+
M
Here you will find one of the most beautiful of the pictures Herbert made. I was sitting beside him one afternoon as he was making swirls on some paper with chalk. I said, "Oh, it's the wind." Without responding he kept on with the chalk and a face began to emerge. I said, "It's the Father." Herbert continued and the mouth came to be. I said, "It's the kiss of the Father." He wrote the words from the Song of Songs on it and gave it to me saying, "Since you knew what it was, it's yours." This is characteristic of the way Herbert produced his iconic drawings, another of which is in the section below, talks of an American Staretz.
"Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine." Cant 1:1
Here are three persons: there is first this "him" whose kiss is desired; there is next this "thy" whose breasts are better than wine, and third, there is the person speaking, this "me" who desires this kiss. Who, then, are these three persons? And whose kiss is desired? Most certainly it is God Himself, for this canticle is a sacred song of love, and this unrestrained expression of love, were its object any other than God Himself, far from being sacred, would be sinful. Besides, it is clear that there are three persons here, whereas in human love the relation is between two persons. Why, then, would one desire to be kissed by one person because of the breasts of another? Besides, it would seem strange to say "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth" if this were addressed to a human person. For how would one kiss if not with his mouth?
Clearly, then, this is addressed to God. What does this kiss of His Mouth signify, then? It might seem as though the human kiss were intended to signify, through a metaphor, a certain embrace of intimacy with God. But it seems as if to forestall this interpretation, we read "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth", that is to say, it is as if to warn the reader not to take this too easily as a metaphor, as though God Himself did not have a mouth, but to interpret the words to mean that what is desired is the kiss of God's Mouth.
What, then, is this Mouth of God? What could it be if not that through which the Word of God is spoken? And this suggests the Son, for the Son is the Word of the Father, as we speak our words through our mouth, so we may understand that the Father speaks His Word through His Son, who is at once the Word He speaks, and that through Which He speaks. But as the human mouth is at once the organ of speech and the instrument of love, as love is expressed by the kiss of the mouth, so here, in God, the Father at once spoke His Word, in His Son, and it is likewise through the Son that the Father expresses His Love, for the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, proceeds from the Father through the Son. This Person Whose kiss I desire, then, does indeed possess a mouth, and that Mouth is the Son, and this Person is the Father Whose kiss I desire. And that Kiss which I desire is the embrace of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Mouth of the Father, from the Son, that is to say, from the Father, through the Son.
But in a very special way this is the intimate embrace of Holy Communion, since the Humanity of Christ which is of the very substance of this sacrament at once proceeds from the Holy Spirit, and is the Sacrament of Love. So that these words may be taken to mean the soul's desire for the loving embrace of the Father in the Son, by the Love of the Holy Spirit. And since this desire of the soul is a desire for an intimacy of love with God which is utterly and totally beyond the right of its nature, as though to give its justification for such an unheard of desire, as though to say, "For I am justified in asking for this kiss," the soul goes on to say, speaking of the Blessed Mother, "For thy breasts are better than wine," meaning that, since by God's own decree Mary was worthy to receive Jesus, I too, in her, am worthy, for her breasts are better than wine. That is to say, the grace that fills my soul through Mary makes me worthy to receive Jesus, that Kiss of Love Whom she received, and whose worthiness to receive Him is, by her love and God's will, now my worthiness in her. Therefore, "Let Him kiss me with the Kiss of His Mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine." Let God the Father give me the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Son by the Love of the Holy Spirit, because the grace I receive through Mary makes me worthy of this embrace of love.
+
"Or perhaps, drawn away and seduced by his own concupiscence, he is still being dangerously tempted. Such a soul as this does not need a Bridegroom but a Physician, and for this reason receives, not kisses or caresses, surely, but only remedies for wounds in oil and ointments." St. Bernard, in Cant.
