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Patristiblogger hyperekperisou has kind words about my little … well… not so little Rosary project last October.  I am delighted that he thinks it might be of interest to Protestants.

Patristic Projects

Father Z, on his blog, What Does Prayer Really Say?, started and completed the Patristics Rosary Project. This project follows the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary and seeks out patristic passages which relate to the mysteries to which this rosary refers. Father Z deals with each subject by citing patristic parallels as explanations of the scriptural passages central to each mystery and, then, includes his own commentary. This is a tremendously learned series, but well worth reading, even for a Protestant such as myself.

In October 2006 I decided to look at the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a slightly different way. I searched out some passages from the Fathers of the Church which had something to do with the different mysteries of the Rosary. Here are some links to the 20 different entries I came up with.

Joyful Mysteries

The Annunciation

The Visitation

The Nativity

The Presentation

The Finding in the Temple

Luminous Mysteries

The Baptism of Jesus by John

The Wedding at Cana

Proclamation of the Kingdom

The Transfiguration

Institution of the Eucharist

Sorrowful Mysteries

The Agony in the Garden

The Scourging

The Crowning With Thorns

The Carrying of the Cross

The Crucifixion

Glorious Mysteries

The Resurrection

The Ascension

Descent of the Holy Spirit

The Assumption

The Coronation of Our Lady

 

We conclude our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:

5th Glorious Mystery: The Coronation of Our Lady

Can we be certain of our final judgment? Those who say they are run the risk of the sin of presumption. We must proceed always with humbly confident perseverance. Salvation is possible. Our Lord has taken our humanity to the heavenly throne, where it (and we in it) already are glorified. The saints the Church has discerned through our long earthly pilgrimage, demonstrate that virtue and perseverance is possible. They intercede before God’s throne for us. Our greatest example and intercessor is the Blessed Mother of God, our Mother and Mother of the Church, who was assumed body and soul into heaven and is now reigning as heavens Queen. In our recitation of the Rosary we gaze at Mary our motherly Queen who redirects our gaze to the source of her beauty, the Lord Himself. Their glory is our promise. But first, with tools such as the Rosary in hand, we must make our way through this world and persevere to the end and our judgment.

Cassiodorus (+c. 585) writes:

The holy man demands judgment because he is certain of the Lord’s mercy. As Paul has it: "As to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will render to me in that day." He walks in his innocence because… he puts his trust in the Lord. The presumption he shows is not in his own powers but in God’s generosity. [Explanation of the Psalms 25.1]

The idea of judgment can make us at times shivers. But we approach it knowing that Mary is our advocate. We can come to heaven with some measure of humble confidence. St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) wrote to Hesychius a bishop in Dalamatia:

I have received the letter of your Reverence in which you urge on us the great good of loving and longing for the coming of our Savior. In this you act like the good servant of the master of the household who is eager for his lord’s gain and who wishes to have many sharers in the love which burns so brightly and constantly in you. Examining, therefore, the passage you quoted from the apostle where he said that the Lord would render a crown of justice not only to him but to all who love His coming, we live as uprightly as he and we pass through this world as pilgrims while our heart constantly expands with this love, and whether He comes sooner or later than He is expected, His coming is loved with faithful charity and longed for with pious affection. [ep. 199.1.1]

In heaven Mary has been crowned with glory. This is the reward of her faithfulness, a faithfulness beyond all others which merits a crown more glorious than any other. The reward of the crown is often, mostly associated with the struggle ending in bloody martyrdom. Our Lady is also crowned as the Queen of martyrs. Not all of us will be graced with the final perseverance that ends in the perfect charity which is bloody martyrdom for the sake of God and neighbor. We must persevere in far more mundane details of ongoing life, in prayer, work, and contemplation. Cassiodorus mentions something in this regard, however, which is very useful for us:

As someone has said, you will scarcely ever find that when a person prays, some empty and external reflection does not impede him, causing the attention which the mind directs on God to be sidetracked and interrupted. So it is a great and most wholesome struggle to concentrate on prayer once begun, and with God’s help to show lively resistance to the temptations of the enemy, so that our minds may with unflagging attention strain to be ever fastened on God. Then we can deservedly recite Paul’s words: I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, i have kept the faith. [Explanation of the Psalms 101.1]

Our Blessed Mother exemplifies perfectly the struggle of perseverance. Given exceptional graces, Mary was open with perfect focus to all God offered her, including her sufferings in unity with her Son. Her willing participation in the Passion of the Lord makes her the greatest of the martyrs, and while she did not physically receive the Lord’s wounds, she suffered by them nonetheless.

