Hark! My lover...

I love this text from the Song of Songs.  To me it has a unique beauty.  The Church specifies it be proclaimed at Mass every year on December 21, although there is an alternate.  When I read or hear it, I become the narrator to whom the lover (God) is speaking.  Just imagining the almighty God, who knows me better than I know myself, calling me "beloved," or "beautiful one," or "lovely" in spite of my many faults and failings fills me with hope and a sense of His infinite love.


Hark! My lover--here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.

My lover speaks; he says to me,
"Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
"For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!

"O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely."

--Song of Songs