Yes, Bernard, in your time this was true - for the time had not yet come to force men willy-nilly from the highways and byways to the wedding feast. Mt 22:9;Lk 14:23 Men were still strong and able to overcome concupiscence with a help of the Physician less than the Kiss of His Mouth, less than the embrace of His intimacy. But now we are as children, impatient as we are weak, and needing, therefore, to be fondled and kissed by the Mother and her Spouse, by Mary and Jesus.
O Bernard, those of your age, who could help yourselves, needed the Physician only to supply the ointments of which you speak. But we need the Kiss of this Bridegroom Who condescends to the weakness of little ones, like this little one who is too weak to help himself and therefore cries out: "Let Him kiss me with the Kiss of His Mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine. For my justification now is not that I am healed by the ointments of the Physician, but that I am in the arms of His Mother, that it is her purity that makes me worthy of His embrace, not my virtue."
+
To strew flowers is the only means of proving my love, and these flowers will be each word and look, each little daily sacrifice. St. Therese: Autobiography, p. 205
O Jesus, Little Therese speaks of "proving" her love, as though she had to convince You of something that existed in her and of which You were ignorant. But that is only her "baby talk", her way of saying that the only thing that pleases Your Merciful Heart is to give Yourself, to unite us to Yourself. And You love Therese's little flowers because they open her heart, and the hearts of so many others, to the great Gift You want so much to give, the Gift of Yourself.
+
"Do not grieve," she replied, "it has come to this, that I no longer suffer, because all suffering is sweet." St. Therese, p. 222
To suffer in the knowledge of Jesus' Love for me - nothing could be sweeter, suffering for Him. That is the suffering I want. But to be separated from His love and to suffer, that I cannot do, and do not want. Neither does He! So far I have not suffered much for Jesus because I have hardly realized His Love for me, attached as I have been not to His Love but to my own idea of it.
Yes, to suffer in the realization of His Love for me! But the very suffering requires a certain separation, as though I were separated from Him, all the while I am not really separatedfrom Him.
+
It seems I always assume that if something is painful, it is evil, and to be avoided. Then, when I am suffering, I begin to think, and I do not rest until I have discovered some truth which I hope will remove the pain. But I do not think I do this only because I want to avoid suffering: it is rather that I look upon suffering as a sign that I am unacceptable somehow, that God is displeased with me, and therefore something in me must be changed. But I see now that suffering does not necessarily mean something is wrong in me.
For although there is a wrong kind of suffering, a joyless suffering which does indicate that something is wrong, not because there is suffering, but because the suffering is without joy - there is also a right kind of suffering, a suffering in joy, which is a sign that everything is right. This is suffering in Jesus, a suffering in total silence, the silence of the mind as well as the mouth. The Wisdom of the Word supports this suffering, whereas my wisdom would want to dissolve all suffering in some new idea, my own "word".
+
M
Only the silence of death,
O my Beloved!
Sings my love for You:
Only the silence of death
Where no words are, nor light,
Nor music to sing
"Behold! This is He!"
Jesus, my Beloved! . . . . .
Now is the time
So long You have awaited,
Now is the time before time . . . . .
Over the face of the deep
Your Spirit hovers,
And the Father speaks His Word:
"Let there be light!"
+
Like Peter, Jesus,
Now me You ask:
"Dost thou love Me?" . . .
O my Jesus!
Now with Peter no voice cries out
"Lord, Thou knowest I love Thee!"
Here is no love,
Only a broken heart answers:
"Jesus, give me Your Love,
That I may love You! . . .
Now, only!"
+
M
A saint is one who possesses the infallible Goodness of God at every moment - because he does not want anything else.
+
It is important to love the Father with that fullness of love which alone can make us happy, until we realize the overwhelming Love of the Father for us, His infinite desire to give Himself to us. But as long as we are attached to our own goodness, and to the desire for other created goods which in one way or another serve that self-love, our soul is not open to the Love of the Father as He would want to give Himself to us - because it is not yet crucified with Jesus on the Cross. And thus the soul must suffer, at bottom wanting only the Love of the Father, wanting only the Father, yet in ways hidden to itself, closing itself to this very Love Which alone can make it happy. That is why we must learn to hate our own soul (Jn 12:25; Mt 16:24f; Mk 8:34f; Lk 9:23f;14:26f.) - because it is our own soul that closes us to the Love of the Father.
