Stanza 2
—
ESPOSA:
Pastores, los que fuerdes
allá por las majadas al otero,
si por ventura vierdes
aquel que yo más quiero,
decidle que adolezco, peno y muero.
—
SPOUSE:
O shepherds, you who go
Through the sheepfolds up the hill,
If you shall see Him
Whom I love the most,
Tell Him I languish, suffer, and die.
Excerpt of Saint John +’s teaching on stanza 2:
The soul in this stanza desires the advantage of intercessors and intermediaries with her Beloved by begging them to bring him word of her grief and pain. This is the trait of a lover: When she herself cannot converse with her loved one, she does so through the best means possible. The soul wants to take advantage of her desire, affections, and moanings as messengers that know so well how to manifest to the Beloved the secret of the lover’s heart. She entreats them to go, crying, “Shepherds, you who go.” She calls her desires, affections, and moanings “shepherds,” because they pasture the soul with spiritual goods–a shepherd or pastor is one who feeds or pastures–and by means of these yearnings God communicates himself to her and gives her the divine pasture. Without them he communicates little to her.
“You who go,” is like saying, you that go out through pure love. Not all the affections and desires reach him, but only those that go out through pure love.
“up through the sheepfolds to the hill,”
She calls the hierarchies and choirs of angels “sheepfolds.” Through them, from choir to choir, our moaning and prayers go to God.
Personal reflection on stanza 2:
Before I had read Saint John +’s commentary on his own poem, I imagined that the shepherds in this stanza were a metaphor for the priests and pastors in the Church to whom we confess and entrust the secrets of our heart. However, Saint John + discloses to us in his commentary on this stanza that his intended meaning is for the shepherds to symbolize our own desires, affections, and moanings for God.
Whoa!
This teaching is worthy of our meditation.
The visual imagery that SJ+ offers us in this stanza is that of shepherds moving between and through the sheep toward a hill. The shepherds are carrying messages of intense languish and suffering with them from our soul to the Beloved. The fact that the shepherds represent our own desires, affections, and moanings is very meaningful. SJ+ is saying that our own desires, affections, and moanings are our shepherds! Again…wow! I react strongly to this mystical teaching. SJ+ gives us herein a bold emphasis on the intimacy and directness with which our soul communicates with the Beloved. This almost feels scandalous to me.
If you’re like me, your mind is trying to invent reasons to keep itself hemmed into a posture of servile fear in which you feel unjustified to suppose that you could actually have this degree of unmediated communication with the Beloved. Surely I need a priest or a religious who is more pure before God than I am to carry my petitions to God for me. Right?
Wrong.
My desires, affections, and moanings for God are themselves my shepherds. Those that go out from my heart through pure love will navigate the sheepfold and reach the Beloved.
SJ+ further elaborates that functions of shepherds are also to feed, protect, and guide. These additional teachings from SJ+ about pastoral functions are rich with meaning and depth: our own desires, affections, and moanings for God also act to feed, protect, and guide our soul.
Lastly for now, in SJ+’s commentary on this stanza he intensifies his proposed efficacy of our heart’s longings for God. SJ+ asserts that the sheep in his mystical poem represent the angels of God, and that–unlike a literal, earthly flock of sheep–the celestial flock of angels actually assist us and carry the messages of our hearts to the Beloved on our behalf. This is faith: to let our soul cry for God through pure love, to believe that these cries emanate from our heart and navigate an upward ascent to God, and to believe that the angels moreover help to carry our soul’s cries so that they reach the Beloved.
+ forward to Canticle Journey, Day 3
– back to Canticle Journey, Day 1
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