St. John Chrysostom (+407) speaks of crowns:

We see no garments or cloaks, but we see crowns more valuable than any gold, than any contest prizes or rewards, and ten thousand blessings stored up for those who live upright and virtuous lives on earth. [On the incomprehensible nature of God 6.7]

The many beautiful things of this world can take our attention and affection so much that they begin to displace in us our hunger for the reward of heaven. We must keep always firmly in mind that everything in this world fades and passes. Our hope of lasting happiness is found only in heaven with God. Venerable Bede (+735) speaks to this:

The flower of the field is pretty and its smell is pleasant for a while, but it soon loses the attraction of its beauty and charm. The present happiness of the ungodly is exactly the same – it lasts for a day or two and then vanishes into nothing. The rising sun stands for the sentence of the strict Judge, which puts a quick end to the transient glory of the reprobate. Of course it is also true that the righteous person flourish, though not in the same way. The unrighteous flourish for a time, like glass, but the righteous flourish forever like great trees, as Scripture says: "The righteous flourish like the palm tree." [Concerning the Epistle of James]

Didymus the Blind (+398), the teacher of St. Jerome and Rufinus expands this:

James does all he can to encourage people to bear their trials with joy, as a burden which is bearable, and says that perfect patience consists in bearing this for their own sake, not for the hope of some better reward elsewhere. He nevertheless tries to persuade his hearers to rely on the promise that their present state will be put right. The person who has fought the hard battles will be perfectly able to handle anything. Someone who comes through his troubles in this way will be duly prepared to receive his reward, which is the crown of life prepared by God for those who love him. [Commentary on James]

The Rosary teaches us to gaze, with Mary as our guide and companion, always upon the face of Christ, who reveals man more fully to himself. In crowning our Lady as Queen, the Lord does in an unsurpassed way what He does in each one of us: He crowns His own merits. But in doing so, Christ reveals more and more about who we are and what we were made for.

We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:

4th Glorious Mystery: The Assumption

We do not know if Mary died and was assumed body and soul into heaven or if she was assumed without dying. Either way, it was fitting that the Mother of God, who had never known the stain of sin, while requiring a Redeemer just like every other human being, should not experience the corruption of the grave. Our humanity is seated at the right hand of the Father in the divine Person of our Lord, but now also in the human person of our Lady. Christ is consubtantial with the Father. Christ is consubstantial with His mother. Mary is Mother of a divine Person with two natures. She is not Mother of part of Christ, but Mother of all of Christ in His integrity. And so, we can call her Mother of God and Mother of the Church. Her heavenly Assumption was fitting.

There are not elaborate reflections in the writings of the Fathers on the Assumption, because it was not a main point of reflection. Still, we can find their thoughts on some passages of Scripture
which help us to understand Mary’s role in the plan of our salvation.

As a perfect model for our own Christian discipleship, we can consider, among many texts, Proverbs 8:

And now, my sons, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways. Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it. Happy is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors. For he who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD; but he who misses me injures himself; all who hate me love death.

 

While this concerns Wisdom, in a sense it harks to Mary, Wisdom’s seat. Here is the reflection of Athenagoras on this section of Proverbs:

[The Son] is the first offspring of the Father, I do not mean that He was created, for, since God is eternal mind, He had His Word within Himself from the beginning, being eternally wise. Rather did the Son come forth from God to give form and actuality to all material things, which essentially have a sort of formless nature and inert quality, the heavier particles being mixed up with the lighter. The prophetic Spirit agrees with this opinion when He says, "The Lord created me as the first of His ways, for His works." Indeed we say that the Holy Spirit Himself, who inspires those who utter prophecies, is an effluence from God, flowing from Him, and returning like ray of the sun. Who, then, would not be astonished to hear those called atheists who admit God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and who teach their unity of power and their distinction in rank? ... We affirm, too, a crowd of angels and ministers, whom God, the maker and creator of the world, appointed to their several tasks through His Word, He gave them charge over the good order of the universe, over the elements, the heavens, the world, and all it contains. [A plea regarding Christians 10]

 

This fellow sounds a bit like a subordinationist, but he is fascinating. This passage is interesting also for its hints at the cosmology and phyics of late antiquity. Also, it aims at the spiritual hierarchy in which our wonderous Lady has a privileged place.