+
At times I allow you to see some participation of My Goodness in yourself, and it is good for you to see this - it refreshes your soul and gives it a glimpse of the ultimate triumph of My Goodness over your malice. This is the sunshine of your soul - and I let you realize at such times too, not only My Goodness and My Love of you, but I allow you to experience My children's love of Me in you.
And then, because you are not yet perfectly purified in Me, your Father, little by little this joy in Me turns to joy in yourself - then your soul begins to grow uneasy because you realize that of yourself you would move away from Me Who am your only Love. And it is then that your soul is covered with darkness and you feel separated from Me, as though I hated you. It is at such moments that I want you, in the Strength of My Holy Spirit, and with My Beloved Son, to cry out in Me: "My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?" Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34 Pray very much for the strength to do this, to believe in My Love enough to cry out to Me when I allow you to see nothing but corruption in yourself. By this fortitude, trusting in My Love when you are all corruption to yourself, you will win grace for other souls who have no trust in My Love, and who, therefore, when they see the evident signs of evil in themselves, would otherwise abandon themselves to sin and to the devil, and thus be lost forever, were it not for your love and confidence. My beloved child, if you could but know the infinite depth of My Paternal Love for you when you call on Me at such moments! When you open your heart to Me at those times, I am like Isaac (Gen 27) - I hear your voice and recognize that it is not the Voice of My Firstborn - but then I feel your hairy skin with which your Mother, the Mother of Jesus, clad you - the skin which symbolizes the sins born by My Son - and I become blind, and I know you only as My very Firstborn, My Only-Begotten One!
M
Here you will find one of the most beautiful of the pictures Herbert made. I was sitting beside him one afternoon as he was making swirls on some paper with chalk. I said, "Oh, it's the wind." Without responding he kept on with the chalk and a face began to emerge. I said, "It's the Father." Herbert continued and the mouth came to be. I said, "It's the kiss of the Father." He wrote the words from the Song of Songs on it and gave it to me saying, "Since you knew what it was, it's yours." This is characteristic of the way Herbert produced his iconic drawings, another of which is in the section below, talks of an American Staretz.
"Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine." Cant 1:1
Here are three persons: there is first this "him" whose kiss is desired; there is next this "thy" whose breasts are better than wine, and third, there is the person speaking, this "me" who desires this kiss. Who, then, are these three persons? And whose kiss is desired? Most certainly it is God Himself, for this canticle is a sacred song of love, and this unrestrained expression of love, were its object any other than God Himself, far from being sacred, would be sinful. Besides, it is clear that there are three persons here, whereas in human love the relation is between two persons. Why, then, would one desire to be kissed by one person because of the breasts of another? Besides, it would seem strange to say "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth" if this were addressed to a human person. For how would one kiss if not with his mouth?
Clearly, then, this is addressed to God. What does this kiss of His Mouth signify, then? It might seem as though the human kiss were intended to signify, through a metaphor, a certain embrace of intimacy with God. But it seems as if to forestall this interpretation, we read "Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth", that is to say, it is as if to warn the reader not to take this too easily as a metaphor, as though God Himself did not have a mouth, but to interpret the words to mean that what is desired is the kiss of God's Mouth.
