Song Of Songs Of Solomon

The beloved of the King, issuing from her delightful interviews with Him, appears to her companions to be intoxicated and beside herself. She is so in truth; for having tasted of the finest wine of the Bridegroom, she could not help being seized with the extremest ardor. Being quite sensible of it herself, she begs her companions not to be amazed at seeing her in so extraordinary a condition; my intoxication, she says, is excusable, for my King has brought me into his divine wine cellars, and there has set love in order within me. The first time He made me partaker of such singular grace, I was so feeble that I would rather have preferred the sweetness of the divine breasts to the strength of this excellent wine, and therefore He was content to show me its effects, suffering me to drink but little of it. But now that experience and His grace have rendered me wiser and stronger, I can no longer do so; I have drunk so abundantly of His strong and pure wine, that He has set love in order within me.

What order is this that God ordains in love? O Love! O God of Charity! Thou alone canst reveal it! He causes this soul, who by a movement of charity desired for herself every possible good in reference to God, to forget herself wholly that she may only think upon her Well-beloved. She becomes divested of every selfish interest in her own salvation, perfection, joy, or consolation, that she may only think of the interests of God. She no longer thinks of enjoying His embrace, but of suffering for Him. She no longer asks anything for herself, but only that He may be glorified. She enters fully into the designs of the divine righteousness, consenting with all her heart to everything it decrees with respect to her and in her, whether for time or eternity. She can love nothing in herself or in any creature except in and for God, and not in and for self, however important and necessary it may appear.

Such is the order of charity which God ordains in this soul; her love is become perfectly chaste. All creatures are nothing to her; she wills them only for her God, and none of them for herself. Ah! what strength does this well ordered charity impart for the terrible states that are to follow! But it can only be known and enjoyed of those who have experienced it; the others have not yet tasted of the Bridegroom's wine.