Consider that the reward of assumption into the beatific vision stems as well from her perfect act of free will when she gave her "Fiat" to God’s will as expressed by the angel. Here is St. Augustine speaking of the impact of free will:

Man in paradise was capable of self-destruction by abandoning justice by an act of will; yet if the life of justice was to be maintained, his will alone would not have sufficed, unless He who made Him glad had given him aid. But, after the fall, God’s mercy was even more abundant, for then the will itself had to be freed from the bondage in which sin and death are the masters. There is no way at all by which it can be freed by itself, but only though God’s grace, which is made effectual in the faith of Christ. Thus, as it is written, even the will by which "the will itself is prepared by the Lord" so that we may receive the other gifts of God through which we come to the Gift eternal – this too comes from God. [Enchiridion 28.106]

 

God’s grace and Mary’s "Fiat" which was by grace. Mary was drawn with love into God’s plan and, later, into God’s presence. The Fathers made frequent use of the Song of Songs. St. Gregory the Great writes about the exchanges of heaven and earth which marked the plan of salvation:

The Church speaks through Solomon: "See how he comes leaping on the mountains, bounding over the hill!" ... By coming for our redemption the Lord leaped! My friends, do you want to become acquainted with these leaps of His? From heaven He came to the womb, from the womb to the manger, from the manger to the Cross, from the Cross to the sepulcher, and from the sepulcher He returned to heaven. You see how Truth, having made Himself known in the flesh, leaped for us to make us run after Him. [Forty Gospel Homilies 29]

 

Our Lady, who would feel Christ leap beneath her heart, would herself leap after Christ in her heart by her "Fiat". She leapt to begin His public ministry when she said at Cana "Do whatever He tell you." She leapt up Calvary with Him when the Blood and water flowed down. Her motherly and Christian heart leapt in joy in seeing Him gloriously risen. She leapt to Him in heaven when her earthly life was concluded.

In heaven Mary shines with the glory God shares with her. In the book of Revelation we have a description chapter 12 of the woman clothed with the sun. The Fathers speak about this image. They will mostly consider the woman as an image of the Church. We cannot reduce the Church to Mary. Nor in talking of the Church as Christ’s Body reduce Christ to the Church. But the three, Christ, Mary and Church are intimately associated. Hippolytus (+245) writes:

By the "woman clothed with the sun", he meant most manifestly the Church, endued with the Father’s Word, whose brightness is above the sun. And by "the moon under her feet," he referred to [the Church] being adorned, like the moon, with heavenly glory. And the words "upon her head a crowd of twelve stars" refer to the twelve apostles by whom the Church was founded.

Of course Christ founded the Church on the Apostles, and chiefly upon the Rock who is Peter. The description of the woman, however, fits Mary the Mother of the Church as well as the Church herself. Here is an extended piece by someone not too many in the West may read, Oecumenius (6th c.) called the "Rhetor" who wrote the earliest Greek commentary on Revelation:

The vision intends to describe more completely to us the circumstances concerning the antichrist…. However, since the incarnation of the Lord, which made the world his possession and subjected it, provided a pretext for Satan to raise this one up and to choose him [as his instrument] – for the antichrist will be raised to cause the world again to fall from Christ and to persuade it to desert to Satan – and since moreover His fleshly conception and birth was the beginning of the incarnation of the Lord, the vision gives a certain order and sequence to the material that it is going to discuss and begins the discussion from the fleshly conception of the Lord by portraying for us the mother of God. What does he say? "And a sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sum and the moon was under her feet." As we said, it is peaking about the mother of our Savior. The vision appropriately depicts her as in heaven and not on the earth, for she is pure in soul and body, equal to an angel and a citizen of heaven. She possesses God who rests in heaven – "for heaven is my throne" – it says yet she is flesh, although she has nothing in common with the earth nor is there any evil in her. Rather, she is exalted, wholly worthy of heaven, even though she possesses our human nature and substance. For the Virgin is consubstantial with us. Let the impious teaching of Eutyches, which make the fanciful claim that the Virgin is of another substance than we, be excluded from the belief of the holy courts together with his other opinions. And what does it mean that she was clothed with the sun and the moon was under her feet? The holy prophet Habakkuk, prophesied concerning the Lord, saying, "The sun was lifted up, and the moon stood still in its place for light." calling Christ our Savior, or at least the proclamation of the gospel, the "sun of righteousness". When He was exalted and increased, the moon – that is, the law of Moses – "stood still" and no longer received any addition. For after the appearance of Christ, it no longer received proselytes from the nations as before but endured diminution and cessation. You will, therefore, observe this with me, that also the holy Virgin is covered by the spiritual sun. For this is what the prophet calls the Lord when concerning Israel he says, "Fire fell upon them, and they did not see the sun." But the moon, that is, the worship and citizenship according to the law, being subdued and become much less than itself, is under her feet, for it has been conquered by the brightness of the gospel. And rightly does he call the things of the law by the word "moon", for they have been given light by the sun, that is, Christ just as the physical moon is given its light by the physical sun. The point would have been better made had it said not that the woman was clothed with the sun but that the woman enclothed the sun, which was enclosed in her womb. However, that the vision might show that the Lord, who was being carried in the womb, was the shelter of His own mother and the whole creation, it says that He was enclothing the woman. Indeed, the holy angel said something similar to the holy Virgin: "The Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you." For to overshadow is to protect, and to enclothe is the same according to power. [Commentary on the Apocalypse 12.1-2]

