The fullness of the divine life was poured out and lived on earth in bodily form, that all of us who live in this body doomed to death may receive from that fullness, and being filled with its life-giving odor say "Your name is oil poured out."....
But why the symbol of oil?...
The likeness between oil and the name of the Bridegroom is beyond doubt, the Holy Spirit's comparison of the two is no arbitrary gesture. Unless you can persuade me otherwise, I hold that the likeness is to be found in the threefold property of oil: it gives light, it nourishes, it anoints. It feeds the flame, it nourishes the body, it relieves pain: it is light, food, medicine. And is this not true too of the Bridegroom's name? When preached it gives light, when meditated it nourishes, when invoked it relieves and soothes....Jesus to me is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, a song in the heart.
Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs Volume I.
(Cistercian Publications, 1971, Sermon 15:4-6, pp. 109, 110).
No comments:
Post a Comment