What, then, is this Mouth of God? What could it be if not that through which the Word of God is spoken? And this suggests the Son, for the Son is the Word of the Father, as we speak our words through our mouth, so we may understand that the Father speaks His Word through His Son, who is at once the Word He speaks, and that through Which He speaks. But as the human mouth is at once the organ of speech and the instrument of love, as love is expressed by the kiss of the mouth, so here, in God, the Father at once spoke His Word, in His Son, and it is likewise through the Son that the Father expresses His Love, for the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, proceeds from the Father through the Son. This Person Whose kiss I desire, then, does indeed possess a mouth, and that Mouth is the Son, and this Person is the Father Whose kiss I desire. And that Kiss which I desire is the embrace of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Mouth of the Father, from the Son, that is to say, from the Father, through the Son.
But in a very special way this is the intimate embrace of Holy Communion, since the Humanity of Christ which is of the very substance of this sacrament at once proceeds from the Holy Spirit, and is the Sacrament of Love. So that these words may be taken to mean the soul's desire for the loving embrace of the Father in the Son, by the Love of the Holy Spirit. And since this desire of the soul is a desire for an intimacy of love with God which is utterly and totally beyond the right of its nature, as though to give its justification for such an unheard of desire, as though to say, "For I am justified in asking for this kiss," the soul goes on to say, speaking of the Blessed Mother, "For thy breasts are better than wine," meaning that, since by God's own decree Mary was worthy to receive Jesus, I too, in her, am worthy, for her breasts are better than wine. That is to say, the grace that fills my soul through Mary makes me worthy to receive Jesus, that Kiss of Love Whom she received, and whose worthiness to receive Him is, by her love and God's will, now my worthiness in her. Therefore, "Let Him kiss me with the Kiss of His Mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine." Let God the Father give me the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of His Son by the Love of the Holy Spirit, because the grace I receive through Mary makes me worthy of this embrace of love.
+
"Or perhaps, drawn away and seduced by his own concupiscence, he is still being dangerously tempted. Such a soul as this does not need a Bridegroom but a Physician, and for this reason receives, not kisses or caresses, surely, but only remedies for wounds in oil and ointments." St. Bernard, in Cant.
Yes, Bernard, in your time this was true - for the time had not yet come to force men willy-nilly from the highways and byways to the wedding feast. Mt 22:9;Lk 14:23 Men were still strong and able to overcome concupiscence with a help of the Physician less than the Kiss of His Mouth, less than the embrace of His intimacy. But now we are as children, impatient as we are weak, and needing, therefore, to be fondled and kissed by the Mother and her Spouse, by Mary and Jesus.
O Bernard, those of your age, who could help yourselves, needed the Physician only to supply the ointments of which you speak. But we need the Kiss of this Bridegroom Who condescends to the weakness of little ones, like this little one who is too weak to help himself and therefore cries out: "Let Him kiss me with the Kiss of His Mouth, for thy breasts are better than wine. For my justification now is not that I am healed by the ointments of the Physician, but that I am in the arms of His Mother, that it is her purity that makes me worthy of His embrace, not my virtue."
+
To strew flowers is the only means of proving my love, and these flowers will be each word and look, each little daily sacrifice. St. Therese: Autobiography, p. 205
O Jesus, Little Therese speaks of "proving" her love, as though she had to convince You of something that existed in her and of which You were ignorant. But that is only her "baby talk", her way of saying that the only thing that pleases Your Merciful Heart is to give Yourself, to unite us to Yourself. And You love Therese's little flowers because they open her heart, and the hearts of so many others, to the great Gift You want so much to give, the Gift of Yourself.
+
"Do not grieve," she replied, "it has come to this, that I no longer suffer, because all suffering is sweet." St. Therese, p. 222
To suffer in the knowledge of Jesus' Love for me - nothing could be sweeter, suffering for Him. That is the suffering I want. But to be separated from His love and to suffer, that I cannot do, and do not want. Neither does He! So far I have not suffered much for Jesus because I have hardly realized His Love for me, attached as I have been not to His Love but to my own idea of it.
Yes, to suffer in the realization of His Love for me! But the very suffering requires a certain separation, as though I were separated from Him, all the while I am not really separatedfrom Him.