Take careful note of the image drawn on by the interesting Oecumenius, which also speaks to the cosmology of late antiquity. First, Oecumenius either knew that the sun gave light to the moon, as it does, or he extrapolates this from the glory that Christ gives to Mary.

All our Marian feasts, all our reflection, to keep the sunlight and moon theme going, always must draw us back to the Person of the Lord. We reflect on the face of the Lord who is reflected in the face of His Mother. Our recitation of the Rosary brings us to know the Lord more and more and, in turn, know ourselves better. We reflect His image and likeness and He came into the word to reveal us more fully to ourselves.

We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:

3rd Glorious Mystery: Descent of the Holy Spirit

Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, when the Holy Spirit breathes His own life into the Body and all the members. The descent of the Holy Spirit marks one of the ways in which Christ is faithful to His promise that He would be "with us always" (Matthew 28). The Scriptures describe the coming of the Holy Spirit, ru’ach, as a mighty wind rushing and as fire fifty days after the Lord’s Resurrection on a Jewish festival called the “feast of weeks” (Cf. Exodus 34:22; Deut 16:10). Here is St. Cyril of Jerusalem (+386):

‘And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit’ (Acts 2:3-4). They partook of fire, not of burning but of saving fire; of fire which consumes the thorns of sins, but gives luster to the soul. This is now coming upon you also, and that to strip away and consume your sins which are like thorns, and to brighten yet more that precious possession of your souls, and to give you grace; for He gave it then to the Apostles. And He sat upon them in the form of fiery tongues, that they might crown themselves with new and spiritual diadems by fiery tongues upon their heads. A fiery sword barred of old the gates of Paradise; a fiery tongue which brought salvation restored the gift. [Catechetical Lectures 17.15]

Do you remember that image of the fiery sword in the hands of the angel who closed the gates behind Adam and Eve? We have seen the Father’s refer to this before. Notice also how Cyril makes the event of Pentecost so personal. This leads to the question: Upon whom did the Holy Spirit descend? On the Twelve alone? Here is St. John Chrysostom (+407):

Was it upon the twelve that it [the Holy Spirit] came? Not so; but upon the hundred and twenty. For Peter would not have quoted to no purpose the testimony of the prophet, saying, ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith the Lord God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams’ (Joel 2:28). ‘And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.’ For, that the effect may not be to frighten only, therefore it is both ‘with the Holy Spirit, and with fire. And began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance’ (Mt. 3:11). [Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles]

One of the signs of the working of the Spirit in the new Church is the anti-Babel, or anti-babble He produced. You remember that as punishment for his pride, in the book of Genesis God inflicted man with different languages. From that point men could no longer understand each other with facility. At Pentecost, they hear each other as if they were all using everyone else’s mother tongue. Here is St. Gregory Nazianen (+389):

But as the old Confusion of tongues was laudable, when men who were of one language in wickedness and impiety, even as some now venture to be, were building the Tower; for by the confusion of their language the unity of their intention was broken up, and their undertaking destroyed; so much more worthy of praise is the present miraculous one. For being poured from One Spirit upon many men, it brings them again into harmony. And there is a diversity of Gifts, which stands in need of yet another Gift to discern which is the best, where all are praiseworthy. [Oration on Pentecost]

The spellbinding Romanos the Melodist (+6th c.) has this about our praise of the Spirit. Amazing imagery:

Brothers, we shall hymn with praise the tongues of the disciples, because, not with elegant speech, But in divine power they have revived all men. Because they took up His Cross as a reed, So that they might again use words as fishing lines and fish for the world Since they had speech as a sharp fishhook, Since the flesh of the Master of all Has become for them a bait, it has not sought to kill But it attracts to life those who worship and praise The All-Holy Spirit. [On Pentecost]

One of my favorite lines in all of Scripture is John 21:3: Simon Peter said to them, "I’m going fishing."

