How is a man to personalize or pray the Song of Songs?

[Lief_Erikson]

I have a bit of a problem. The Song of Songs is a beautiful love story between an individual soul (the beloved) and Christ, the Groom. It is also a beautiful story of the love between Christ and the Church and between Mary and the Holy Spirit. It is also rather erotic and sensual in many parts. Women saints and nuns have had no problem with this, as they can term themselves “brides of Christ,” and proceed from there. Obviously not with lust, none of this prayed properly is lust, but they can comfortably pray the sensual elements of the prayer as well because the Song of Songs passages about the Son of Man are about a man and not a woman.

I’m a man. I can’t pray sensually toward Jesus because He is a man. I tell Him how deeply I love Him but I the passages sensually describing His Person are . . . well, the wrong gender for me. The main way I can right now personalize Song of Songs is to pray it the other way around, telling the beloved, the Bride of Christ in the book, how I love her, which puts me in Christ’s place and allows me to properly praise His Church. Since I deeply desire to enter the priesthood one day, this is all the more personal to me, for I will be even more deeply identified with the Bridegroom, God willing.

I guess that’s the main option I have with Song of Songs. I personally find it very uncomfortable to pray sensual and somewhat erotic prayers to Jesus, because of His gender.

Does anyone have any further ideas as to how a man can personalize and pray the Song of Songs without finding Jesus’ gender a barrier?

 

[ricmat]

I have a bit of a problem. The Song of Songs is a beautiful love story between an individual soul (the beloved) and Christ, the Groom. It is also a beautiful story of the love between Christ and the Church and between Mary and the Holy Spirit. It is also rather erotic and sensual in many parts. Women saints and nuns have had no problem with this, as they can term themselves “brides of Christ,” and proceed from there. Obviously not with lust, none of this prayed properly is lust, but they can comfortably pray the sensual elements of the prayer as well because the Song of Songs passages about the Son of Man are about a man and not a woman.

I’m a man. I can’t pray sensually toward Jesus because He is a man. I tell Him how deeply I love Him but I the passages sensually describing His Person are . . . well, the wrong gender for me. The main way I can right now personalize Song of Songs is to pray it the other way around, telling the beloved, the Bride of Christ in the book, how I love her, which puts me in Christ’s place and allows me to properly praise His Church. Since I deeply desire to enter the priesthood one day, this is all the more personal to me, for I will be even more deeply identified with the Bridegroom, God willing.

I guess that’s the main option I have with Song of Songs. I personally find it very uncomfortable to pray sensual and somewhat erotic prayers to Jesus, because of His gender.

Does anyone have any further ideas as to how a man can personalize and pray the Song of Songs without finding Jesus’ gender a barrier?

I’m not an expert on this, but here is my take on it…

1. Most of the saints (males included) refer to souls as “she.” This includes their own souls. I’m not sure what the official Church teaching is on this, but I’ve heard that the pre V2 Mass had some language that referred to all souls as “she.”
2. With regard to love, males initiate the loving relationship, females are the receptors of the loving relationship. This manifests itself in this world as e.g. the man on bended knee offering an engagement ring to the woman. And as a gross oversimplification invented by ricmat, “In the earthly life, women are looking for someone to love them, and men are looking for someone to love.”
3. In the spiritual realm, however, by contrast with the earthly realm, God (as in Christ) initiates the loving relationship with his creatures… Christ is acting as the “male” soul in this case. And all his creatures (whose bodies are human male and female) should be open to receive this love. As you note, it’s easier for females to slide right into this sort of relationship.
4. Speaking as a male, I realize that as a creature I am at the mercy of our creator. Our creator has initiated a relationship of love towards his children. I must, by force of will (for lack of a better term), change from my earthly focus of “loving someone” (e.g. wife), to that of being a receptor of love first, and then respond by returning that love.

But even then, speaking as a male, don’t you want to be loved too?

I know it’s hard, but to some degree when reading Song of Songs, we all need to put ourselves in the role of the bride.

You asked a tough question. That’s the best I can do. Hope it helps!

Maybe somebody real smart can elaborate on this (or correct it) so we both understand it better.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

Thanks for the reply; I very much appreciate it .

I want to be loved and I can see that the Bride in the Song of Songs does indeed, as one meaning, refer to all souls who receive Jesus’ love. It’s hard for me to pray the Bride’s words to the Groom though, in some places, as they can be somewhat sensual and erotic while He and I are both males.

 

[Alan55]

A great example is Bernard of Clairvaux’s “Sermons on the Song of Songs,” which is available online. See: pathsoflove.com/bernard/songofsongs/contents.html.

I can appreciate how difficult it is to put yourself in the place of the bride, who is the object of the king’s love and passion. However, it may be easier to try on the expressions of the bride’s longing for her beloved and the king’s response. That sense of longing is the very heartbeat of maturing prayer and may be experienced even when the felt sense of God’s presence and action are absent. This was true, for example, for Mother Teresa of Calcutta, as shown in “Come Be My Light”. That longing for God is a great sign of the Spirit’s work in the soul.

 

[Lief_Erikson]

I know, but I’m referring to the physically sensual parts.

Maybe I should just look at it again and see if I can think of it differently.