He brought me into the cellar of wine, he set in order charity in me.

“He didn't abolish love of parents, wife, children, but put them in their right order. He didn't say, "Whoever loves" but "whoever loves above me." That's what the church is saying in the Song of Songs: "He put charity in order for me." Love your father, but not above your Lord; love the one who begot you, but not above the one who created you.”

“Something of this sort too we have in the character of the bride in the Song of Songs, where she says: "Set in order love in me." For this is true love set in order, which, while it hates no one, yet loves some still more by reason of their deserving it, and which, while it loves all in general, singles out for itself some from those, whom it may embrace with a special affection, and again among those, who are the special and chief objects of its love, singles out some who are preferred to others in affection.”

“VERSE 4. HE BROUGHT ME INTO THE WINE-CELLAR; HE SET IN ORDER CHARITY IN ME. HE BROUGHT ME INTO THE WINE-CELLAR (in Hebrew, "into the house of wine" — for the Hebrews call by the name "house" a cellar, a stable, a bedchamber, indeed every vessel and receptacle), HE SET IN ORDER CHARITY IN ME. — Fittingly to the sequence of the drama, after the bride has said, "His fruit is sweet to my palate," she adds: "The king brought me into the wine-cellar," because fruit, that is, food and eating, excites thirst, which, accordingly, that the bride might relieve it, after eating the fruit she is led into the wine-cellar. Again, as St. Bernard rightly says, sermon 49: "Having had," he says, "a conversation as desired, exceedingly sweet and familiar, with her beloved, when he departs the bride returns to the young maidens, so refreshed and kindled by his sight and speech that she appeared like one drunk. And as they marveled at the novelty and asked the cause, she answered that it was no wonder if she burned with wine, since she had entered the wine-cellar; and so it is according to the letter. According to the spirit too she does not deny that she is drunk, but with love, not wine — except that love is wine." These, therefore, are the words of the bride to her companions, or young maidens, to whom she recounts that she was led by the bridegroom into the wine-cellar, and there, having drunk the wine of charity, likewise received the order of charity. Moreover, the Septuagint render it: "Bring me" (O young maidens, or rather, O companions of the bridegroom, namely the apostles and doctors) "into the wine-cellar, set in order charity in me," as if to say: I burn with love of the bridegroom, and therefore I am parched with spiritual dryness and thirst; you, then, O companions of the bridegroom, bring me into the cellar of wine, where I may quench this thirst, and at the same time, set in order charity in me, that is, adorn me with those garments, those jewels, and all the other things which may make me lovable to the bridegroom, and which may become a bride of so great a bridegroom, that I may deserve to celebrate the wedding with him devoutly. Hence also the Syriac, in its own way PRIMUS SENSUS ADAEQUATUS, De Christo et Ecclesia. The bride was led by the bridegroom from the shadow of the apple tree into the cellar of wine, that is, into a place of delights and nectar, where she drinks the wine of charity, that she may grasp the grace of the mysteries and the sweetness of joy, says St. Ambrose on Psalm 118, sermon 5. You will ask, what is this wine-cellar? First, Origen, homily 3 of the four, Theodoret, and others take it as the house of wisdom, namely the schools or temples into which the faithful people are led, that there they may draw from the doctors and preachers the wine of true wisdom, that is, of the knowledge, fear, and love of God. Hence St. Gregory and Aponius take by this cellar the sacred Scripture, for this pours out to us the wine of heavenly wisdom; and by this, says St. Gregory, charity is set in order in the bride, because in her doctrine it is plainly learned how God and one's neighbor are to be loved in due order. To this the Chaldean paraphrast comes, who nevertheless in his own way adapts these words to the Law of Moses given to the Synagogue: "The assembly of Israel said," he says, "The Lord brought me into the house of the school of the doctrine of Israel, on Mount Sinai, that I might learn the law from the mouth of Moses, the great scribe." This bears on the fact that Christ calls the old law old wine, but the new law and the Gospel, new wine, which they put into new wineskins, and both are preserved, Matth. chapter 9, verse 17. Second, others better take by the wine-cellar the altar: for on this the priests consecrate, draw, and distribute the eucharistic wine, namely the blood of Christ, according to the precept of Christ. So Nyssen, homily 4, Psellus, Rupert, and Paschasius Radbertus, treatise On the Eucharist, chapter 