+
It seems I always assume that if something is painful, it is evil, and to be avoided. Then, when I am suffering, I begin to think, and I do not rest until I have discovered some truth which I hope will remove the pain. But I do not think I do this only because I want to avoid suffering: it is rather that I look upon suffering as a sign that I am unacceptable somehow, that God is displeased with me, and therefore something in me must be changed. But I see now that suffering does not necessarily mean something is wrong in me.
For although there is a wrong kind of suffering, a joyless suffering which does indicate that something is wrong, not because there is suffering, but because the suffering is without joy - there is also a right kind of suffering, a suffering in joy, which is a sign that everything is right. This is suffering in Jesus, a suffering in total silence, the silence of the mind as well as the mouth. The Wisdom of the Word supports this suffering, whereas my wisdom would want to dissolve all suffering in some new idea, my own "word".
+
M
Only the silence of death,
O my Beloved!
Sings my love for You:
Only the silence of death
Where no words are, nor light,
Nor music to sing
"Behold! This is He!"
Jesus, my Beloved! . . . . .
Now is the time
So long You have awaited,
Now is the time before time . . . . .
Over the face of the deep
Your Spirit hovers,
And the Father speaks His Word:
"Let there be light!"
+
Like Peter, Jesus,
Now me You ask:
"Dost thou love Me?" . . .
O my Jesus!
Now with Peter no voice cries out
"Lord, Thou knowest I love Thee!"
Here is no love,
Only a broken heart answers:
"Jesus, give me Your Love,
That I may love You! . . .
Now, only!"
+
M
A saint is one who possesses the infallible Goodness of God at every moment - because he does not want anything else.
+
It is important to love the Father with that fullness of love which alone can make us happy, until we realize the overwhelming Love of the Father for us, His infinite desire to give Himself to us. But as long as we are attached to our own goodness, and to the desire for other created goods which in one way or another serve that self-love, our soul is not open to the Love of the Father as He would want to give Himself to us - because it is not yet crucified with Jesus on the Cross. And thus the soul must suffer, at bottom wanting only the Love of the Father, wanting only the Father, yet in ways hidden to itself, closing itself to this very Love Which alone can make it happy. That is why we must learn to hate our own soul (Jn 12:25; Mt 16:24f; Mk 8:34f; Lk 9:23f;14:26f.) - because it is our own soul that closes us to the Love of the Father.
+
At times I allow you to see some participation of My Goodness in yourself, and it is good for you to see this - it refreshes your soul and gives it a glimpse of the ultimate triumph of My Goodness over your malice. This is the sunshine of your soul - and I let you realize at such times too, not only My Goodness and My Love of you, but I allow you to experience My children's love of Me in you.
And then, because you are not yet perfectly purified in Me, your Father, little by little this joy in Me turns to joy in yourself - then your soul begins to grow uneasy because you realize that of yourself you would move away from Me Who am your only Love. And it is then that your soul is covered with darkness and you feel separated from Me, as though I hated you. It is at such moments that I want you, in the Strength of My Holy Spirit, and with My Beloved Son, to cry out in Me: "My God, my God, why has Thou forsaken me?" Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34 Pray very much for the strength to do this, to believe in My Love enough to cry out to Me when I allow you to see nothing but corruption in yourself. By this fortitude, trusting in My Love when you are all corruption to yourself, you will win grace for other souls who have no trust in My Love, and who, therefore, when they see the evident signs of evil in themselves, would otherwise abandon themselves to sin and to the devil, and thus be lost forever, were it not for your love and confidence. My beloved child, if you could but know the infinite depth of My Paternal Love for you when you call on Me at such moments! When you open your heart to Me at those times, I am like Isaac (Gen 27) - I hear your voice and recognize that it is not the Voice of My Firstborn - but then I feel your hairy skin with which your Mother, the Mother of Jesus, clad you - the skin which symbolizes the sins born by My Son - and I become blind, and I know you only as My very Firstborn, My Only-Begotten One!
