EBOOK
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God revealed His benevolence toward man in the form of a spousal covenant with Israel. This condescending love was believed to find its most sublime expression in the Old Testament's Song of Songs, which sings in strange, earthly tones of the transcendent, pursuing love of YHWH for His beloved and the returning devotion it was to elicit in her. For the Christian reader, this ardour, hymned in sensuous language, evokes no mortal, transient passion but an unconditional divine love fulfilled, historically and sacramentally, in Jesus Christ, the One "in whom the love of God was made manifest" (1 Jn. 4:9). This is a love made flesh, encountered in the pierced heart and broken body of the Messiah who "loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20). With the help of the Church Fathers, St. Thomas Aquinas, and modern authors, Timothy Kelly explores the secret of the nuptial mystery declared in King Solomon's enigmatic poem and perfected "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:3)-in the crucified and Eucharistic love of the incarnate Lord.