11. Thus the sense is, as if to say: The king bridegroom himself brought me into the wine-store, that is, he bade me enter to the altar of God, and there to take the cup of the Lord's salvation, which gladdens God, which gives life to man: thus in place of the vineyard which I abandoned, I have obtained the cellars of a better nectar. Solomon alludes here to that of Proverbs, chapter 9, verse 1: "Wisdom has built herself a house, etc. She has slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table." See what is said there. Third, and very fittingly, the wine-cellar is the congregation of the faithful in Zion, to which the fullness of the Holy Spirit was given from heaven at Pentecost, by which he filled the apostles and the faithful with heavenly gifts, ardors, and fervors, so that, as if drunk with the new wine of divine love, they proclaimed the great works of God, Acts 2. So Justus of Urgell and St. Bernard, sermon 49: "Does not," says St. Bernard, "that house seem to you to have been a wine-cellar, in which the disciples were likewise gathered together, Acts 2:2, when suddenly there came from heaven a sound, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting, and fulfilled the prophecy of Joel? And did not each one of them, going out drunk from the abundance of that house, and drenched by the torrent of so great a delight, rightly say: Because the king brought me into the wine-cellar?" See the same St. Bernard, sermon 3 On Pentecost. The wine-cellar, therefore, is the fullness of the Holy Spirit, or of charity and zeal. Symbolically, three Fathers in Theodoret take by the wine-cellar the mystery of the incarnation, as though the Church were saying to the angels, or to the apostles and doctors: "Bring me into the wine-cellar, that is, teach me the divine reasons of the incarnation; for he calls God the Word wine, which affects the souls of those who taste it with joy, and leads them on to the Godhead. The cellar of this wine is the flesh assumed by him; into which cellar the Church indeed is brought, destined to become one flesh with Christ. For thus the Apostle interprets that passage: And the two shall be in one flesh, Ephes. 5:32: But I speak, he says, in Christ and in the Church; for the Church of the faithful, while she partakes of the flesh and blood of Christ, and is made one body with him, and learns from the angels the reasons of the incarnation, and confirms them by her conduct, enters into the cellar of wine. Brought into me, set charity in order — namely, that communion of divine grace which you enjoy in order — set it in order in me too, instituting each of the faithful, according to the measure of each, in the divine mysteries, in order." Mystically, Theodoret, Cassiodorus, Bede, and Anselm take by the wine-cellar the Church, in which we draw the wine of wisdom and of divine love. See Hugh of St. Victor, sermon 45 of the Monastic Institutes, where he shows that the individual souls of this cellar are the wine-casks. Hence Origen, homily 2 of the two, introduces the bridegroom speaking thus to the novices: "Bring me into the house of wine. Why do I remain so long outside? Behold, I stand before the door, and knock: if anyone opens to me, I will go in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He speaks likewise to the catechumens: Bring me in, not simply into the house, but into the house of wine. Let your soul be filled with the wine of gladness, with the wine of the Holy Spirit, and so bring me into your house — the bridegroom, the Word, wisdom, truth." SECUNDUS SENSUS PARTIALIS, De Christo et anima sancta. The wine-cellar is the house of prayer and the pursuit of prayer and contemplation; for in it God sets before the faithful the wine of consolation, exultation, love, and divine fervor. So St. Gregory, Cassiodorus, Haymo, St. Bernard, and others. Hear St. Gregory: "For what," he says, "do we more fittingly take by the wine-cellar, than the very secret contemplation of eternity? In this eternity the holy angels are made drunk with the wine of wisdom, while seeing God himself face to face, they are satisfied with every spiritual delight. If the holy mind is led in by the bridegroom, setting aside all temporal things, it enters into this, in which it tastes, as much as is granted to it, of those angelic delights. And if, because it is still held in a corruptible body, it is not perfectly satisfied, yet from that very little which it snatches in passing, it considers how much it ought to love what it loves." And St. Bernard, sermon 49: "If anyone," he says, "obtains by praying to go out of himself in mind into that divine secret, from which he presently returns burning most vehemently with divine love, and boiling with zeal for justice, and moreover exceedingly fervent in all spiritual pursuits and duties, so that he can say, Psalm 38:4: My heart grew hot within me, and in my meditation a fire is kindled — such a one, when