Evenings With Bede 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 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, 1.1

Let Him kiss me with the kiss of His mouth: for Your breasts are better than wine, the glowing ardor of the best ointments. Your name is oil poured out: therefore the young maidens have loved You. Draw me: we will run after You. The King has brought me into His chambers: we will exult and rejoice in You, remembering Your breasts more than wine: the righteous love You.

A Lesson from a Treatise by the Venerable S. Bede

The bride says that “The King has brought me into His chambers.” The chambers of the eternal King are the inner joys of the heavenly homeland into which holy Church has now been brought through faith and will in the future be brought more fully in reality. Now the bride is speaking to the young maidens–that is, the Church of Christ is saying to the faithful souls that are its own members recently reborn in Christ: “The reason that I am praying to the Bridegroom that He might help us with His hand lest we should grow faint as we are running after Him is that I have already had a foretaste of the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom, I have already tasted and have seen that the Lord is sweet (Ps 34), I have already become acquainted with the good things which He has revealed to have been prepared for me in heaven.” Soon afterward, turning to Him Who has revealed these things to her, she hastens to give thanks to her King and Lord for His benefits, saying: “We will exult and rejoice in You, remembering Your breasts more than wine,” which is to say openly, “We will by no means extol ourselves for the gifts we have received, but in everything that we enjoy we exult, or rather, we always will exult and rejoice in Your mercy, remembering in every respect how much You have deigned to restore us with kindness, how you have deigned to temper the austerity of the law with the grace of evangelical faith.” Which leads the Bride to say, “The righteous love You.” This is if to say, “The reason that we will exult and rejoice not in ourselves but in You, remembering your gifts, is that all those who are righteous in heart have learned that You are to be loved before all things and above all things, and that they could never become righteous if they put any love before You, from Whom alone they have every good thing they posses.” And we should consider what she says further above: “The young maidens love You,” but now she says, “The righteous love You.” These two verses should be put together, because she spoke of no other youthfulness than uprightness of heart, since those who have put off the impurity of the old self have put on the “new self which is created according to God in justice and holiness and truth” (Eph 4:22-24). Again, “the righteous love You” because none other can truly love the Lord unless they are righteous. For whoever will violate the rectitude of justice, whether by an action or a word or even a thought that is improper, in vain do they think that they love the Creator Whose admonitions they despise. “For the love of God is this, that we keep His commandments,” as S. John the Evangelist bears witness (1 Jn 5:3).

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