Love is on the way

A passage from the Song of Songs (2:8-14) is one of the options given today for the first reading.

The selection of ancient Hebrew love poetry may seem like a strange choice, in some respect, but it represents the yearning love of the Church as it awaits the arrival of its beloved Savior.

Hark! my lover – here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
My lover speaks; he says to me,
"Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,
and come!
For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land..."

For some reason, the juxtaposition of these verses with the imminent feast of the Nativity makes me think of a small but very playful child, capering and playing peek-a-boo with his mother.

Did our Lord play thusly with his mother and St. Joseph? Quite possibly.

These reveries should remind us that the Lord of heaven and earth, through whom all things were made, really became one like us (in all things but sin): a child and then a man but always in love with the people for whom he came and for whom he would give his life.

With this same love he calls to us

Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely.

May we speak to the Lord from our hearts.

May we let his grace make us lovely.

So that when the Lord calls we may sing with the doves in the eternal morning of heaven