out of the abundance of charity he has begun to belch forth the good and wholesome drunkenness of the gladness of wine, will not undeservedly be declared to have entered into the wine-cellar. For since there are two excesses of blessed contemplation, one in the intellect, the other in the affection; one in light, the other in fervor; one in knowledge, the other in devotion: a truly pious affection, and a breast warm with love, and an infusion of holy devotion, and also a vehement spirit filled with zeal, are brought back from nowhere else than from the wine-cellar; and to whomever it is granted, with an abundance of these, to rise from prayer, he can say in truth, that the king brought me into the wine-cellar." The same St. Bernard, sermon 23, assigns three cellars to the bridegroom: the aromatic, the unguent, and the wine-cellar: the first he says belongs to discipline; the second, to nature; the third, to grace. And he adds that it is called the wine-cellar, "because in it is stored the wine of zeal fervent in charity. Nor ought he at all to be set over others, who has not yet deserved to be brought into it. It is altogether necessary that he burn with this wine who presides over others, just as the Doctor of the Gentiles burned when he said, II Corinth. xi, 29: Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is scandalized, and I do not burn? Otherwise you rather shamelessly desire to preside over those whom you do not care to profit; and whose salvation you do not zealously seek, you too ambitiously claim subjection to yourself." Moreover, the wine which is drunk in the cellar of God is charity and love, says William. Nothing is chaster, more savory, or warmer than this wine: chaster, because the more it is drunk, the more it extinguishes the thirst of concupiscence; more savory, because it gives a taste of how sweet the Lord is, and therefore gladdens the heart of man; warmer, because like fire it inflames the minds of the devout, burns the reins and the heart, powerfully inebriates the soul, and leads even to forgetfulness of self: truly, such drunkards will possess the kingdom of God. The mystics, or contemplatives, take by the cellars the innermost and highest union of the soul — not of just any soul, but of the bride, that is, of one eminently holy and contemplative — with Christ in the Eucharist; a union which comes about not only through the common affection of charity, but also through effect, and the real conjunction of the purest minds with Christ; which is accomplished in the depth of the heart, and, as it were, in the innermost center of the soul, by an ineffable act of love and a mutual embrace; to which one sometimes happily passes over from that former state, through the singular goodness of God, just as in divine prayer one sometimes arrives from contemplation at a real union with God, and an embrace. Now they say that this most blessed union is nothing other than the innermost manifestation of the presence of Christ himself, hidden in this Sacrament — not so much through vision and revelation, as through the sweetest embraces, by which he binds the soul so ineffably and sweetly, that she most certainly perceives his real presence, his kisses and embraces, and tastes his goodness and ineffable sweetness at its very source. This wonderful union, if considered on the part of Christ, is nothing other than the inflowing, or manifestation, of Christ himself, existing hidden in the Sacrament, yet showing himself to the most purified minds under the aspect of the highest light, and reaching to the flesh and spirit by a certain ineffable contact: which contact is nothing other than the sweetest embrace, and kiss of Christ, by which he caresses his most beloved bride. On the part of the soul, however, it is a mutual embrace, which is followed by an experiential perception of Christ himself, through which spiritual sweetness is possessed in God himself. This perception, moreover, corresponds to the merits or disposition of no man, since it is a grace freely given, and granted by the mere liberality of Christ to very few. So, from St. Cyprian, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, and others, our Salianus, book XI On the Love of God, chapter 12. Far more intimately, more profoundly, more delightfully, more ineffably, blessed souls are united to God through the beatific vision and love, by which they are plunged and absorbed in the Godhead, as if in an ocean of happiness and of all good things, so that they can think, will, love, or desire nothing other than God, or for God's sake. TERTIUS SENSUS PRINCIPALIS, De Christo et B. Virgine. Rupert asserts that the Blessed Virgin was brought into the wine-cellar, when, wine failing at the wedding at Cana of Galilee, she procured, through the miracle of Christ, a most delicate wine for the guests; and at the wedding of the whole world, that is, of the whole race of mortals, she procured