Holy unions
In my sermon this past Sunday, I spoke about the First Reading for the day, from the Old Testament Song of Solomon (Chapter 2: vs. 8-13). I noted that this book is problematic because of its sensuous language and the fact that it, along with the Book of Esther, does not mention “God” by name.
At the beginning of my sermon, I mentioned that in the early ’60s, a public high school principal in New Jersey invited students to recite a portion of the Bible for the students at the beginning of the day. After one student recited a portion of the Song of Solomon (7:1-4), the principal decided that HE was going to choose the Bible verses from then on!
Some Biblical scholars note that the Song of Solomon (sometimes called the Song of Songs) is an allegory about God’s love for Israel – and in the Christian perspective, the love of Christ for his Church, but if you look at it as a piece of literature, it talks, in clear language, about human love.
Although I appreciate the allegorical perspective from Hebrew and Christian theologians, some people wonder why the use of erotic imagery is part of our “sacred” text. My answer is that God’s love for us His children is beyond sensual – that love encompasses our bodies, minds, and spirits, in such a way that it is overwhelming. The use of sensual language in this book tells me that God’s love for us is more intimate than the best human relationship! God’s love for us is, indeed, a HOLY UNION, based on the HOLIEST UNION, the Holy Trinity. The loving union of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Trinity of one God is a model for us as God’s children, united together with Jesus by the same Spirit to be one Church, one family, children of the same loving Parent.
God’s love for us is an ATTENTIVE LOVE! God ALWAYS pays attention to us and listens to us, even when we feel that God is “somewhere else.” The fact that some of our prayers don’t seem to be answered doesn’t mean that God isn’t concerned about God’s children; God always communicates with us. Our problem, I believe, is that we can’t communicate well with God because we don’t communicate well with His fellow children, our sisters and brothers in Christ.
Are we attentive to God in Scripture, prayer, and in one another? After a conversation with someone else, I stop and wonder how many times I’m thinking about what I’m going to say, rather than really being attentive to that person and trying to understand where he/she is. In some churches, I’ve seen people offering The Peace to their neighbor while looking at someone else!
So, I believe that our task in helping God form a holy union with us is to be attentive to God’s work in other people and acknowledge that! Without becoming overly prideful, we also need to acknowledge the work that God’s doing in you and me! Hopefully, this will promote active listening among God’s children, and by the power of the Spirit upbuild our “holy unions.”
God does love us: body, mind, and spirit. God loves us with all our foibles and faults. God kisses us and enfolds us in His loving presence. Jesus ensures us of that fact, as a human being, he encountered loving relationships with all kinds of people. God’s love, enfleshed in Jesus, is the highest form of love in Greek – “agapé.” Agapé is the love for the whole person, a selfless love, rather than “filia,” which is a friendship, and “eros,” a sexual love. God’s agapé love overwhelms us and empowers us to establish “holy unions” with others. Although God can’t stand some of the things that we do to one another, God still infinitely loves us – with all our faults – and moves us to a closer relationship with Him and one another in Christ.
Here is a true story as told by surgeon, Dr. Richard Selzer, about the agapé kind of love between two people (a “holy union”) that mirrors God’s love for us. Here it is in his own words:
“I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut the little nerve.
Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily?
The young woman speaks. ‘Will my mouth always be like this?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘it will. It is because the nerve was cut.’
She nods and is silent. But the young man smiles.
‘I like it,’ he says. ‘It’s kind of cute.’
All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works.”1
1. Richard Selzer, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996), 45-46.
Fr. Jim+