My last column tried to bring home the beauty of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body as he elaborates on the biblical phrase, “my sister, my bride.” Perhaps a simple way to digest this profound insight about natural romantic love, is to point to the moment when a man stops thinking about his girl friend as the “thing that fills that void in his heart” and starts to see her as a person in her own right whom he is called upon to fill a void in her heart.
Every good husband, as well as every good wife, will say something like, “She’s not just my wife, she’s my best friend.” PJPII adds this very poetic and mysterious note. “In relation to the preceding theme, another theme emerges in the loving duet of the Song of Songs. The theme, or layer is never presented explicitly in the Song of Songs. One should rather observe that it passes through the whole poem.” (TOB 110:5) This is what the bridegroom says; “A garden closed you are, my sister, bride” a garden closed, a fountain sealed. (Song 4:12) PJPII continues, “the metaphors of the garden closed or fountain sealed reveals the presence of another vision of the same feminine – “I”. The image of the sealed fountain implies the ability to unseal the fountain, or the closed garden implies the ability to open it. This is what PJPII refers to as a woman’s power to be master of her own mystery.
“One can say that both metaphors express the personal dignity of the woman, who, as a spiritual subject, possesses herself and can decide not only the metaphysical depth, but also the essential truth and authenticity of the gift of self that tends toward the union about which the story of Adam and Eve speaks.” Perhaps we can paraphrase this to say, it is in the very choosing to “open the fountain” of her feminine gifts to the man of her choosing, that her spiritual depth comes into being. If her “choosing” is not well “chosen”, or in other words, if a woman unseals her fountain for a mere carnal man, that is to say, she “chose” unwisely, neither she, nor her “other” reach the highest fulfilment that we find in Adam and Eve’s union before the Fall.
This is the heartbreak of so many of our “Achy Breaky” love songs. But when love works, it works because of this deep mutual respect and mutual giftedness each is to their spouse. PJPII concludes, “This consciousness of reciprocal belonging resounds especially on the lips of the bride. In a certain sense, with these words she responds to those of the bridegroom with which he acknowledged her as the master of her own mystery. When the bride says, “My beloved is mine” she means at the same time, “It is he to whom I entrust my destiny”. Therefore she says, “and I am his” (Song 2:16) The word “my” affirms here the whole depth of trust that corresponds to the inner truth of the person.”