"The Bride must be drawn only by the one who said, 'Apart from me you can do nothing.' For well I know, she confesses, that I can join you only by following you step by step, that I could not follow you without your help... Your beloved, having left everything for your sake, desires therefore to put her feet in your footsteps, to follow you always and everywhere. She knows that your ways are beautiful, that your paths are those of peace and that, in following you, one does not walk in the dark. But she asks to be drawn, pulled, because your holiness is like the mountains of God and her own strength is insufficient to climb them. She is therefore quite right in wanting to be drawn since no one can come to the Father unless he is drawn by your Father. And those who are drawn by your Father you too draw... Thus she says: 'Draw me in your footsteps, let us run'... How indeed could we be surprised when she asks to be drawn, she who walks behind a giant and claims to join him who leaps over the mountains and jumps over the hills?... Her strength could not accomplish this. Thus she asks to be drawn. For I am tired, she says, I am faint; do not abandon me, but rather draw me in your footsteps to prevent me from following other lovers haphazardly. Draw me in your footsteps, for it is better for me to be drawn, even violently so, even threateningly so, even in punishment, rather than for you to be soft with me and leave me insecure, a prey to my own torpor. Draw me thus against my will, get my consent forcefully, tear me away from my inertia and throw me into the race. The time will come when I will not need to be pulled since we will run together, with all our heart, and effortlessly."
Bernard of Clarivaux
"Draw me, the sacred Bride tells the one she loves - that is to say, be the first to start. For I could not awaken by myself; I could not be moved if you did not move me. But after you will have moved me, O dear Bridegroom of my soul, we will run together, you in front and I behind you, you pulling forward and I accepting your attraction. But let no one think that you are pulling me forward as if I were a slave in bond or an inert carriage! Oh no, you are drawing me with the fragrance of your perfumes. If I am following you, it is not because you are pulling me but because you attract me. You attraction is powerful but not violent because its strength is its very sweetness. Perfumes have no other power than their sweetness to draw one after them, and how could sweetness pull if not sweetly and pleasantly?"
Francis de Sales
"One day after Holy Communion, Jesus let me understand this sentence of the Song: 'Draw me; we run after the fragrance of your perfumes.' O Jesus, it is therefore not necessary to say: in drawing me, also draw the souls I love. This simple phrase, 'draw me', is enough. Yes, when a soul lets itself be captured by the intoxicating smell of your perfumes, it cannot run alone. All souls, it loves are drawn together with it; this is a natural consequence of being drawn to you... I feel that the greater the fire of love ignited in my heart, the more I will say, 'draw me', and the more the souls that will come close to me will swiftly run toward the fragrance of the beloved's perfume. Yes, they will run; we will run together... for a soul that is a fire with love cannot remain inactive."
Thérèse of Lisieux
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