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NAVARRE BIBLE COMMENTARY (RSV)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (To the Greater Glory of God)

From: Song of Solomon 3:1-4

Third canto: Nocturne
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[1] Upon my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loves: I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer. [2] “I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.” I sought him, but found him not. [3] The watchmen found me, as they went about the city. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?” [4] Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

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Commentary:

3:1-5. This canto deals with a second stage of love. It is night-time, in the city; the lover is absent, and the beloved searches for him until she finds him. The speaker is the beloved. United in love with the one she loves (v. 5), she looks back, recalling her first fruitless search (v. 1), and what happened then and her second failed attempt to find him (v. 2); then, at her third attempt -- success (vv. 3-4). The canto in this way describes a trial she has undergone; she overcomes, thanks to her perseverance. ‘‘If you want to stay close to Christ, seek out suffering and do not fear it. For sometimes Christ is sooner found in the midst of bodily torments and in the hands of the torturers. Scarcely had I passed them, says the Song (v. 4). After a very short time, then, you too will he freed from the hands of those who persecute you, and no longer will you he subject to the powers of this world. Christ will come out to meet you, and he will not allow temptations to threaten you for very long. The one who seeks Christ in this way and finds him can say: I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, the home of the one who bore me in her womb. What are your mother and your home if not the most intimate and hidden parts of your soul? Keep your house well guarded; keep the most secluded rooms well cleaned, so that the Holy Spirit may come to live in an immaculate home […]. The ones who look for Christ in this way, who ask for him in this way, will never he abandoned by him; he will come to visit them often because he is with us until the end of the world’’ (St Ambrose, De virginitate, 12, 68, 74-75; 13, 77-78).

From: 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

The Ministry of Reconciliation (Continuation)
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[14] For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. [15] And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. [16] From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view, we regard him thus no longer. [17] Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.

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Commentary:

14-15. The Apostle briefly describes the effects of Christ's death, a death he underwent out of love for man; elsewhere at greater length (cf. Rom 6:1-11; 14:7-9; Gal 2:19-20; 2 Tim 2: 11) he goes into this doctrine which is so closely connected with the solidarity that exists between Jesus Christ and the members of his mystical body. Christ, the head of that body, died for all his members: and they have mystically died to sin with and in him. Christ's death, is moreover, the price paid for men--their ransom which sets them free from the slavery of sin, death and the devil. As a result of it we belong no longer to ourselves but to Christ (cf. 1 Cor 6:19), and the new life--in grace and freedom--which he has won for us we must live for his sake: "None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord [...]. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living" (Rom 14:7-9).

"What follows from this?", St Francis de Sales asks. "I seem to hear the voice of the Apostle like a peal of thunder startling our heart: It is easy to see, Christians, what Christ desired by dying for us. What did he desire but that we should become like him? 'That those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.' How powerful a consequence is this in the matter of love! Jesus Christ died for us; by his death he has given us life; we only live because he died; he died for us, by us, and in us; our life then is no longer ours, but belongs to him who has purchased it for us by his death: we are therefore no more to live to ourselves but to him; not in ourselves but in him; nor for ourselves but for him" ("Treatise on the Love of God", book 7, chap. 8).

"The love of Christ controls us", urges us: with these words St Paul sums up what motivates his tireless apostolic activity--the love of Jesus, so immense that it impels him to spend every minute of his life bringing this same love to all mankind. The love of Christ should also inspire all other Christians to commit themselves to respond to Christ's love, and it should fill them with a desire to bring to all souls the salvation won by Christ. "We are urged on by the charity of Christ (cf. 2 Cor 5:14) to take upon our shoulders a part of this task of saving souls. Look: the redemption was consummated when Jesus died on the Cross, in shame and glory, 'a stumbling block' to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles (1 Cor 1:23). But the redemption will, by the will of God, be carried out continually until our Lord's time comes. It is impossible to live according to the heart of Jesus Christ and not to know that we are sent, as he was, 'to save sinners' (1 Tim 1:15), with the clear realization that we ourselves need to trust in the mercy of God more and more every day. As a result, we will foster in ourselves a vehement desire to live as co-redeemers with Christ, to save all souls with him" ("Christ Is Passing By", 120f).

16-17. "Even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view": Paul seems to be referring to knowledge based only on external appearances and on human criteria. Paul's Judaizing opponents do look on things from a human point of view, as Paul himself did before his conversion. Nothing he says here can be taken as implying that St Paul knew Jesus personally during his life on earth (he goes on to say that now he does not know him personally); what he is saying is that previously he judged Christ on the basis of his own Pharisee prejudices; now, on the other hand, he knows him as God and Savior of men.

In v. 17 he elaborates on this contrast between before and after his conversion, as happens to Christians through Baptism. For through the grace of Baptism a person becomes a member of Christ's body, he lives by and is "in Christ" (cf., e.g., Gal 6:15; Eph 2:10, 15f; Cor 3:9f); the Redemption brings about a new creation. Commenting on this passage St Thomas Aquinas reminds us that creation is the step from non-being to being, and that in the supernatural order, after original sin, "a new creation was necessary, whereby (creatures) would be made with the life of grace; this truly is a creation from nothing, because those without grace are nothing (cf. 1 Cor 13:2) [...]. St Augustine says, 'for sin is nothingness, and men become nothingness when they sin'" ("Commentary on 2 Cor, ad loc.").

"The new has come": St John Chrysostom points out the radical change which the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ has brought about, and the consequent difference between Judaism and Christianity: "Instead of the earthly Jerusalem, we have received that Jerusalem which is above; and instead of a material temple we have seen a spiritual temple; instead of tablets of stone, holding the divine Law, our own bodies have become the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit; instead of circumcision, Baptism; instead of manna, the Lord's body; instead of water from a rock, blood from his side; instead of Moses' or Aaron's rod, the cross of the Savior; instead of the promised land, the kingdom of heaven" ("Hom on 2 Cor", 11).