The Enclosed Garden

The Enclosed Garden is at once the centre and the circumference of Holy Scripture. In the centre, in the Song of Songs, the divine Lover compares his human beloved to an enclosed Garden. In the beginning, in the Garden of Eden, the Lord God comes to meet Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. In the end, in the New Jerusalem, God dwells with his people, Christ with his Church. Nor is it only in the middle, the beginning and the end, but in its entirety Holy Scripture is a Garden of the Soul, a Garden in which God delights to be with the Soul. There the Soul encounters God and receives the love of God, as daughter of Jerusalem, daughter of Sion, the Virgin Mary. It was in this Garden that the Soul of Mary was prepared for her divine mission as Mother of the Messiah.