Sunday, August 25 : Saint Bernard

“Let him kiss me,” she says, “with the kiss of his mouth” (Sg 1,1). Who is speaking? The Bride. But why “Bride”? She is the soul which thirsts for God. And to whom does she speak. To her God… For no names can be found as sweet as those in which the Word and the soul exchange affections, as Bridegroom and Bride, for to such everything is common. Nothing is the property of one and not the other, nothing is held separately. They share one inheritance, one table, one house, one bed, one flesh. For this she leaves her father and her mother and clings to her husband and they two are one flesh (Gn 2,24)… So then love especially and chiefly belongs to those who are married and it is not inappropriate to call the loving soul a Bride. For she who asks a kiss feels love. She does not ask for freedom or payment or an inheritance or learning, but for a kiss, in the manner of a most chaste bride, who sighs for holy love; and she cannot disguise the flame which is so evident… She loves most chastely who seeks him whom she loves and not some other thing which belongs to him. She loves in a holy way, because she does not love in fleshly desire but in purity of spirit. She loves ardently, because she is drunk with love so that she cannot see his majesty. What? He it is “who looks on the earth and causes it to tremble” (Ps 103,32). And she asks him for a kiss? Is she drunk? Indeed she is drunk with love for God!… Oh, what force of love! What great confidence of spirit! What freedom! What is more evident than that perfect love casts out fear? (1Jn 4,18).
maronite readings – rosary,team