The great mystic, St. Teresa of Avila, said that in the Old Testament book, the ‘Song of Songs’, the Lord is teaching the soul how to pray.
“Along how many paths, in how many ways, by how many methods you show us love!
…in this Song of Songs, you teach the soul what to say to you…
We can make the Bride’s prayer our own.”
If Teresa is right and the loving, desiring, passionate language of the Song is the language in which God longs to hear the soul speak, many of us may have to make a radical shift in our perception of what it is to love and be loved by God.
Why, from the hundreds of Old Testament passages used in readings for Sundays and Holy Days in the Catholic Lectionary, is not a single passage from the Song included? And only two passages used in the Revised Common Lectionary?
Listen to – and pray with – this tremendous hymn of praise, stunningly read by David Suchet, at: https://www.newpilgrimpath.ie/