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Harmonia axyridis is bugging me.

Synchronistically, I was exploring the concept of geocaching bugs and notice, much to my annoyance, harmonia axyridis making its way onto my screen and not as a software sort of "bug" either. They are disturbing the harmony of the Sabine Farm today, though not in a gravely serious way, I must admit. The Sabine Farm house is pretty much sarta et tecta, though one room upstair continues to be a slight problem. Still, many thousands of the pesky things are out in force today, since the day is nearly perfect, bright, sunny and warm.

The apples on the chapel apple tree are among the most delicious I have ever tasted and in huge abundance. Does it get better than that?

They are nearly in all respects like the magnificent Haralson.

A pie was produced in the Sabine kitchen a couple days ago when preparing a supper for a couple guests. After our Bombay Sapphire martinis on the deck, the first course was ravioli in butter with sage with a little white truffle. I chose my last bottle sigh of 1998 Chateaux Carbonnieux for that. The main consisted of filet migon wrapped and skewered with prosciutto and grilled with lemon and olive oil. We had some broccoli with a hybrid sauce similar to hollandaise into which I blended a bit of horseradish. I hauled out a magnum of 1999 Barnwood Zinfandel which was, frankly, amazing. Dessert was the abovementioned apple pie onto which topcrust I carmelized sugar. Darkly roasted Sumatra coffee came afterward and some Chambord. Nobody wanted a cigar. The conversation: mostly the interesting topic of whether or not people who are ignorant of things having to do with the Faith have an easier time getting to heaven, as opposed to the well-informed Catholic.

I am now off to the library to return my interlibrary loan volumes of St. Ambrose’s Exposition of the Gospel of Luke which was lacking to my Sabine library. They have me served well.

And no, I don’t know what axyridis means. It might come from the Greek for "blunt".

We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with:

2nd Joyful Mystery: The Visitation

Commenting on Luke 1:39-45, the when Mary journeys to visit her cousin Elizabeth, St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) speaks of the infant John, to be known as the Baptist, leaping in the womb at the sound of Mary’s voice:

We see instances of leaping no only in children but even in animals, although certainly not for any faith or religion of rational recognition of someone coming.  But this case stands out as utterly uncommon and new, because it tool place in the womb, and at the coming of her who was to bring forth the Savior of mankind.  Therefore this leaping, this greeting, so to speak, offered to the mother of the Lord is miraculous.  It is to be reckoned among the great signs.  It was not effected by human means by the infant, but by divine means in the infant, as miracles are usually wrought. [ep 187.23]

God wrought something in John at that moment.  What happened?  We can look to the Greek writer Origen (+ c.254) for his view:

Elizabeth, who was filled with the Holy Spirit at that moment, received the Spirit on account of her son.  The mother did not inherit the Holy Spirit first.  First John, still enclosed in her womb, received the Holy Spirit.  Then she too, after her son was sanctified, was filled with the Holy Spirit.  You will be able to believe this if you also learn something similar about the Savior.  (In a certain number of manuscripts, we have discovered that blessed Mary is said to prophesy.  We are not aware of the fact that, according to other copies of the Gospel, Elizabeth speaks these words of prophecy.)  Mary also was filled with the Holy Spirit hen she began to carry the Savior in her womb.  As soon as she received the Holy Spirit, who was the creator of the Lord’s Body, and the Son of God began to exist in her womb, she too was filled with the Holy Spirit.  [Homilies on the Gospel of Luke 7.3]

The concept of being "filled with the Holy Spirit" is rather interestings.  Perhaps some of you have heard of the glosses on this phrase which compare the Blessed Virgin, John the Baptist, and St. Stephen.  All were said to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  Mary was prevented from ever having any stain of original sin.  John was said to have been forgiven the guilt of original sin before his birth, which is the moment he leapt in the womb at the coming of the Lord.  Stephen, the Protodeacon, was also "filled with the Holy Spirit", but after his birth.  In any event, the always creative and interesting Origen speaks of John’s sanctification in the womb at the coming of Mary who was bearing the Son of God.

Each of us must prepare to bear Christ and be filled with the Holy Spirit.  St. Ambrose, the bishop of Milan (+397) said:

 

You see that Mary did not doubt, but believed and therefore obtained the fruit of faith.  "Blessed … are you who have believed."  But you also are blessed who have heard and believed.  For a soul that has believed has both conceived and bears the Word of God and declares His works.  Let the soul of Mary be in each of you, so that it magnifies the Lord.  Let the spirit of Mary be in each of you, so that it rejoices in God.  She is the one mother of Christ according to the flesh, yet Christ is the Fruit of all according to faith.  Every soul receives the Word of God, provided that, undefiled and unstained by vices, it guards its purity with inviolate modesty.  [Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.26]

Our baptism should remind us every day that we are deeply woven into the fabric of the Church, a Church which in many ways can said to stretch back into the depths of our great "Family History"  as God’s People.  In a comment on the Magnificat, which Mary pronounced during her mysterious Visitation, Venerable Bede (+735) says:

