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We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:

2nd Luminous Mystery: The Wedding at Cana

The late great John Paul II wrote in his letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae wrote:

24. The Rosary is at the service of this ideal; it offers the “secret” which leads easily to a profound and inward knowledge of Christ. We might call it Mary’s way. It is the way of the example of the Virgin of Nazareth, a woman of faith, of silence, of attentive listening. It is also the way of a Marian devotion inspired by knowledge of the inseparable bond between Christ and his Blessed Mother: the mysteries of Christ are also in some sense the mysteries of his Mother, even when they do not involve her directly, for she lives from him and through him.

First, Mary stays mostly in the background. But in the case of the Wedding at Cana, she steps for a moment into the light. In the Gospel we read: “On the third day there was a marriage at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; Jesus also was invited to the marriage.” Take careful note that Mary seems to have had the main invitation and The Lord was “also invited”. Mary, however, redirects everyone back to the Lord. Second, in all the moments in the Gospel in which Mary appears, she is seen to take in what happens in regard to her Son and herself and then contemplate them in silence before doing anything. After the Angel departed from her, she journeyed to see Elizabeth contemplating what happened before she burst out in her great Canticle. At the Presentation she contemplated the things Simeon told her. You will find this pattern again and again. At Cana Mary sees how the time, the right moment, had finally arrived for Jesus to make Himself known in public. Mary contemplated everything and, when all was prepared, she spoke and then stepped back into the shadows. She always redirects our gaze to her Son.

As Catholics we know with certain and divinely guided Faith that Christ instituted sacraments which would be the ordinary means for us to obtain the graces opening the way to salvation. God the Father created marriage in the creation of Adam and Eve and the mandate and different roles He gave them. We know that Christ’s presence at the Wedding at Cana did sanctify that marriage and, in so doing, sanctifies Christian marriage contracted in Christ in and under His Church, raising marriage to the dignity of a sacrament. As Venerable Bede said (+735):

To show that all states in life are good… Jesus designed to be born in the pure womb of the Virgin Mary; soon after He was born He received praise from the prophetic lips of Anna, a widow, and, invited in His youth by the betrothed couple, he honored the wedding with the power of His presence. [Homily 13]

It might strike some as odd to connect the mystery of Cana with the creation of Adam and Eve, but the connection is there. St. Augustine of Hippo (+430) wrote a commentary on the Gospel of John which has never been surpassed in all the ages since. In Tractate IX, he explores the symbolism of the six water-jars and the measures of wine within them.

In the very beginning, Adam and Eve were the parents of all nations, not of the Jews only; and whatever was represented in Adam concerning Christ, undoubtedly concerned all nations, whose salvation is in Christ. What better can I say of the water of the first water-jar than what the apostle says of Adam and Eve? For no man will say that I misunderstand the meaning when I produce not my own, but the apostle’s. How great a mystery, then, concerning Christ does that of which the apostle makes no mention contain, when he says, “And the two shall be in one flesh: this is a great mystery!” (Eph 3.31) And lest any man should understand that greatness of mystery to exist in the case of the individual men that have wives, he says, “But I speak concerning Christ and the Church.” What great mystery is this, “the two shall be one flesh?” While Scripture, in the Book of Genesis, was speaking of Adam and Eve, it came to these words, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they two shall be one flesh.” (Gen 2:24) Now, if Christ cleave to the Church, so that the two should be one flesh, in what manner did He leave His Father and His mother? He left His Father in this sense, that when He was in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking to Him the form of a servant. (Phil 2:6) In this sense He left His Father, not that He forsook or departed from His Father, but that He did not appear unto men in that form in which He was equal with the Father. But how did He leave His mother? By leaving the synagogue of the Jews, of which, after the flesh, He was born, and by cleaving to the Church which He has gathered out of all nations. Thus, the first water-jar held a prophecy of Christ; but so long as these things of which I speak were not preached among the peoples, the prophecy was water, it was not yet changed into wine. And since the Lord has enlightened us through the apostle, to show us what we were in search of, by this one sentence, “The two shall be one flesh; a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church;” we are now permitted to see Christ everywhere, and to drink wine from all the water-jars. Adam sleeps, that Eve may be formed; Christ dies, that the Church may be formed. When Adams sleeps, Eve is formed from his side; when Christ is dead, the spear pierces His side, that the mysteries may flow forth whereby the Church is formed. [tr. io. eu. 9.10]

We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:

