods is like You, O Lord? You are the true God, the worker of wonders!” If we place God among all the desires of the world and all its gods, we find Him surpassing them all. Therefore the virgin of the Song says:
“My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among ten thousand.”
Ten thousand means that if you place my beloved among ten thousand, you will find Him distinguished among them. When then will the Lord be distinguished in your heart above all the desires of the world and all its inhabitants, and you will find Him surpassing them all?
Third: The bride also loves the Lord because He is beautiful.
“Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved,” thus the bride of the Song says to the Lord. What does she mean by the phrase “the beauty of the Lord”?
It means that a person walks in the way of the Lord and finds the gate narrow and the commandment heavy, and were it not for fear of eternity he would not continue. He says to the Lord: From the first day I knew You, I knew trials and tribulations, I knew the cross and Gethsemane, I knew weeping and tears… and thus he does not see the Lord as beautiful…
But the lover of God sees everything as beautiful in his eyes: God, His cross, His trials, and His commandments. He sees the way of the Lord as sweet, no matter how narrow it may be…
He sings with the Apostle James: “Count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into various trials.” And he chants with Paul: “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice.” And because of his love for the commandments of God, he says with John: “And His commandments are not burdensome.”
The virgin sings of the beauty of the Lord, saying: “His mouth is most sweet, yes, he is altogether lovely… his stature is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars,” and she explains the rest of His beautiful attributes…
Our Lord is a desire we long for, replacing the desire of the world. As someone said: “Holiness is the replacement of one desire with another—the replacement of the desire of the world with the desire for God.”
We desire God and all that surrounds Him, and we find in Him delight and joy. And with Him we lack nothing.
How beautiful is meditation on the attributes of God. It plants His love in the heart. “His mouth is most sweet; yes, he is altogether lovely.” Believe me, if you took from the Song only the phrase “altogether lovely,” that would be enough…
God is not a tax imposed upon you, nor a yoke placed upon your necks, nor a mighty ruler, but He is all your desires—altogether lovely.
When Augustine loved God, the world with all its desires became small in his eyes. And when Paul loved God, he said: “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish.” And when you love God, the love of the world will die in your heart. You may now think it is difficult to get rid of a certain sin, because the love of God has not yet possessed you. But if you love Him, you will find that sin has departed from you with great ease…
Fourth: The bride loved God because He is her shepherd.
He cares for her and shepherds her among the lilies, in green pastures, beside still waters. He shepherds her in the gardens, among the beds of spices:
“My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies.” Musical and beautiful words…
You may say: Where are these gardens, lilies, and spices, when we find only fasting, prostrations, and trials?!
If you loved God, you would love all this and find it beds of spices.
Fifth: The bride loved the Lord because He is strong, guarding and supporting. The soul feels in His care that it is surrounded by wondrous power… A God whose might is not against man, but for man, for his protection and care…
How many attributes there are for which we love God! If we were to count them one by one, an entire lifetime would not suffice to list them…
-
An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III – Al-Keraza Magazine – Sixth Year (Issue 44), 31-10-1975.
For better translation support, please contact the center.