through Christ the mystical wine, namely the incorruption of souls and the immortality of bodies. "He therefore brought me into the wine-cellar," she says, "and set charity in order in me; that is, he made me understand that he came for this, that he might turn the watery infirmity of the human race into his wine, that is, into the strength of his immortality, and that I ought to prefer the divine will to my own affections. For this is to have charity set in order: to wish indeed that so beloved a one should not die, but to desire the more the salvation of the whole human race." ORDINAVIT IN ME CHARITATEM. In Hebrew, דגלו עלי אהבה dighlo alai ahava, that is, his banner over me is charity; the Septuagint seem to have read (as indeed some still read) with a different pointing, דגלו dighlu, that is, array as under a banner, or set in order; hence they render, set in order over me charity; and Symmachus, heap up over me charity; and St. Ambrose, sermon 5 on Psalm 118, establish in me love; and the ancient rabbis, make notable, or magnify over me charity. Our translator, the last letter ו vau being omitted, seems to have read דגל dagal, that is, he set up a banner, that is, he raised a standard, that is, he set in order charity in me. But it is not necessary to have recourse to this: for from the Hebrew dighlo alai ahava, that is, his banner over me is charity, if you understand the verb to be in the present tense, you may rightly translate, his banner over me is charity, that is, he has set up as a banner over me charity, or he has raised the banner of charity over me, which our translator aptly rendered, he set in order charity in me, in the sense which I shall soon give; but the Septuagint, understanding an optative or imperative, let it be, or be it, render, let his banner over me be charity: understand and supply, Bring it about that his banner over me be charity, that is, array, or set in order, charity over me. The Septuagint are followed by Symmachus, St. Ambrose, and the rabbis; St. Jerome, however, book III on Zachariah, chapter 14, reads, put charity upon me; the Syriac, they have set in order toward me, or against me, love; lastly the Arabic, they have set in order against me temptation, or trial. You will ask, why do our translator and the Septuagint render the Hebrew דגל dagal, that is, he set up a banner, or raised a standard, as he set in order? I answer, because he set in order is here in force a military term, and signifies the ranks of armies, camps, and battle-lines. For the whole force, and the whole strength of an army, consists in its correct ordering; if this is preserved, there is a sure hope of victory; but if the ranks are thrown into confusion, its defeat and ruin are certain. Hear Vegetius, book II On Military Affairs, chapter 13: "The ancients, because they knew that in the battle-line, once battle was joined, the ranks and lines were quickly thrown into confusion, in order that this might not happen, divided the cohorts into centuries, and assigned to each century its own standard, so that from whichever cohort or century a soldier was, it was inscribed in letters on that standard, which the soldiers, reading or looking at, could not stray from their own comrades in any tumult." The same author, chapter 20, teaches that the Romans deposited part of the soldiers' pay at the standard proper to each cohort, so that the soldiers might fight the more bravely for it, since they knew they were fighting for their own pay. The bride, therefore, says: The bridegroom, leading me into the wine-cellar, and giving me to drink the wine of charity, so filled and strengthened me with it, that he seemed to have drawn up and arrayed out of it a strong army, and a sturdy battle-line, in me, with which against all enemies, persecutions, temptations, tribulations, concupiscences and vices, I might fight, both bravely and wisely, conquer, and triumph unconquered over them. For the various duties and acts of charity are, as it were, many soldiers of charity, who, joined together, make up its army. Hence Symmachus renders, heap up over me charity. Furthermore, just as in an army strength consists in the correct disposition and ordering of the soldiers, so too the strength of charity consists in the correct distribution and ordering of its duties and acts. For God is to be loved first, then, for God's sake, one's own soul, third one's neighbor, and this too in his own rank and order: for first are to be loved one's bodily and spiritual parents, then brothers, next relatives, then the rest of mankind, each in his own rank and order. But if you invert the order of charity, you destroy and overturn charity. He set in order charity in me, therefore, is nothing other than if he had said: He stationed me under the banner of charity, he bade me serve as a soldier in this order. And our translator, like the Septuagint, rightly used the word to set in order, both