St Bernard expounds on the metaphor of bridegroom and bride.
Sermon 7: INTIMACIES OF THE LOVE OF GOD: THEIR
EXPRESSION IN PRAYER AND IN THE PSALMS
2. “Let him
kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,”[1]
she said. Now who is this “she”? The bride. But why bride? Because she is the soul
thirsting for God … the one who asks for a kiss, she is a lover. Among all the
natural endowments of man love holds first place, especially when it is
directed toward God, who is the source whence it comes. No sweeter names can be
found to embody that sweet interflow of affections between the Word and the
soul, than bridegroom and bride. Between these all things are equally shared,
there are no selfish reservations, nothing that causes division. They share the
same inheritance, the same table, the same home, the same marriage-bed, they
are flesh of each other’s flesh. … Therefore if a love relationship is the
special and outstanding characteristic of the bride and groom, it is not
unfitting to call the soul that loves God a bride. Now one who asks for a kiss
is in love. It is not for liberty that she asks, nor for an award, not for an
inheritance nor even knowledge, but for a kiss. It is obviously the request of a bride who is
chaste, who breathes forth a love that is holy. A love whose ardor she cannot
entirely disguise. For note how abruptly she bursts into speech. About to ask a
great favor from a great personage, she does not resort as others do, to the
arts of seduction, she makes no devious or fawning solicitations for the prize
that she covets. There is no preamble, no attempt to conciliate favor. No, but
with a spontaneous outburst from the abundance of her heart, direct even to the
point of boldness, she says: "let him kiss me with the kiss of his
mouth."
3. Does not
this seem to you to indicate that she wished to say: "Whom have I in
heaven but you? And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides
you."[2]
Her love is
surely chaste when it seeks the person whom she loves, and not some other thing
of his. It is a holy love, the impulse of an upright spirit rather than of
carnal desire. And it is an ardent love, blinded by its own access to the
majesty of the beloved. For what are the facts? He is the one at whose glance
the earth trembles,[3]
and does she demand that he give her a kiss? Can she be possibly drunk?
Absolutely drunk! And the reason? It seems most probable that when she uttered
those passionate words she had just come out from the seller of wine;[4]
afterword she boasts of having been there. David in his turn cried out to God
concerning people such as the bride: "They shall be inebriated with the
plenty of your house; and you will make them drink of the torrent of your
pleasure.”[5]
How great this power of love: what great confidence and freedom of spirit! What
is more manifest than that fear is driven out by perfect love![6]
