Meeting 2 — Reconciled Loves¶
Goal of the Meeting¶
Showing God’s love as both agape and eros simultaneously. Showing that Christianity does not at all require a person to sacrifice the body, that it excludes human corporeality from the order of love.
“My beloved is mine, and I am his” – love described in the Song of Songs as complete and voluntary self-giving to another person, as the fullness of the meeting of two persons.
The extraordinary character of the Song of Songs, a book that praises, is God’s blessing upon human love.
Introduction for the Animator¶
Today we will continue reading and reflecting on the text of the Song of Songs. As for the method, today’s meeting does not change. However, today we do not need to expand too much on the part where we imagine individual events, because the most important thing will be conversation about the whole and drawing conclusions from the entire reading.
Opening Prayer¶
Prayer to the Holy Spirit for the gift of understanding His word, for the gift of reason. And other intentions depending on the animator’s judgment.
Text Analysis¶
The first part of the meeting looks similar to yesterday. We read chapters 6 to 8 and try to imagine individual scenes one by one. It is worth paying attention to the scene of finding after seeking at the end of chapter 5 and analyzing the words that lovers speak to each other. Especially the bridegroom, who does not rebuke his chosen one for not opening the door to him the previous day. He finds her beaten, dirty, without clothing (because she sought her beloved at night – see Song 5:7). The second element worth devoting more attention to is the wedding act itself (the sixth song – Song 8:5), in which spouses praise love. Love that has completely consumed them. (It is worth, e.g., emphasizing that the words “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm” were not written by Rubik at all, I hope this will not be a surprise to anyone).
Characteristics of Love¶
Next, let us try together with participants to list, based on the entire text, the characteristics of love described in the Song of Songs. What is it like? Let us try to give as many such characteristics as possible. When we finish, let us compare these characteristics with St. Paul’s “Hymn of Love” (1 Cor 13). It should be that all characteristics of love from the Song of Songs are found in St. Paul. If participants have problems listing such characteristics, we can reverse the order and, reading individual characteristics of love in St. Paul, try to search for them in the Song of Songs.
Is love from the Song of Songs only sensual love?
Can we only perceive it this way?
If not, why? What else does it encompass?
Starting from these questions, let us try together with participants to determine whether love in the Song of Songs divides a person into parts that can love and are worth loving, or whether it treats a person, a person holistically. Let the conclusion be the words of John Paul II from a homily on the Song of Songs:
The striving of love is seeking the perfection of life, which would synthetically encompass the whole beauty of man, the beauty of soul and body.
—John Paul II
Reconciled Loves¶
Love in the Song of Songs is not an opposition of sensual, human love to love understood as self-giving, it is their synthesis. Let us try to reflect whether the words that the bride speaks: “my beloved is mine, and I am his” can refer only to sensual love? (When speaking of these types of love, one can, but does not have to use the terms agape and eros.)
What do these words spoken by the bride express?
As a synthesis of this point, one can read the commentary by G. Ravasi:
Love in the Song of Songs is a mixture of eros and agape in the fullness of meeting between two persons. Love is exaltation and an exciting experience of beauty, aesthetics, charm – physical and spiritual. […] This is confirmed by the numerous symbols, metaphors, images of happiness, so characteristic of the Song of Songs. Moreover, at the end, all these comparisons proclaim the complete uniqueness, incomparability of love. […]
The dynamics of love in the understanding of the Song of Songs is simultaneously possession and freedom. Restlessness, absence and seeking, which appear here and there in the Song of Songs, testify that love is identity and at the same time autonomy, is possession and gift. In this way, «the characteristic of the impossibility of appropriation and taking possession of one person by another appears. A person is someone who transcends all measures of appropriation and domination, possession and fulfillment» (John Paul II, June 6, 1984). The free gift of one person for another transcends this impossibility.
This is precisely what the bride’s words express, she makes a gift of herself, just as her beloved did. St. Paul expressed the same thing writing: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”
This is St. Paul’s confession of love. The confession of Christian love (the connection of eros and agape) is precisely speaking after the bride the words “my beloved is mine, and I am his”.
Synthesis¶
It is worth drawing attention once more to the fact that God’s love for man is the greatest and best synthesis of agape and eros. One cannot read God’s love only in one of these dimensions. This is perfectly visible in the fragment from Hosea, which we reflected on yesterday at NS. We will see this again today in Isaiah.
Since we are to imitate God’s love, therefore we too should love with a combination of these two aspects of love. Once again and very emphatically, it must be emphasized that Christianity does not require us to reject corporeality, sexuality!
At the end of the group meetings, let us ask participants about their impressions from reading the Song of Songs. What do they think, why did this book find its way into Holy Scripture? What does it teach us?
One can also say that the Song of Songs is also an extraordinary book in Jewish tradition. It praises monogamy, which coexisted at that time together with polygamy (a man could have up to 5 wives, a king up to 18). It breaks with understanding marriage as a trade exchange between families. Finally, it devotes very much attention to a woman’s love, her feelings, desires. It also describes a woman’s corporeality in all its beauty. This is an unprecedented situation in Israel’s literature. A woman in this book is most important, is the crown of creation, the most beautiful creature. This description in the Song of Songs relates directly to the fragment:
Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib which he had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.
—Gen 2:22-24
Adam’s admiration for the woman is the same admiration that the bridegroom expresses in the Song of Songs. In Genesis, moreover, it is not the woman who goes to live with her husband, but the man goes to the woman’s house. In primitive cultures, it was women who played dominant roles in social life and intrigued men, attracted them, were a mystery to them. In the Song of Songs, we already see a change in tradition regarding the place of residence after marriage, but the woman is still treated as the crown of creation.
Closing Prayer¶
Closing prayer for the fruits of these retreats and good preparation for the Great Easter Feast. Form according to the animator’s judgment.