Jesus, First My Brother

“You ravish my heart, my sister, my bride, you ravish my heart with one glance of your eyes….How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride.” (SOS 4:9-10).

“O that you were like a brother to me, that nursed at my mother’s breast! If I met you outside, I would kiss you, and none would judge me. I would…bring you into the…chamber of her that conceived me….” (SOS 8:1-2).

The Bridegroom in the Song of Songs cherishes his beloved as “sister” before loving her as “bride.” John Paul the Great, in his Theology of the Body, insists that this sequence carries a “particular eloquence.” What does it speak? Bonnie West shares her discovery.

I love my brother Andrew. He was born when I was eleven and in the sixth grade, the perfect age to claim him as “my baby.” With five siblings between him and me (a future four would bring our sibling total to eleven) there was plenty of love needed in plenty of practical ways! My delight was huge in running in from my school day to find baby Andrew needed his afternoon bottle. My diapering was as tight and tidy as my watchful mother’s. The security of my receiving blanket “swaddle” worked magic on his newborn distress. I was in heaven with this adorable, gentle little fellow.

Fast forward sixty-eight years to last week. Andy, who lives forty-five minutes away with his family, called to say he had a doctor’s appointment here in town, and could he stop in for a visit afterwards. Sheer treat, that lovely one-on-one, most unusual for our bustling tribe. In our quiet living room, all the dear familiarity of this brother seemed magnified. Gentle still, but with a mature and gracious manliness. Deeply spiritual, thoughtful, very present, kind…. His recent retirement, he reflected, gives him welcome opportunity to probe his faith more deeply, to pray for his children, to prepare for heaven. Our shared bank of clan lore peppered our conversation with “insider” turns of phrase, nicknames long-neglected, stories accessed by one word. It was as though wafts from our mother’s oven surrounded us as we spoke, so native was the ground we walked on. The roots that anchored us, that propelled us long since into deeper life in the Lord where our eleven-year age difference evaporated, were precious indeed. That time together was a treasure.

Several days before this serendipity I had the opportunity of attending the last few sessions of a Theology of the Body “Head and Heart Immersion.” I “happened” in on St. John Paul the Great’s reflection on the Song of Songs, specifically on the verse, “You ravish my heart, my sister, my bride,” (SOS 4:9). Why this insistence on the Bridegroom’s part that His Beloved first must be loved as a sister? St. John Paul explains, “Calling her ‘sister’ before calling her ‘bride’ has a particular eloquence,” (TOB 109:4). What exactly is this “eloquence”? Nothing less than the wealth of foundational intimacy between brother and sister, beginning with the common humanity which unites them–the same mother and father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins. At the same time, this “eloquence” involves a diversity of gender between brother and sister, yet even in this divergence, there is safety, security, acceptance, familiarity. John Paul II insists that this cherished common ground, with its recognition of masculine/feminine difference, is not just a stage to be passed through–or worse, bounded over–on the way to marital love, but the very foundation of a well-integrated, healthy marriage. As our speaker concluded, “This ‘fraternal theme’ does not dampen eros as some might imagine. Rather, it heightens it by giving eros a solid launching pad from which to ascend towards the true, good, and beautiful.”

My mind buzzed. In my husband’s and my courting, yes, a sense of friendship–but of intentional brother/sister appreciation?! And this carried into marriage? Oh well, I thought, Lord, never too late! In fact, after almost six decades of marriage, a certain brother/sister appreciation happens. Evolves. So much richer, had the cart been before the horse, but our Redeemer works all things to the good. My spouse and I are becoming good “siblings” as we age. “Love,” says St. John Paul II, “…pushes both to seek the common past as though they descended from the same family circle, as though from infancy they had been united by memories of the common hearth. In this way, they reciprocally feel as close as brother and sister who owe their existence to the same mother. A specific sense of common belonging follows from this,”(TOB 110:10). Aha! I mused–this is what our daily rosary together is doing for us. We have the same mother!!

But my time with Andrew brought the epiphany–the “brother” epiphany. As I prayed through my recent TOB notes in the glow of that happy visit, it struck me: I had missed the “particular eloquence,” the tone, of the brother/sister familiarity Jesus longs to share with me! How often I have prayed with others to heal their hurts in the home at Nazareth–by Baptism, our home, too. I believe this with all my heart, and have experienced the wonder of finding myself secure in Mary’s womb, while Joseph anticipated my “birth” with joy–so healing to the pre-natal trauma and its resultant anxiety that nipped at my heels…. Yet beautiful as it was, I had missed a certain dimension of relating to my brother Jesus, on my way to discovering Him as my Spouse. I had hopped right over the “solid launching pad” –the kinds of easy familiarity so natural to Andy and me. The smells and tastes of home, the sense of humor in the DNA, the familial arch of our eyebrows, “I Could Have Danced All Night” with Julie Andrews enrapturing us…. Struggles in my adult life brought Jesus’ many aspects straight to my heart–Man of Sorrows, Savior, Friend, Redeemer, Shepherd, and the crown–Bridegroom. All real, all glorious. Yet the familiar coziness of brother? Jesus, your very face must have all the expressions I recognize as “home;” your very ears love Julie Andrews; you burst out laughing at the things that have always struck us funny; you love the smell of burning leaves in the fall. “Before a word is on my tongue, you know the whole of it”(Ps. 139), because we grew up with the same family lingo….

Help me, dear Jesus, to marinate in this primary intimacy, expanded to infinity! Your Mother, St. Joseph, your Father God are in on this family game. Grace builds on nature, said St. Thomas Aquinas, so you first became our brother–REALLY our brother–in order to marry us fully. You became us, so that we could become you, bringing all the familial coziness we share into our union. Thank you. You ravish my heart, my Brother, my Bridegroom.

Bonnie West, Copyright 2024