Many don’t realize the great importance the feast has always had in the Church. In the pre-Conciliar Roman rite, Pentecost actually had more liturgical bells and whistles attached to it that Easter Sunday. St. Pope Leo I, "the Great" (+461) preaches about the granduer of Pentecost with his characteristic elegance:

Pentecost holds great mysteries in itself, mysteries new and old. By them it is clear that grace was foretold through the old law, and the old law was fulfilled through grace. When the Hebrew people were freed from the Egyptians, the law was given on Mount Sinai on the fiftieth day after the sacrifice of the lambs. So, after the suffering of Christ — the true Lamb of God, who was slain — and on the fiftieth day from His resurrection, the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles and the crowd of believers. The true Christian can easily see how the beginnings of the Old Testament prepared for the beginnings of the gospel, and that the second covenant was founded by the same Spirit who had set up the first …

Oh, how swift are the words of wisdom! How quickly the lesson is learned when God is the Teacher! No interpretation is needed for understanding, no practice for using, no time for studying. The Spirit of Truth blows where He wills (see Jn 3:8), and the languages of each nation become common property in the mouth of the Church. So, from that day, the Gospel preaching has resounded like a trumpet. From that day, the showers of gracious gifts, the rivers of blessings, have watered every desert and all the dry land. To “renew the face of the earth” (Ps 103:30), the Spirit of God “was moving over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2); and to drive away the old darkness, flashes of new light shone forth. By the blaze of those busy tongues, the Lord’s bright Word kindled speech into fire — fire to arouse the understanding and to consume sin. Fire has the power to enlighten and the power to burn.

God’s word has authority, and it is ablaze with these and countless other proofs. Let us, all together, wake up to celebrate Pentecost. Let’s rejoice in honor of the Holy Spirit, through whom the whole Catholic Church is made holy, and every rational soul comes alive. He is the Inspirer of Faith, the Teacher of Knowledge, the Fountain of Love, the Seal of Chastity, and the Source of all Power.

Let the spirits of the faithful rejoice. Let one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be praised throughout the world, by the confession of all languages. And may that sign of His presence, the likeness of fire, burn perpetually in His work and gift.

The Spirit of Truth makes the house of His glory shine with the brightness of His light, and He wants nothing in His temple to be dark or lukewarm.

Note the images of water, the baptismal medium, and the fire. Let’s stick with that for a moment longer. Here is St. Ambrose of Milan (+397):

So, then, the Holy Spirit is the River, and the abundant River, which according to the Hebrews flowed from Jesus in the lands, as we have received it prophesied by the mouth of Isaiah. This is the great River which flows always and never fails. And not only a river, but also one of copious stream and overflowing greatness, as also David said: "The stream of the river makes glad the city of God."

For neither is that city, the heavenly Jerusalem, watered by the channel of any earthly river, but that Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Fount of Life, by a short draught of Whom we are satiated, seems to flow more abundantly among those celestial Thrones, Dominions and Powers, Angels and Archangels, rushing in the full course of the seven virtues of the Spirit. For if a river rising above its banks overflows, how much more does the Spirit, rising above every creature, when He touches the as it were low-lying fields of our minds, make glad that heavenly nature of the creatures with the larger fertility of His sanctification.

And let it not trouble you that either here it is said "rivers," or elsewhere "seven Spirits," for by the sanctification of these seven gifts of the Spirit, as Isaiah said, is signified the fulness of all virtue; the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and strength, the Spirit of knowledge and godliness, and the Spirit of the fear of God. One, then, is the River, but many the channels of the gifts of the Spirit. This River, then, goes forth from the Fount of Life.

And here, again, you must not turn aside your thoughts to lower things, because there seems to be some difference between a Fount and a River, and yet the divine Scripture has provided that the weakness of human understanding should not be injured by the lowliness of the language. Set before yourself any river, it springs from its fount, but is of one nature, of one brightness and beauty. And do you assert rightly that the Holy Spirit is of one substance, brightness, and glory with the Son of God and with God the Father. I will sum up all in the oneness of the qualities, and shall not be afraid of any question as to difference of greatness. For in this point also Scripture has provided for us; for the Son of God says: "He that shall drink of the water which I will give him, it sh