“God is love” (1 John 4:16) is the single most important verse in the Bible, and one of the loveliest books in the Hebrew Bible is the Song of Songs. It is the story of a bride and bridegroom, their devotion to and passion for each other.
Hermeneutically, the Song of Songs is considered an allegory: the two lovers symbolize the caring relationship between God and Israel, or Christ and the Church, or Christ and the individual believer. This is where the mysticism of love begins.
“God is Love” is the gold standard by which all other statements about God are measured and interpreted. The saints and mystics spent their lives realizing who we are and who we are not, who God is and who God is not, and what love is and what love is not.
Elizabeth of the Trinity [1880–1906] is a wonderful example of a bridal mystic. As she wrote in one of her letters, “I feel so much love over my soul, it is like an Ocean I immerse and lose myself in: it is my vision on earth while waiting for the face-to-face vision in light. God is in me, I am in Him. I have only to love Him, to let myself be loved, all the time, through all things: to wake in Love, to move in Love, to sleep in Love, my Soul in His Soul, my heart in His Heart, my eyes in His eyes .”
As with Elizabeth and all the saints and mystics, may we discover the heart of divine mystery: that heaven is not just a place we go after we die; it is a state into which we are invited now.
Psalm 42:1-2 “As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God.”
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