Book Review: "Wounded I Sing: The Song of Songs and the Incarnation of the Son of God"

A friend recently sent me a copy of Timothy J. Kelly's Wounded I Sing: The Song of Songs and the Incarnation of the Son of God (Os Justi Press, 2026), with the promise that it was right up my theological alley. I was not familiar with Kelly, but he had impressive credentials—professor of dogmatic theology at the International Theological Institute in Truman, Austria and a research fellow of Blackfriar Hall, Oxford. The book also had ringing endorsements from some of my favorite scholars and writers: Fr. John Saward, Scott Hahn, John Bergsma, and Stephen K. Ray. After finishing the book, I add a hearty "Amen!" This four-chapter book takes longer than expected to finish, because its profundity of thought and beauty of expression move you to turn from the text to prayer.

The first chapter was like a return to grad school: This God Who is incomprehensible in His essence, discloses Himself to us by way of analogy to His creation. We must constantly remind ourselves that "however pure the perfection the name might evoke, however immaterial and actual the perfection signified, He infinitely surpasses it and exceeds the constraints our intelligence inevitably associates with the term" (Wounded, 19). In Scripture He goes even further, inspiring its authors to express His love for man via the language of our material passions, our human condition. Such metaphorical use of language, however, finds its embodiment in the Incarnation of the Word. In Christ Jesus and the Church, the spousal relationship between God and Israel described by the prophets achieves an undreamt-of reality.

This leads into a fascinating chapter exploring Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Old Testament's Song of Songs. It is a text which never mentions God and, taken at face value, is a love song in which the affection between lovers is "manifested by way of the language of eros, of human desire" and "embodied, conjugal relations" (Wounded, 37). Even so, the ancient rabbis recognized it as speaking of God's election of Israel; and the first century historian Josephus recorded how it had to be read in its entirety during the Feast of Passover. Christians such as Origen and Gregory the Great interpreted it "in light of the arrival of the Messiah and of the spousal perfections exemplified in His Passion" (Wounded, 40). Kelly then guides us through the Christological interpretation of the Song among medieval writers such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, and William of St. Thierry. (I appreciated Kelly's in-depth footnotes as well as Os Justi Press's wide margins where I could make notations.)

The second half of the book, its final two sections, are a wide-ranging discussion of Christ as the Bridegroom, who bodily manifests His love for the Church in His total gift of Self upon the Cross and in the Eucharist. We consider the full reality of Christ's humanity, His Sacred Heart, soteriology, divinization, created and Uncreated Love, the Blessed Mother, the Theology of the Body, etc. Kelly's insights into the Gospel of John and explication of Saints Thomas and John Chrysostom's Eucharistic teaching alone would have sold me on the book. Kelly employs the Song of Songs to expound upon the most central mysteries of our faith and life. It is profound—theology that moves you to contemplation.

Is the Brown Scapular "Biblical"?

On its face, the question sounds ridiculous. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel knows that the small, woolen sacramental goes back to Carmelite St. Simon Stock’s vision of 1251 A.D. The earliest account, in the Carmelite Sanctoral, recorded how the Blessed Mother showed St. Simon the Scapular and made the promise that “He who dies in this will not suffer eternal fire.” (Some will liken the promise to magic or superstition, but the Church’s interpretation will be explained later.) I readily acknowledge that the Brown Scapular will not be found in the pages of the Old or New Testaments. What we do find in both, however, are its material and spiritual precursors – images that show us how its wearing today is in complete harmony with the written Word of God.

In the Law of Moses, Jewish men were commanded to attach tzitzit, or tassels, to the edge of their garments. “It shall be to you a tassel to look upon and remember all the commandments of the Lord, to do them, not to follow after your own heart” (Num 15:37-39). They acted as tactile and visual reminders directing hearts to the Lord. In the New Testament we read of these tassels on Jesus’s garments, recognizing that both the garments and tassels would have been woven by His Blessed Mother. Earlier in life, Mary would have done the same for Joseph, and later in life for the Apostle John. We read how the sick were healed simply by reaching out in faith to touch the tassels on Jesus’s garments (Mt 14:36; Lk 8:43-48).

In the Acts of the Apostles, we read how the Lord continued to evoke people’s faith for the purpose of healing, not through tzitzit but other articles worn by the apostles. “Handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from [Paul’s] body to the sick, and diseases left them and evil spirits came out of them” (Acts 19:11-12). The Church of today refers to such objects as sacramentals, explaining that they “do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church's prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (CCC 1670). They do this by evoking our faith in God’s power.

In the vision granted to St. Simon Stock, the Church received a new sacramental. The Brown Scapular, originally an addition to the Carmelite Order’s religious habit, has been extended by the popes for use by all of the faithful. Like the tzitzit created and sewn by Mary to Christ’s garments – the sacramental that evoked faith and brought healing to the sick of Palestine – so we, Christ’s mystical Body, are now clothed in another garment stitched, so to speak, by Mary’s hands. And the Scapular has never been understood by the Carmelites or the Church’s theologians to be a talisman guaranteeing eternal life. Rather, as a sacramental, its wearing is a concrete expression of faith that Jesus has entrusted the wearer to Mary’s heart. One cannot wear the Scapular and persist in sin, presuming upon God’s mercy (see Heb 6:4–9). Such a thought is abhorrent to the hearts of Jesus and Mary. A person, however, who wears the Scapular as a sign of his consecration to Jesus through the love and intercession of Mary’s immaculate heart—and perseveres in his discipleship, repenting when he falls—will receive the grace to die in the Lord’s friendship, and thus enter eternal life. Wearing the scapular serves the same purpose as the tzitzit; it is a biblically-grounded reminder to follow Jesus and Mary in placing the Father’s divine will before that of our own human hearts (Nm 15:39; Mt 26:39; Lk 1:38). This is why the young visionaries at Fatima saw Mary extend the Brown Scapular. Our goal is to realize the full life of heaven, to love Christ with the Immaculate Heart of His mother. “Blessed are the pure [or ‘immaculate’] in heart, for they shall see God” (Mt 5:8).

_____________________________

Adapted from The Biblical Roots of Marian Consecration: Devotion to the Immaculate Heart in Light of Scripture (TAN Books, 2022).