I asked for God’s guidance and he led me to quite a provocative scripture passage, chapters 1 and 2 of the Song of Songs. Do you think the Song of Solomon is controversial? Do you think God is giving legitimacy to passionate, erotic love between a husband and his wife? What do you think God’s message is in this passage? Since God created man and woman in order to bring offspring into the world it seems to me that God shows in scripture that He believes love is a beautiful and wonderful thing. Is the Song of Solomon yet another example of that?
Song of Solomon
Cant.1
[1] The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.
[2] O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!
For your love is better than wine,
[3] your anointing oils are fragrant,
your name is oil poured out;
therefore the maidens love you.
[4] Draw me after you, let us make haste.
The king has brought me into his chambers.
We will exult and rejoice in you;
we will extol your love more than wine;
rightly do they love you.
[5] I am very dark, but comely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.
[6] Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy,
because the sun has scorched me.
My mother’s sons were angry with me,
they made me keeper of the vineyards;
but, my own vineyard I have not kept!
[7] Tell me, you whom my soul loves,
where you pasture your flock,
where you make it lie down at noon;
for why should I be like one who wanders
beside the flocks of your companions?
[8] If you do not know,
O fairest among women,
follow in the tracks of the flock,
and pasture your kids
beside the shepherds’ tents.
[9] I compare you, my love,
to a mare of Pharaoh’s chariots.
[10] Your cheeks are comely with ornaments,
your neck with strings of jewels.
[11] We will make you ornaments of gold,
studded with silver.
[12] While the king was on his couch,
my nard gave forth its fragrance.
[13] My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh,
that lies between my breasts.
[14] My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
in the vineyards of Enge’di.
[15] Behold, you are beautiful, my love;
behold, you are beautiful;
your eyes are doves.
[16] Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved,
truly lovely.
Our couch is green;
[17] the beams of our house are cedar,
our rafters are pine.
Cant.2
[1] I am a rose of Sharon,
a lily of the valleys.
[2] As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among maidens.
[3] As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
With great delight I sat in his shadow,
and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
[4] He brought me to the banqueting house,
and his banner over me was love.
[5] Sustain me with raisins,
refresh me with apples;
for I am sick with love.
[6] O that his left hand were under my head,
and that his right hand embraced me!
[7] I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,
by the gazelles or the hinds of the field,
that you stir not up nor awaken love
until it please.
[8] The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
[9] My beloved is like a gazelle,
or a young stag.
Behold, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.
[10] My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
[11] for lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
[12] The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
[13] The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.
[14] O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the covert of the cliff,
let me see your face,
let me hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is comely.
[15] Catch us the foxes,
the little foxes,
that spoil the vineyards,
for our vineyards are in blossom.”
[16] My beloved is mine and I am his,
he pastures his flock among the lilies.
[17] Until the day breathes
and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle,
or a young stag upon rugged mountains.
“Do you think God is giving legitimacy to passionate, erotic love between a husband and his wife?”
I think that God, being all-Good, created nothing which is not itself — in proper context — good. I think that the teaching of the Church from its earliest days is that the proper context of sexual love is marriage. And thus, by simple deduction, sexual love in marriage is good. And I think that, given this fact, this good should be celebrated with all the gusto we frail and limited mortal creatures can manage!
I also think that the Church as an institution on Earth would do a lot better if its leaders were more often willing to make this plain. It is, of course, the flip side of the teachings we know all too well on premarital chastity, but as the flip side it remains an integral part of the same coin, if you will. Many seem to experience unearned and unjust _guilt_ at the feelings they have even for their spouses. We’d do well to remember that erotic, passionate love for one’s husband or wife is the _normal order of things_. It is something to _celebrate_. Where else are those huge numbers of kids we’re notorious for having supposed to come from?
Why else, I ask, would those passages be in the Bible? Biblical text is unnecessary to _give_ it legitimacy, but may be necessary to remind us mere humans of what _ought_ to be obvious, but apparently isn’t.
I agree with the lelnet, but I would also add that the Catholic mystics often turned to Song of Songs to explain their spiritual marriage to our Lord! I like Papa Ben 16′s “God is Love” discussion on the need for both eros and agape, but we need to have our vision and manifestation of them purified. He echoes John Paul II’s Theology of the Body without a doubt. Excellent post!