1st Luminous Mystery: Baptism of Jesus by John

The one God had sent to prepare the way and whom Christ Himself described as the greatest man born of woman, was a focus of much contemplation by the Fathers and we can only touch the surface of their comments.  Chromatius (+c.406), Bishop of Aquileia, wrote of the Baptist and his significance for us:

Hence John prepared these ways of mercy and truth, faith and justice.  Concerning them, Jeremiah also declared, “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it.  (Jer 6:16)  Because the heavenly kingdom is found along these ways, not without good reason John adds, “The kingdom of heaven is near.” (Mt 3:2)  So do you want the kingdom of heaven to also be near for you?  Prepare these ways in your heart, in your senses and in your soul.  Pave within you the way of chastity, the way of faith and the way of holiness.  Build roads of justice.  Remove every scandal of offense from your heart.  For it is written: “Remove the stones from the road.”  (Is 40:4)  And then, indeed, through the thoughts of your heart and the very movement of your soul, Christ the King will enter along certain paths.  [Tractate on Matthew 8.1]

Why Christ submitted to baptism was a puzzle to the Fathers.  Christ, who had no need of baptism, received baptism by water.  Hilary of Poitiers (+367) spoke about Christ’s effect on the water, rather than its effect on Him:

In Jesus Christ we behold a complete man.  Thus in obedience to the Holy Spirit the body he assumed fulfilled in him every sacrament of our salvation.  He came therefore to John, born of a woman (Cf. Gal 4:4), bound to the law and made flesh through the Word.  (Cf. Jn 1:14)  Therefore there was no need for him to be baptized, because it was said of him: “He committed no sin.” (1 Pet 2:22)  and where there is no sin, the remission of it is superfluous.  It was not because Christ had a need that he took a body and a name from our creation.  He had no need for baptism.  Rather, through Him the cleansing act was sanctified to become the waters of our immersion.  [On Matthew 2.5]

Jerome (+420) also comments on this mystery:

For three reasons the Savior accepted baptism from John.  First, because He was born a man, that He might fulfill all justice and humility of the Law.  Second, that by His baptism He might confirm John’s baptism.  And third, that by sanctifying the waters of the Jordan through the descent of the dove, he might show the Holy Spirit’s advent in the baptism of believers.  [Commentary on Matthew 1.3.13]

One of the remarkable things occurring at the baptism of Jesus is the sound of the Voice.  Here is Hilary again:

A voice from heaven thus spoke: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  (Mt 3:17)  God’s Son is manifested both by hearing and by sight.  Both the witnesses of contemplation and the spoken word are sent from the Lord to an unfaithful people who disregard the prophets.  At the same time, we know from those who were immersed in Christ that after baptism with water the Holy Spirit would descend to us from the heavenly gates.  Then we would be filled with the anointing of heavenly glory and become God’s children through the adoption the Father’s voice announced.  Truth prefigures the image of the sacrament through these very happenings.  [On Matthew 2.6]

The great bishop of Hippo, the Doctor of Grace, St. Augustine (+430) spoke about the Trinitarian dimension of this mystery:

Here then we have the Trinity presented in a clear way: the Father in the voice, the Son in the man, the Holy Spirit in the dove.  This only needs to be barely mentioned, for it is so obvious for anyone to see.  Here the recognition of the trinity is conveyed to us so plainly that it hardly leaves any room for doubt or hesitation.  The Lord Christ Himself, who comes in the form of a servant to John, is undoubtedly the Son, for here no one can mistake Him for either the Father or the Holy Spirit.  It is the Son who comes.  And who could have any doubt about the identity of the dove?  The Gospel itself most plainly testifies: “The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form or a dove.”  So also there can be no doubt whose voice it is who speaks so personally: “You are my beloved Son.” So we have the Trinity distinguished…. Here are the three Persons of the Trinity distinguished: When Jesus came to the river, He came from one place to another.  The dove descended form heaven to earth, from one place to another.  The very voice of the Father sounded neither from the earth nor from the water but from heaven.  These three are as it were distinguished in places, in offices and in works.  But one may say to me, “Show me instead the inseparability of the triune God.  Remember you who are speaking are a Catholic, and to Catholics you are speaking.”   For thus does our faith teach, that is, the true the right Catholic faith, gathered no by the opinion of private judgment but by the witness of the Scriptures, not subject to the fluctuations of heretical rashness but grounded in apostolic truth.  This we know, this we believe.  This, though we do not see it with our eyes nor as yet with the hear, so long as we are being purified by faith, yet by this faith we most firmly and rightly maintain the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a Trinity – inseparably one God, not three gods.  But yet one God in such a way that the Son is not the Father, and the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son but the Spirit of the Father and of the Son.  This ineffable Divinity, abiding ever in Itself, making all things new, creating, creating anew, sending, recalling, judging, delivering, this Trinity, I say, we know to be at once indescribable and inseparable.  [Sermon 1.1.2 – c. 410-12]