because, as St. Augustine says, book XV, chapter 22 On the City of God, "nothing is other than perfect and true virtue, than the order of love"; and because the bride meant this by these words: I am not maddened by that sweet nectar, concupiscence does not boil up in me, I am not driven into frenzy, nor do I wander about like a raving bacchante; but I remain properly composed, my love is sober, and I keep full possession of the due estimation of things and persons, and of order and arrangement, because I follow charity as my guiding star; this is always ordered, no less than a battle-line drawn up with its standards. For thus charity places God in the first place, herself second, her neighbors third; and among these neighbors themselves, some in the front ranks, some in the middle of the line, some in the rear guard. So Nyssen, Aponius, Honorius, and others here, and St. Fulgentius, book I to Monimus, chapter 20, St. Augustine, or whoever is the author (for the style is unlike St. Augustine's), book On the Substance of Love, chapters 4 and 5, and from these, Delrio. This bears on the distribution of duties, like soldiers, in the Church, and the order of their distribution, of which the Apostle speaks, I Cor. xii, 4: "There are diversities of graces, but the same Lord; and there are diversities of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all." And a little after, verse 28: "And some indeed God has set in the Church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, kinds of tongues, interpretation of speeches." Moreover, from the Hebrew דגל dagal, that is, he set up a banner, many senses can be drawn, and these savory and profound. First, Vatablus translates, whose (the bridegroom's) banner toward me is love. For leaders are accustomed to draw soldiers after them by a standard; thus the bridegroom drew the bride to himself and to his camp by love as by a standard. Second, just as in a captured citadel the victor's banner is raised, on which his emblem is seen displayed: so the bride, conquered by the benefits of the bridegroom, and by them taken and possessed, has the charity which is the bridegroom's banner now raised over her. Hence the Chaldean paraphrast renders: "And I have taken up the banner of his precepts upon me in love, and I said: All that the Lord has commanded, I will do and hear." Third, Gislerius, as if to say: The bridegroom, bringing me into the house of wine, into the house of love and delight, raised up in me a love which I was to follow in all things; he set it before me to follow, and to keep it ever unharmed, just as soldiers follow and defend a standard. Fourth, Sotomayor, as if to say: Just as in a well-ordered battle-line the soldiers, legions, cohorts, and decuries are accustomed to look to the standard, or standard-bearer, for victory and glory: so I always have my bridegroom set before my love as a goal, and I direct and measure all my actions toward him, that they may be pleasing to God, honorable and well-ordered, and finally worthy of glory, according to what Paul commanded, I Corinth. chapter 10, 31: "Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or do anything else: do all things for the glory of God." Moreover, the banner of Christ's charity is the banner of the cross. For on the cross Christ showed his unconquered and supreme charity, both toward God and toward men; whence by it he triumphed over sin, death, the devil, and hell. For this reason, Constantine the Great carried before his camp, against Maxentius and other tyrants, this banner of the cross, shown to him in the sky with this motto: "In this sign you shall conquer," and he named it the labarum, as it were the end of labors, that is, the end and limit; for by it he laid low all his enemies, as Eusebius witnesses, book I On the Life of Constantine, chapter 22 and following. Fifth, Titelmann, from the Chaldean, translates: his glue, or joining, to me, is charity, as if to say: The bridegroom is intimately joined to me through charity, and is, as it were, glued together, just as papers are glued together. Sixth, the rabbis translate, he made charity notable in me, or his mark toward me is love, as if to say: The bridegroom loves me not commonly, but remarkably; for he has shown me remarkable and outstanding offices of love. Or: he has poured into me a great, remarkable, and burning charity, with which I might love him in return. Seventh, with the greatest vigor of all, our Sanchez, together with the Syriac, translates: he arrayed love against me as an army arranged under standards, that is, drawn up through battle-lines and banners, as if to say: I could not resist the strength of the bridegroom, because he himself poured out all the forces of love upon me, because he overwhelmed me with his offices and benefits, and pierced and wounded me as if with arrows of love: conquered, then, pierced, and overwhelmed by love, I give and devote myself