I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Cedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Song 1:4 Vulgate (Song 1:5 RNAB)
From Sermon 27.2
“What does she mean then by saying: ‘I am
beautiful like the curtains of Solomon’?” I feel here we have a great and
wonderful mystery, provided we apply the words, not to the Solomon of this Song,
but to him who said of himself: ‘What is here is greater than Solomon.’ Mt 12:42 This Solomon to whom I refer is so
great a Solomon that he is called not only Peaceful … but Peace itself: for
Paul proclaims that ‘He is our Peace.’ Eph
2:14
… It was he, and not the former Solomon, who spoke these words of God his
Father: ‘When he set the heavens in their place, I was there.’ Prov 8:27 His power and his wisdom were
undoubtedly present at the establishing of the heavens. 1 Cor 1:24”
Sermon 27.3
3. The bride's form must be understood in a spiritual
sense, her beauty as something that is grasped by the intellect; it is eternal
because it is an image of eternity. Her gracefulness consists of love, and you
have read that "love never ends."1 Cor
13:8 It consists of justice, for "her justice endures forever.” Ps 112:3 It
consists of patience, and Scripture tells you ' 'the patience of the poor shall
not perish forever." Ps10:19 …
Therefore the Church, possessing the promise of happiness to come 1 Tim 4:8, now prepares for it by adorning
herself with a variety of graces and virtues Ps
45:10, in order to be found worthy and capable of the fulness of
grace.
7. These two then have their origin in heaven – Jesus the
Bridegroom and Jerusalem the Bride. He, in order to be seen by men, “emptied
himself taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”44
But the bride—in what form or exterior loveliness, in what guise did St John
see her 
coming down? 45 Was
it perhaps in the company of the angels 
whom he saw ascending and
descending upon the Son of Man? 46 It is more accurate to say that
he saw the bride when he looked on the Word made flesh, and acknowledged two
natures in the one flesh. 47 For when that holy Emmanuel introduced
to earth the curriculum of heavenly teaching, when we came to know the visible
image and radiant comeliness of that supernal Jerusalem,48 our
mother, revealed to us in Christ and by his means, what did we behold if not
the bride in the Bridegroom? What did we admire but that same person who is the
Lord of glory,49 the Bridegroom decked with a garland, the bride
adorned with her jewels? so "He who descended is he also who
ascended,' '51 since "no one has ascended into heaven but he
who descended from heaven,” 52 the one and same Lord who as head of
the Church is the Bridegroom, as body is the bride. This heaven-formed man did
not appear on earth in vain, 53 since he endowed a multitude of
earthly followers with his own heavenly image.54 As Scripture says:
"the heavenly Man is the pattern of all the heavenly."55
From that time the lives of many on earth have been like the lives of heaven's
citizens, as when, after the example of that exalted and blessed bride, she who
came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon,56
embraced the heavenly Bridegroom with a chaste love. Though, unlike the blessed
bride, not yet united to him by vision, she is still espoused to him by faith,
as God promised through the Prophet's words: "I will betroth you to me in
steadfast love and mercy, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. "57
Hence she strives more and more to resemble her who came from heaven, learning
from her to be modest and 
prudent, learning
to be chaste and holy, to be patient and compassionate, and ultimately to be
meek and humble of heart. By these virtues she endeavors, even while absent,59
to be pleasing to him on whom
the angels long to look. 60 With a love angelic in its fervor she
shows herself to be a fellow-citizen with the saints and a domestic of God, 61
she shows that she is beloved, that she is a bride.
45. Rev 21:2 46. Jn 1:51 47. Gen 2:24 48. Gal 4:26; Ps 49:2 49. 1 Cor 
50. Is 61:10 51. Eph 4:10 52. Jn 3.13 53. Bar 3:38 54. 1 Cor 15:47 55. 1 Cor 15:48 56. 1 Kings 10:1-10 57. Hos 2:19-20 58. Mt 11:29 59. 2 Cor 5:9
60.
1 Pet 1:12 61. Eph 2:19
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