glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- wounded by love t is now in the flow of my life 4:40 PM Wednesday evening. I am down in the lower level reading my books. I wanted to quote something that has been on my mind for awhile. I want to quote something I read in a book titled, "Gregory the Great On the Song of Songs Translated and Introduction by Mark DelCogliano. "Song 2:5b (LXX). I have been wounded by love. W15. In two ways Almighty God wounds those whom he is concerned to restore to health. Sometimes he whips them outwardly on the flesh in order to cure the poison of sins. Sometimes, even if the outward blows seem to have stopped, he inflicts wounds inwardly because he strikes the hardness of our mind with desire for him. Yet by striking he heals because, when we have been pierced by the spear of fear for him, he recalls us to an upright frame of mind. For our hearts are sickly when stricken with no love for God, when unmindful of the woefulness of our pilgrimage, when apathetic with hardly any feeling at all toward the weakness of our neighbor. But they are wounded that they may be healed because God strikes unfeeling minds with the darts of love for him and soon makes them full of feeling through the burning heat of charity. Hence here the Bride says: I have been wounded by love. For the soul that is sickly and in the state of this exile lies prostrate in blind security has neither seen God nor sought to see him. But when she is struck by the darts of his love, she is 'wounded' in her innermost recesses with tender devotion, burns with desire for contemplation, and marvelously is restored to life through her wound, though once she lays dead in health. She yearns, she pants, and she desires to see him whom she fled. She burns with desire for him. At present she yearns for nothing that is in the world, considers the length of the present life as punishment, hastens to depart and to find rest with a loving embrace in the vision of the heavenly Bridegroom. And so, a mind that is already in this state receives no consolation from the present life but in the very depths of her being sighs, burns, is anxious for him who she loves. The very health of her body becomes of little worth because she is pierced by the wound of love. Yet sickly is the heart which does not know the pain of this wound. But when she has already started to long for heavenly desire and to feel the wound of love, the soul which was once sick from health becomes healthier from a wound. Thus by being struck she recovers her health, recalled to the secure state of inward repose by the overturning of her self-love. Anyone who has been able to reach for the truth burns with this love and desire. For this reason David said: My soul has thirsted for the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? [Ps 41:3]. He warns us for the same reason: Always seek his face [Ps 104:4]. For the same reason Isaiah the Prophet said: My soul desired you in the night but in the morning I shall keep watch for you deep within my heart with my spirit [Isa 26:9]. And so, for the same reason the holy Church says to him: I have been wounded by love [Song 2:5]. Bearing in her heart the wound of love caused by the heat of desire for him, she is right to reach for health from the vision of the Physician." pg. 197, 198 Gregory the Great 5:04 p.m. - 2014-09-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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