entirely to the victor. But the battle-lines which the bridegroom set in order in me, and armed with which he set about to storm my mind, are those things which vehemently entice one to love in return: first of all, the most gentle character of my bridegroom himself, his singular devotion to me, his generous disposition, his outstanding beauty, his loving endearments, his exquisite gifts, his dowry-vineyard. …of banners: one is Christ's, the other Lucifer's, and each enlists soldiers, and calls to his own banner whoever he can. The emblem of Christ's banner is charity, of Lucifer's, cupidity. Now, in the wine-cellar of each, each kind of wine is drunk; here again there is an allusion to those who enlist soldiers: for these lodge in taverns, and there, pouring out wine for newcomers, thus entice them to enlist under the name of military service. Again, the Cossacks, the Dutch, and many others, when they wish to undertake some arduous and dangerous venture, are accustomed to set before the soldiers casks of wine (and that repeatedly, until they are heated with it), so that, burning with wine, they might lay aside the fear of death, and rush boldly upon the enemy. Thus Christ gives us to drink of his blood in the Eucharist, that, drunk with his love, we might generously rush even into death and martyrdom, if need be. Tropologically, charity stands out above the other virtues, and raises a banner above them all, and calls all to it; and if they follow it, they transcend all things, and heap upon themselves great praise and merits, as the Apostle teaches, 1 Cor. xiii, 4: "Charity," he says, "is patient, is kind," etc. Hence charity orders the other virtues as if they were the battle-lines of God: in the first place it sets faith; second, humility; third, hope; fourth, penitence; fifth, patience; sixth, mercy, etc. Again, this order of charity establishes the virtues themselves, and makes them firm and solid. Hence St. Ambrose, Psalm. cxviii, serm. 5, vers. 1, reads, establish love in me, and thus explains it: "Good encampments (a military station and fortification), where there is the fullness of charity." Nyssen, however, homily 4, referring the Greek τάξατε to military ranks, translates it now as set in order, now as establish and confirm: "Because," says the bride, "she who had first been beloved, through disobedience was reckoned among the enemies, now has returned to that same life, joined to the Lord through charity, she now says: Confirm this grace for me, and make it stable and unmoving, you friends of the bridegroom, preserving for me, by your zeal and diligence, an inclination toward that which is better." Finally, the weapons, that is, the offices of charity, are unconquered, nor can anyone resist them, according to that saying, cap. viii, 6: "Love is strong as death, jealousy hard as hell, etc. Many waters have not been able to quench charity, nor will the rivers overwhelm it." Indeed, the philosophers too held the same view: "If you wish to be loved," says that one, "love." That I might play the part of Pylades, let someone play Orestes for me: This is not done with words; Marcus, that you may be loved, love. Do you wish, then, to overcome your enemy, indeed to subdue him, and make him your friend? Anticipate him with kindnesses and benefits: for thus "you will heap coals of fire upon his head," Rom. xii, 20. Hence St. Augustine, book XV On the City of God, chapter 22, teaches that virtue is nothing other than the order of love, and vice nothing other than the disorder of love. For every creature, he says, since it is good, and can be loved both well and badly: well, namely, when order is preserved; badly, however, when order is disturbed, etc. Hence it seems to me that the short and true definition of virtue is, the order of love — for which reason, in the holy Song of Songs, the bride of Christ, the city of God, sings, set in order charity in me. When, therefore, the order of this charity, that is, of love, was disturbed, the sons of God neglected God, and loved the daughters of men. By these two names the two cities are sufficiently distinguished." For in the city of God there is order of love, but in the city of the devil there is disorder of love: because the pious love God above all things, and all creatures for God's sake; but the impious love creatures more — for example, honor, gold, delights — than the Creator. Moreover, because this order of charity is difficult, therefore the Church, and the holy soul, asks of the angels and holy men: "Set in order charity in me," according to the Septuagint. Hence St. Jerome, epistle 8 to Marcella: "Love," he says, "has no order, and impatience knows no measure; hence in the Song it is enjoined as something difficult: Set in order charity in me." To this St. Bernard comes near, sermon 49, who by the ordering of charity understands discretion, which tempers and directs zeal: "Zeal without knowledge," he