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, 1.12

While the King was on His dining couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance. My Beloved is to me a bundle of myrrh that shall lie between my breasts. My Bloved is to me a grape-cluster from Cyprus in the vineyards of Engaddi.

A Lesson from a Treatise by the Venerable S. Bede

Surely the Church, having received such gifts or promises from her Creator, continually responded and further declared the devotion with which she would undertake these works, saying: “While the King was on His dining couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.” Now “the King’s dining couch” is what she calls the time of His Nativity, during which He deigned to be humbled for our sake and to be brought down Himself so that we might be raised up. Clearly, on this dining couch He has willed both to refresh His Church with life-giving food and to be refreshed Himself with her good deeds. For this reason He says: “I am the living bread that came from heaven; whoever eats of this bread will live forever” (Jn 6.51); and again to the disciples, concerning the people who believe in Him, He says, “I have food to eat that you do not know about” (Jn 4.32). And the fragrance of nard represents the ardor of right action. “While the King was on His dining couch,” she says, “my nard gave forth its fragrance,” because when the Son of God had appeared in flesh the Church increased in its fervor for heavenly virtues – not that she had no spiritual persons devoted to God before His Nativity, but because she subjected herself without any hesitation to the more rigorous practice of virtues at the time when she learned that access to the heavenly kingdom is open to all who live rightly, as soon as the bonds of flesh are dissolved. Now we should note that the figure in this little verse was also fulfilled according to the letter in the deeds of Saint Mary Magdalene, who contained a type of the church when she anointed the Lord’s head and feet with an ointment of nard as He was reclining at supper, “and the house was filled with the odor of the ointment” (Jn 12.3), as the holy Gospel accounts bear witness. In one of them it is also indicated what kind of nard that was, for it is said, “A woman came with an alabaster jar of ointment of nard of very precious spikes” (Mt 14.3), evidently because its tips extend themselves into ears and therefore they will up the spikes and leaves with a double portion of nard oil. The naturalists write that it is the chief among ointments, hence it was deservedly used in anointing the body of the Lord.

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