When blessed Mary was making mention of the memory of the fathers, she properly represented them by naming Abraham in particular.  Although many of the fathers and holy ones mystically brought forward testimony of the Lord’s incarnation, it was to Abraham that the hidden mysteries of this same Lord’s incarnation and of our redemption were first clearly predicted.  Also, to him it was specifically said, "And in you all the tribes of the earth witll be blessed." (Gen 12:3)  None of the faithful doubts that this pertains to the Lord and Savior, who in order to give us an everlasting blessing deigned to come to us from the stock of Abraham.  However, "the seed of Abraham" does not refer only to those chosen ones who were brought forth physically from Abraham’s lineage, but also to us.... Having been gathered together to Christ from the nations, we are connected by the fellowship of faith to the fathers, from whom we are far separated by the origin of our fleshly bloodline.  We too are the seed and children of Abraham since we are reborn by the sacraments of our Redeemer, who assumed his flesh from the race of Abraham.  [Homilies on the Gospels 1.4]

Did you catch that great phrase?  "Mary was making mention of the memory of the fathers…"  Perhaps we can see how the Blessed Virgin is a good model for all patristicists and, of course, patristibloggers!

Because October is dedicated in a special way to the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, during the month I, as a dedicated patristiblogger, will work my way through the Mysteries of the Rosary offering some comments from the Fathers of the Church.  Let’s jump right in!

1st Joyful Mystery: The Annuniciation

Commenting on Luke 1:26-38, the announcment of Jesus’ birth, St. Ambrose of Milan (+397) makes a connection between Mary and the Church.  :

And, therefore, the Evangelist, who had undertaken to prove the incorrupt mystery of the incarnation, thought it fruitless to pursue evidence of Mary’s virginity, lest he be seen as a defender of the Virgin rather than an advocate of the mystery.  Surely, when he taught that Joseph was righteous, he adequately declared that he could not violate the temple of the Holy Spirit, the mother of the Lord, the womb of the mystery.  We have learned the lineage of the Truth.  We have learned its counsel.  Let us learn its mystery.  Fittingly is she epsoused, but virgin, because she prefigues the Church which is undefiled (cf. Eph 5:27) yet wed.  A virgin conceived us of the Spirit, a Virgin brings us forth without travail.  And thus perhaps Mary, wed to one, was filled by Another, because also the separate Churches are indeed filled by the Spirit and by grace and yet are joined to the appearance of a temporal Priest.  [Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.6-7]

The Marian thought of Ambrose has an ecclesiological dimension.  The Second Vatican Council cited this important passage in Lumen gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the Church:  

63. By reason of the gift and role of divine maternity, by which she is united with her Son, the Redeemer, and with His singular graces and functions, the Blessed Virgin is also intimately united with the Church. As St. Ambrose taught, the Mother of God is a type of the Church in the order of faith, charity and perfect union with Christ.  For in the mystery of the Church, which is itself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed Virgin stands out in eminent and singular fashion as exemplar both of virgin and mother.  By her belief and obedience, not knowing man but overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, as the new Eve she brought forth on earth the very Son of the Father, showing an undefiled faith, not in the word of the ancient serpent, but in that of God’s messenger. The Son whom she brought forth is He whom God placed as the first-born among many brethren, namely the faithful, in whose birth and education she cooperates with a maternal love.

Because of Mary’s "Fiat mihi", we can be members of the Church with Mary as our Mother.  Our baptism intergrates us into this wondrous bond.  St. Leo the Great (+461) in one of his glorious sermons says:

Each one is a partaker of this spiritual origin in regeneration.  To every one, when he is reborn, the water of baptism is like the Virgin’s womb, for the same Holy Spirit fills the font, who filled the Virgin, that the sin, which that sacred conception overthrew, may be taken away by this mystical washing.  [s. 24.3]

This is not merely a Western insight.  While it is a little late for our patristic interests, here is a snip from fascinating Kontakion of the Annunciation by the 9th century Theophanes the Branded:

The Theotokos said: Thou bringest me good tidings of divine joy: that Immaterial Light, in His abundant compassion, will be united to a material body.and now thou criest out to me: all-pure one, blessed is the fruit of thy womb!

The Archangel said: Rejoice, lady; rejoice, most pure virgin! Rejoice, God-containing vessel! Rejoice, candlestick of the light, the restoration of Adam, and the deliverance of Eve! Rejoice, holy mountain, shining sanctuary! Rejoice, bridal chamber of immortality!

The Theotokos said: The descent of the Holy Spirit has purified my soul; it has sanctified my body: it has made me a temple containing God, a divinely adorned tabernacle, a living sanctuary, and the pure Mother of Life.

The Archangel said: I see thee as a lamp with many lights; a bridal chamber made by God! Spotless maiden, as an ark of gold, receive now the Giver of the Law, who through thee has been pleased to deliver mankind’s corrupted nature!

Here the Blessed Virgin represents the Temple, the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, images of the Church.