says, "is always found to be less effective, and less useful; and indeed it is very often felt to be quite harmful. The more fervent, therefore, the zeal, and the more vehement the spirit, and the more overflowing the charity, the more watchful knowledge is needed, to suppress the zeal, temper the spirit, and set the charity in order." Moreover, Aponius teaches that charity is ordered in the Church, since she has learned it from the contemplation of the highest order, which is in the Holy Trinity: "In this order of charity," he says, "what else is to be believed to be first instilled, than that one should believe and acknowledge that the Father must be named first, in whom the Son is always, as a word in a voice; the Son second, in whom the Father is always; the Holy Spirit third, who is proved by true reason to proceed from the voice and the word, from the Father and the Son, according to that at the beginning of the Decalogue: You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart; the second order is: with all your soul; the third order is: with all your strength." For more on the order and the ordering of charity, see St. Bernard, sermons 49 and 50, where he assigns this order of love: that the love of God should be preferred to the love of man, and, among men themselves, the more perfect to the weaker, heaven to earth, eternity to time, the soul to the flesh. And he adds that charity always prefers the better in affection, but not in action; for in action, greater love and care must be shown to those more in need, and to those whose care has been entrusted to you, than to outsiders, however holier they may be. But hear a few words out of many: "Give me a man who strives after ordered love, looking down on earth, looking up to heaven, using this world as though not using it, and discerning, by a certain innermost savor of the mind, between things to be used and things to be enjoyed, All these things are easy to apply, both to the holy soul, and to the Blessed Virgin, in whom charity was so ordered, that she would rather her Son should die than that souls should perish. Hear Rupert, who introduces her speaking thus: "He had already long taught me the order of charity, that I should indeed bear grief, and the sword of a just grief, in mind or soul, yet not wish God's purpose to be turned aside — a purpose that would result in glory and honor to himself, and in perpetual salvation for the human race."”

“Cellar. This was not under ground. Homer (Odyssey b. 237.) places the wine near the nuptial bed. (Calmet) — In me. Hebrew, “he brought me to the banquetting-house, and his banner over me was love.” (Protestants) (Haydock) — He has shewn me the greatest tenderness. Only the religion of Christ lays before us our duties to God, to ourselves, and neighbours. (Calmet) (St. Thomas Aquinas, ii. 2. q. 26.) (Haydock) — The holy Spirit came on the assembled disciples, who were deemed to be drunk, and Christ nourishes the pious soul with the wine of his own blood. (Menochius)”

“He brought me in. Of how great sweetness and of how great power this restoration is, is shown when she adds, He brought me in. That is, he so gladdened me with the hope of future glory that now I do not feel the labors of the world. He brought me in. As soon as my throat touched the sweetness of his grace, I feel myself so restored in spirit and carried over from the love of earthly things into the things above, as if, brought into the wine cellar, I had been refreshed by the fragrance and the cup of new wine. Typically the grace of the Holy Spirit is signified by wine; the wine cellar is the Church, in whose unity alone the Holy Spirit is wont to be given and received; which Church, gathered from the whole world, God has built for himself into one house, which the Holy Spirit has consecrated with his charisms. And since this structure stands upon the foundation of the greatest charity by his own working, it is rightly added: He set charity in order in me. The charity of many is disordered, in that what is in the first place they put third or fourth. First, God is to be loved; second, parents; then children, after them the household, who also, if they are good, are to be set before evil children. According to this, in the Gospel he lays down what is proper to the love of each. You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole mind, and your neighbor as yourself. Enemies not with your whole strength, not as yourself, but simply: for it suffices that we love them and do not hold them in hatred. Or, he himself first loved me, and by loving granted that I should know how to love him. Or, he set in order, that is, with ordered charity he joined my individual members, that is, all the elect, to himself; the more eminent he embraces with fuller affection. He shows how far charity lifts up the mind which it has perfectly absorbed away from the love of weak things, when it is added:”