Song of Songs 8:6-7
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of one’s house,
it would be utterly scorned.
Meditation
Christians down through the ages have been scandalized by the fact that sitting in the middle of our canonical tradition is a frankly explicit love poem. Also of course it is a book that is politically subversive even on a surface reading. These are the things that I personally love about it. If anyone is fortunate enough to be called to be in a close relationship with another, treat it as a special gift of God and treasure it. Read and enjoy this poem to help with that. But for everyone wherever you are in this life, it is also important to remember that when Augustine talked of God’s love for us on our pilgrimage through this world, he used the word eros (relationship of spouses) and not agape (love found in community). That’s why there’s a love poem in the middle of our canon. To remind us that this is one important element of the relationship God offers to each and all of us.
Let us pray …
God who longs to be in relationship with all women and men: We thank you for your reaching out to us. We thank you for the relationship we can enjoy with you. We thank you for the relationships in our lives that reflect your love for us and our love for you. Strengthen them and make them a better reflection of proper and overflowing eros in our world. We thank you for love lost and love to be born afresh or anew. So often we feel you in our relationships. Thank you. Amen.
