“Where have You hidden Yourself?” “Show me where You feed, where You lie in the midday.”
The Perfection Series on my blog owes so much to St. John of the Cross.
Today, on his great Carmelite feast, I quote him again. One line in the beginning of the stanas strikes me.
The soul asks Christ, who is hidden in the heart--"Where are You?" This everyone must ask of God in order to find Him. For the baptized, He is within. He must be found within the heart.
Only is solitude and silence can this be done. This is hard, but not impossible for the lay person
The second question is a line from the Song of Songs, a sentence on which St. Bernard writes several sermons, to which I shall return in the new year.
This second line, after “Where have You hidden Yourself?” “Show me where You feed, where You lie in the midday,” may seem like a contradiction.
If we are asking God where He is and then say, where You feed and where you are at noon, we must have an idea where He is.
He is in a resting place, as noon is the time of the hot sun in the Middle East. At rest, but where? St. John of the Cross states, "in eternity". The noon day sun is at its peak and there are no shadows at noon. This is a sign of eternity.
All is bright. But, if God is in eternity and in our hearts, can we not say, with St. John, that when we find Christ within us, we find eternal life?
The answer is, simply, yes....to be continued.