I adjure you, Daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the does of the field. Do not awaken, or stir up love until it is ready. Song of Songs 2:7

 

I adjure you, Daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the does of the field. Do not awaken, or stir up love until it is ready. Song of Songs 2:7

From Volume 3-Sermon 3-6:

3. Well then, let me explain if I can what this sleep in which the bridegroom wishes his beloved to enjoy, from which he will not allow her to be wakened under any circumstances, except at her good pleasure …. It is a slumber which is vital and watchful, which enlightens the heart, drives away death, and communicates eternal life. For it is a genuine sleep that does not stupefy the mind but transports it. And – I say without any hesitation-it is a death, for the apostle Paul in praising people still living in the flesh spoke thus: ‘For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ (Col 3:3)

4. It is not absurd for me to call the bride’s ecstasy a death, then, but one that snatches away not life but life's snares, so that one can say: 'we have escaped as a bird from the snare of the Fowlers'. (PS123: 7) in this life we move about surrounded by traps, but these cause no fear when the soul is drawn out of itself by a thought that is both powerful and holy, provided that it so separates itself and flies away from the mind that it transcends the normal manner and habit of thinking; for a net is spread in vain before the eyes of winged creatures. (Prov 1:17) Why dread wantonness where there is no awareness of life? For since the ecstatic soul is cut off from awareness of life though not from life itself, it must of necessity be cut off from the temptations of life. 'O that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.' (Ps 54:7) How I long often to be the victim of this death that I may escape the snares of death, (Ps 17:6) that I may not feel the deadening blandishments of a sensual life, that I may be steeled against evil desire, against the surge of cupidity, against the goads of anger and impatience, against the anguish of worry and the mysteries of care. Let me die the death of the just, (Num 23:10) that no injustice may ensnare or wickedness seduce me. How good the death that does not take away life but makes it better; good in that the body does not perish but the soul is exalted.

5. Men alone experienced this. But, if I may say so, let me die the death of Angels that, transcending the memory of things present, I may castoff not only the desire for what are corporal and inferior but even their images, that I may enjoy pure conversation with of those who bear the likeness of purity.

III. This kind of ecstasy, in my opinion, is alone or principally called contemplation. Not to be gripped during life by material desires is a mark of human virtue; but to gaze without the use of bodily likenesses is the sign of angelic purity. Each, however, is a divine gift, each is a going out of oneself, each a transcending the self, but in one, one goes much farther than in the other. Happy the man who can say: 'See, I have escaped far away, and found a refuge in the wilderness'. (Ps 54:8)

CISTERCIAN FATHERS SERIES: NUMBER THIRTY-ONE - BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX – ON THE SONG OF SONGS III