Him Whom My Soul Loveth: The Bride Seeking by Night and Mary Magdalen at the Sepulchre
Old Testament: Canticles 3:1-4
In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and found him not. I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that bore me.
Old Testament, also: Canticles 8:6-7
Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death ... Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it.
New Testament: John 20:1, 11, 13-17
And on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen cometh early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre ... But Mary stood at the sepulchre without, weeping ... They say to her: Woman, why weepest thou? She saith to them: Because they have taken away my Lord; and I know not where they have laid him. When she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing; and she knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus saith to her: Woman, why weepest thou? whom seekest thou? She, thinking it was the gardener, saith to him: Sir, if thou hast taken him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away. Jesus saith to her: Mary. She turning, saith to him: Rabboni (which is to say, Master). Jesus saith to her: Do not touch me, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren.
The connection
The bride of the Canticle loses the one she loves in the night and cannot stay in bed about it. She gets up, goes through the streets, asks the watchmen the only question she has, "Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth?", and a little past them she finds him and holds on. Mary Magdalen comes to the sepulchre "when it was yet dark". She is not coming to anything she expects to be glad about. She is coming to a dead man, to finish caring for a body, because love does not stop at the grave just because hope has. And the body is gone. She stands outside weeping and asks everyone the bride's question in her own words: "they have taken away my Lord; and I know not where they have laid him." St Cyril of Jerusalem, teaching the newly baptised, says the Canticle is speaking in her person. "By night on my bed I sought Him Whom my soul loved: Mary, it says, came while it was yet dark." The watchmen are the two angels at the tomb: "It was but a little that I passed from them (that is, from the two Angels), until I found Him Whom my soul loved." Rufinus reads it the same way. What happens next is what love for Christ is actually like. She sees Him and does not know Him. He stands in front of her and she takes Him for the gardener. It is not her seeing that ends the search. It is His speaking her name: "Mary." She is found before she finds. Then the Canticle is turned over. The bride says, "I held him: and I will not let him go." Christ says, "Do not touch me ... But go to my brethren." Not a refusal of her love but a new shape for it: the love that wanted to cling is sent, and she becomes the first to announce the Resurrection. "Love is strong as death," the Canticle says. She loved Him past His death, came looking for His body, and met the One who is stronger than death, alive, calling her by name.
Moral sense
Love for Christ is not always a feeling of closeness. Often it looks like Mary's: getting up in the dark and going to where He was last, weeping, asking anyone who might know, not recognising Him when He is standing right there. What ends that search is never our clearer sight. It is His voice saying our name. And when He is found, love is not allowed to keep Him to itself. It is sent to the brethren.
Anagogical sense
"I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother's house." St Jerome takes that mother to be the heavenly Jerusalem. The holding Christ puts off in the garden, "for I am not yet ascended", is postponed, not refused. At the end the bride is brought into the house, and nothing parts the soul from Him whom it loves, for many waters cannot quench charity.
The Fathers
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures XIV: "By night on my bed I sought Him Whom my soul loved: Mary, it says, came while it was yet dark. ... But she knew not, and in her person the Song of Songs said to the Angels, Saw ye Him Whom my soul loved? It was but a little that I passed from them (that is, from the two Angels), until I found Him Whom my soul loved. I held Him, and would not let Him go." Rufinus, Commentary on the Apostles' Creed 30: "Of those also who found Him, and held Him by the feet, it is foretold, in the same book, 'I will hold Him Whom my soul loveth, and will not let Him go.'"
Warrant
Patristic, and stated outright. St Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourteenth of his Catechetical Lectures, reads Canticles 3:1-4 as foretelling Mary at the sepulchre verse by verse: the night, the seeking and not finding, the question put to the watchmen, whom he identifies with the two angels, and the finding a little past them. Rufinus says the same in his Commentary on the Apostles' Creed (30), adding that "I will hold Him ... and will not let Him go" is foretold of those who found Him and held Him by the feet. St Jerome, writing to Eustochium, takes the mother's house of Canticles 3:4 as the heavenly Jerusalem, and the anagogical sense follows him. The Church keeps the reading in her liturgy: Canticles 3:1-4 is appointed as a first reading for the feast of St Mary Magdalen on 22 July. Two things are the entry's own. The turning of "I held him: and I will not let him go" into "Do not touch me ... But go to my brethren" is my observation, not a Father's. And Canticles 8:6-7 is joined to the scene by the entry; the Fathers quoted do not bring it in. On "Do not touch me": the Greek is a present imperative and is often taken as "do not keep holding me", and the Fathers explain it variously. The entry reads it only as far as the verse itself goes, that the reason given is the Ascension and the command that follows is to go.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2709.
The verses
Canticles 3:1 · Canticles 3:2 · Canticles 3:3 · Canticles 3:4 · Canticles 8:6 · Canticles 8:7 · John 20:1 · John 20:11 · John 20:13 · John 20:14 · John 20:15 · John 20:16 · John 20:17
