Let us rejoice, Beloved,
and let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty
to the mountain and to the hill,
to where the pure water flows,
and further, deep into the thicket.The Spiritual Canticle (Redaction B), Stanza 36

To the mountain and to the hill

That is: to the morning and essential knowledge of God, which is knowledge in the divine Word, who in his height is signified here by the mountain. That they may know the Son of God, Isaiah urges all: Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord [Is 2:3]; in another passage: The mountain of the house of the Lord shall be prepared [Is 2:2].

“And to the hill,” that is, to the evening knowledge of God, which is God’s wisdom in his creatures, works, and wondrous decrees. The hill suggests this wisdom because it is not as high as the morning wisdom. Yet the soul asks for both the evening and the morning wisdom when she says: “To the mountain and to the hill.”

The soul in urging the Bridegroom, “Let us go forth to the mountain to behold ourselves in your beauty,” means: Transform me into the beauty of divine Wisdom and make me resemble that which is the Word, the Son of God. And in adding “to the hill,” she asks that he inform her with the beauty of this other, lesser wisdom contained in his creatures and other mysterious works. This wisdom is also the beauty of the Son of God by which the soul desires to be illumined.

The soul cannot see herself in the beauty of God unless she is transformed into the wisdom of God, in which she sees herself in possession of earthly and heavenly things. The bride wanted to come to this mountain and to this hill when she asserted: I shall go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense [Song 4:6]. The mountain of myrrh refers to the clear vision of God and the hill of incense to the knowledge of creatures, for the myrrh on the mountain is more choice than the incense on the hill.

Saint John of the Cross

The Spiritual Canticle, st. 36, nos. 6–8

John of the Cross, St 1991, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, rev. edn, Kavanaugh, K & Rodriguez, O (trans.), ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: King Range National Conservation Area near Whitethorn, California, is the first National Conservation Area in the United States, designated in 1970. The King Range encompasses 68,000 acres along 35 miles of California’s dramatic north coast, where the landscape was too rugged for highway building. Accessible by only a few back roads, this remote region of mountains and seascapes is also known as California’s Lost Coast. Image credit: Bureau of Land Management – California (Some rights reserved)