Thursday, September 03, 2015

The Highest and Greatest of Mysteries

Now, it is the highest and greatest of mysteries that Solomon has allegorized by means of the Song of Songs: the entirety of Christ's coming and His death, together with His sufferings, and the resurrection and the Second Coming and the wedding of the gentiles to Christ the Groom and the illumination of the Church, and the outpouring of the Spirit's grace in prophecy and mission and teaching and martyrdom and virginity and priesthood and the ascetic life and the ways of penance, and the hope of sinners and the dead, thanks to the sacrifice of Christ. Yet, in comparison with what the saints are going to learn in their state of renewal and perfection through the Groom's love, these things which were said by Solomon pale--as does everything else concerning all these miracles of God which have happened and which are going to happen, everything that has been related by the ancients and by people of more modern times, no matter how capable of speaking and teaching the Lord Jesus has made them.

Gregory of Narek, The Blessing of Blessings: Gregory of Narek's Commentary on the Song of Songs, Roberta Ervine, tr., Cistercian Publications (Kalamazoo, MI: 2007) p. 208