On the Creation by John of the Cross with commentary by Peggy

A bride who will love you
My Son
I want to give you
Who, because of her great value,
Deserves to share your company
And eat bread at our table
(This one I too eat at)
So she can know
The Good I have in you
And so she can rejoice with me
In your grace and full beauty.

I am grateful,
Father,
Said the Son
And I will show my shining
To the bride you gave me
So she can see by its radiance
How great my Father is
And how the being I possess
Streams to me from Your being.
I will hold her in my arms
And she will burn in your love
And with eternal delight
She will exalt Your goodness.

My thoughts:

This beautiful writing of John of the Cross (16th cent Carmelite and good friend of Teresa of Avila) is a paraphrase of John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son (Jesus the Christ), that whoever believes in Him (understands and practices the 'mind of Christ' following the example of Jesus) should not perish, but have everlasting life.

"Who, because of her great value,
Deserves to share your company
And eat bread at our table..."

For God so loved the world (her great value)...that God brought an eternal relationship of procreative beauty and mutual dependence between the seen and the unseen, bringing forth a creation "table," an everlasting cycle of self-sustaining ecological nourishment, that creation ("she") could know the "Good" the Christ and "rejoice with me in your grace and full beauty." That He gave His only Son...

Whoever believes in Him will not perish...
"Said the Son (The Christ and Jesus by his annointing as The Christ), I will show my shining (that I am of God) to the bride" (creation) "so she can see by its radiance...how the being (human form Jesus) I possess streams to me from Your being (God)...she will burn in your love with eternal delight..."

But have everlasting life...

"She will exalt Your goodness." Creation wil be lifted into the embrace of the Christ, who is all Goodness from God.

Some will say, the church is the Bride of Christ, but that is simply the beginning of one movement of the awareness of humanity (the Christians) on behalf of creation toward the divine reality that we are one with Source.

© Peggy Beatty 2010