Evenings With Bede is a homily podcast. The episodes are taken from the Sunday solemn Plainsong Evensong services of Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach, Fla., where I am Rector.

SEASON TWO is devoted to understanding the Song of Songs with the Venerable S. Bede as teacher, and yours truly as interpreter. We will go verse by verse through the entirety of the Song of Songs.

The format is a short passage from the Song of Songs, then comes commentary from the Bede, and finally an interpretive homily by yours truly expounding upon both. The audio for all three is found above. The text of the two passages is found below.

A Lesson from the Song of Songs, 1.5

I am black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem. Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not think to consider me, for I am swarthy because the sun has discolored me. My mother’s children have fought against me and made me keeper of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have not kept. Show me, You Whom my soul loves, where You pasture Your flock, where You lie down at midday; lest I begin to wander after the flocks of Your companions.

A Lesson from a Treatise by the Venerable S. Bede

After saying, “Show me, You Whom my soul loves, where You pasture Your flock, where You lie down at midday,” the Bride of Christ, who is Holy Church, then adds, “Lest I begin to wander after the flocks of Your companions,” as if she were to say openly, “Since persecution brings me a multitude of adversaries after the fashion of the noonday heat, I beseech You to declare to me, O my Redeemer and Protector, where I might find those who have been refreshed with the grace of Your presence, or which ones among all the dogmas are in harmony with the truth of Your gospel, so that I might not run into the assemblies of those who have been long separated from You and have chanced to stray from Your protection, where I would be without Your guidance and thus could by no means walk in the way of truth.” For even heretics cannot incongruously be called His “companions,” inasmuch as they carry around His Name or Creed or Sacraments. And did the Bride of Christ not do these things when the false apostles (namely, His companions) came from Antioch and proclaimed, “Unless you are circumcised according to the law of Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15.1)? For after she had been wearied by no little heat of dissension and questioning she at last sent Paul and Barnabas to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem to discern with greater certainty what the truth of the Gospel might be, and when the debate was concluded it was determined that the Lord Christ was the Shepherd Who dwelt among those being instructed by James, Cephas (that is, Peter), John, and the other apostles, and that His Church should be kept in His sheepfold, free from the flocks of the companions (that is, the crowds of heretics). And has the Bride of Christ not also done these things often in subsequent times? For when her mother’s children fought against her (that is, when heresies grew up to oppose her from within), she was soon diligently gathering councils of the Fathers together in order to inquire what the truth of the faith might be.

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