In our gospel today, Jesus condemns his critics saying, “. . . their hearts are far from [God].” May that not be so for us! Let us hear and accept our invitation from God in our lesson from the Hebrew scriptures: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Hear God call you by name right now and accept the invitation: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

The Song of Solomon, long considered love songs between God and the people of God by both Jews and Christians, is rarely read in our Eucharistic lectionary, most probably because of its earthy, sensuous language and metaphors. If you have never read it all the way through or haven’t in a long time, you may want to check it out. It is a short book of poetry, only eight chapters in about as many pages. If you allow yourself to experience the poems as God’s words to you and yours to God, you may begin to know somewhere deep within God’s great longing for you and yours for God.

Basil Pennington, a Trappist monk, did just that and shared his meditations with us in his book entitled The Song of Songs: A Spiritual Commentary. In his response to God’s “call of love,” he pours out his heart using the traditional language of the Christian mystics : “Oh, I would arise—rise above all that holds me back, all that separates us, all that obscures my vision of you. Help me to truly believe that I am your Beloved, that I am beautiful to you. Then I will come and look in your eyes and see my true beauty in the creating power of your most merciful love. For it is your mercy that looks upon misery and makes it truly loveable. Yes, I will come in faith and hope so that I might be transformed in your love. May nothing hold me back. . . .Let nothing stand between my Love and me. I forsake all my defenses. I stand ready to be ravished by your love, by Love himself, cost what it may.”* Pennington’s heart is not far from God. If we allow ourselves to accept God’s invitation, God will not overwhelm us but will lead us gently, day by day, ever more deeply into God’s transforming love until our hearts will not be far from God either.

*Basil Pennington. The Song of Songs: A Spiritual Commentary. (Woodstock, VT: SKYLIGHT PATHS Publishing, 2004.) right now 46.