OK this one is a bit special, but I don’t expect to hear you singing it at Mass this week.
Paul Mason has used the Song of Songs and the letters of Blessed Jordan of Saxony in what I interpret as a lusty paean to romantic love. It is available in the collection, Hymns and Spiritual Songs Vol 1 at Liturgical Song.
He, however, describes it thusly:
“You Are So Deeply Engraved in My Heart” is a beautiful new song for use at celebrations of Marriage and Religious Profession, as well as Masses for Religious, Masses for Marriage Anniversaries and the feasts of St Mary Magdalene and St Scholastica. Texts from Song of Songs and a 12th Century love letter from Jordan of Saxony to Diana D’Andalo are set to a beautiful soaring melody resulting in a moving song about the love between Christ the bridegroom and his bride, the Church.
It appears Mason was worried enough that the text would be misconstrued (by the likes of me), he devoted a whole crowded page to explaining its origins in the letters of Blessed Jordan to Blessed Diana, who were separated by distance and their vows. I think they may have been healthier and happier together. Allegorising obviously sexual works like the Song of Songs is an unfortunate part of the Catholic Church’s historical treatment of women as either virgin or whore.
I get this song’s use in a marriage liturgy, but my understanding the religious life is limited and its use for Religious Profession and a Mass for Religious has me head scratching.
You are so deeply engraven in my heart
That the more I realise how truly you love me from the depths of your soul,
The more incapable I am of forgetting you
And the more constantly you are in my thoughts.
For your love of me moves me more profoundly
And makes my love for you burn more strongly,
Burn more strongly, burn, burn for you.
I hear my beloved!
See how he comes leaping on the mountains,
Bounding over the hills.
[Rpt and stop at “burn for you”]
In the absence of any recordings of Mason’s song, how about:
INXS singing for another tragic Diana: