Footnotes

1. Song of Songs 8:5 The chorus no longer recognizes the bride; love has awakened her to a new life. Quite violent is the passion that makes the lovers into one single being. Love seizes them as a force that cannot be resisted. They can no more escape it than they can escape death and the subterranean pit that, in the words of the ancients, one day will snatch all the living, the netherworld. God, who created love, willed this unity that nothing can divide. “And the two shall become one flesh,” declares Paul the Apostle (Eph 5:31) with the Gospel (Mt 19:5) and the Book of Genesis (Gen 2:24). Such a love cannot be acquired at the price of silver.
   It is something unheard of that between God and his people there is established a definitive link that holds despite all kinds of trials and dramas. And how can one hide forever from the Lord’s ardor?