St Gregory of Nyssa's commentary on the Song of Songs
| A prayer to the Good Shepherd |
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Where
are you pasturing your flock, O good Shepherd, who carry the whole
flock on your shoulders? (for the whole of human nature is one sheep and
you have lifted it onto your shoulders). Show me the place of peace,
lead me to the good grass that will nourish me, call me by name so that
I, your sheep, hear your voice, and by your speech give me eternal life.
Answer me, you whom my soul loves.
I give you the name ‘you whom my soul loves’ because
your name is above every name and above all understanding and there is
no rational nature that can utter it or comprehend it. Therefore your
name, by which your goodness is known, is simply the love my soul has
for you. How could I not love you, when you loved me so much, even
though I was black, that you laid down your life for the sheep of
your flock? A greater love cannot be imagined, than exchanging your
life for my salvation.
Show me then (my soul says) where you pasture your
flock, so that I can find that saving pasture too, and fill myself with
the food of heaven without which no-one can come to eternal life, and
run to the spring and fill myself with the drink of God. You give it, as
from a spring, to those who thirst – water pouring from your side cut
open by the lance, water that, to whoever drinks it, is a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
If you lead me to pasture here, you will make me lie
down at noon, sleeping at peace and taking my rest in light unstained by
any shade. For the noon has no shade and the sun stands far above the
mountain peaks. You bring your flock to lie in this light when you bring
your children to rest with you in your bed. But no-one can be judged
worthy of this noonday rest who is not a child of light and a child of
the day. Whoever has separated himself equally from the shadows of
evening and morning, from where evil begins and evil ends, at noon he
will lie down and the sun of righteousness will shine on him.
Show me, then (my soul says), how I should sleep and
how I should graze, and where the path is to my noonday rest. Do not let
me fall away from your flock because of ignorance, and find myself one
of a flock of sheep that are not yours.
Thus my soul spoke, when she was anxious about the
beauty that God’s care had given her and wanted to know how she could
keep this good fortune for ever.
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