Evenings With Bede is a homily podcast. The episodes are taken from the Sunday solemn Plainsong Evensong services of Saint Paul’s, New Smyrna Beach, Fla., where I am Rector.
SEASON TWO is devoted to understanding the Song of Songs with the Venerable S. Bede as teacher, and yours truly as interpreter. We will go verse by verse through the entirety of the Song of Songs.
The format is a short passage from the Song of Songs, then comes commentary from the Bede, and finally an interpretive homily by yours truly expounding upon both. The audio for all three is found above. The text of the two passages is found below.
A Lesson from the Song of Songs, 1.5
I am black but beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem. Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not think to consider me, for I am swarthy because the sun has discolored me. My mother’s children have fought against me and made me keeper of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have not kept. Show me, You Whom my soul loves, where You pasture Your flock, where You lie down at midday; lest I begin to wander after the flocks of Your companions.
A Lesson from a Treatise by the Venerable S. Bede
As soon as Holy Church has lamented that her mother’s children have risen up against her, as soon as her own vine has been shaken by the assault, it is right for her to turn to the Lord with an anxious heart and invoke the memory of His promise, in which He said, “In the world you have distress, but have confidence; I have overcome the world” (Jn 16.33). Thus she says, “Show me, You Whom my soul loves, where You pasture Your flock, where You lie down at midday.” Now, it is appropriate for her to call Him Whose assistance she entreats “the one my soul loves,” because the graver the danger from which she desires to be delivered, the more does she love Him through Whom she knows that she will be delivered. Similar to this is that saying of the Psalmist: “I love you, O Lord, my strength” (Ps 18.1); which is to say openly, “The reason that I do not cease to love You with my whole heart is that I perceive that I can have no strength apart from Your grace.” She also signifies that He is a shepherd when she says: “where You pasture Your flock, where You lie down at midday,” in accordance with what He Himself testifies in the Gospel: “I am the Good Shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me” (Jn 10.14). He pastures His sheep and lies down among them at midday, because He refreshes the hearts of His faithful ones with the memory of His heavenly kindness lest they wither away on the inside from the heat of trials, and it has been His custom to abide graciously among them. For on this account the Psalmist says, “The Lord is my shepherd; therefore can I lack nothing. He shall feed me in a green pasture” (Ps 23); hence S. John says: “Those who abide in charity abide in God, and God in them” (1 Jn 4.16). Therefore, since “many false prophets” (Mt 24.11) arise in the world saying, “Look! Here is the Christ! Look there!” (Mt 24.23), it is always necessary for the Church of Christ to discern through careful examination who they are in whose profession and work He can be found, and to entreat Him with pious cries that He might deign to show Himself, saying “Show me, You Whom my soul loves, where You pasture Your flock, where you lie down in midday.”
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