We continue our Patristic Rosary Project today with the:

4th Joyful Mystery: The Presentation

We are made in God’s image and likeness and Christ came into the world to reveal man for fully to him (GS 22).  Though the Lord’s Circumcision took place eight days after Our Lord’s Birth, and the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, forty days after, we are nevertheless bound within the infancy narrative and bound to the Temple and the law.  We are, moreover, radically in unity with Christ and, through Him, with each other. In this light, let’s think about the Circumcision for a moment (there isn’t a Mystery for that in the Rosary, which could be a bit of a mystery) even before we go on to reflection the 4th Mystery, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple and Our Blessed Mother’s Purification according to the Law.

Here are words of 3rd century Alexandria writer Origen (+254):

So, when He died, we died with Him, and when He rose, we rose with Him. Likewise, we were also circumcised along with Him. After His circumcision, we were cleansed by a solemn purification. Hence we have no need at all for a circumcision of the flesh. you should know that He was circumcised for our sake. Listen to Paul’s clear proclamation. He says, “For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fullness of life in Him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh in the circumcison of Christ. And you were buried with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.” (Col 2:9-12) Therefore His death, His resurrection and His circumsion took place for our sake. [Homilies on the Gospel of Luke 14.1]

We discern in the Gospels an interesting pattern. The Second Person empties Himself of glory and becomes incarnate of the Virgin Mary. The eternal Word becomes a speechless child. He is lain upon the wood of the crib. He is pierced with metal and He sheds His Blood for our sake. The Incarnate Word Jesus Christ empties Himself of glory and enters His Passion. He stands mute before Pilate and the soliders. He is lain upon the wood of the Cross. He is pieced with metal and sheds His Blood for our sake. In each case He is bound to the Temple, first in His Presentation, finally when the lambs (which foreshadow Him) are being slaughtered in the Temple. All of this is for our sake.

In the Presentation Mary and Jesus are seen to be obedient to the Law. Here is Venerable Bede (+735):

Mary, God’s blessed mother and a perpetual virgin, was, along with the Son she bore, most free from all subjection to the law. The law says that a woman who “had received seed” (Lev 12:2 LXX) and given birth was to be judged unclean and that after a long period she, along with the offspring she had borne, were to be cleansed by victims offered to God. So it is evident that the law does not describe as unclean that woman who, without receiving man’s seed, gave birth as a virgin. Nor does it teach that she had to be cleansed by saving sacrificial offerings. But as our Lord and Savior, who in His divinity was the one who gave the law, when He appeared as a human being, willed to be under the law…. So too His blessed mother, who by a singular privilege was above the law, nevertheless did not shun being made subject to the principles of the law for the sake of showing us an example of humility. [Homilies on the Gospels 1.18]

Some of the Fathers, explicitly St. Augustine (+430), argued that heretics reject the Incarnation.  The Circumcision certainly underscores that this is a Savior who truly has a human nature.  He is not merely spiritual.  St. Jerome (+420) does as well and he makes his point in the context of talking about the Presentation:

All heretics have gone astray by not undestanding the mystery of His nativity. The statement “he who opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord” is more applicable to the special nativity of the Savior than to that of all men, for Christ alone opened the closed doors doors of the womb of virginity, which nevertheless remained permanently closed. This is the closed east door, through which only the high priest enters and leaves, and nevertheless it is always closed. [Against the Pelagians 2.4]

There is a good point there also for our liturgical worship, the orientation of Holy Mass!

There is a lot going on there. Jerome connects the birth of the Lord with the High Priest going into the Temple on the day the lambs are to be slain. He speaks of the East. This makes me think about the exit of the priest from the sacristy and his entrance into the sanctuary to go unto the altar for Mass. He goes from the sacristy, like Christ from the womb, into the area partitioned away from the nave of the church. He goes into the place reserved for alter Christ, who acts in the liturgy in the place of the Head of the Body, the Mystical Person of Christ. The nave is the place designated for those who speak and act as the Body of Christ’s Mystical Person. Together, sanctuary and nave form the body of the whole church. Together, priest and people form the Church, just as Christ the Head and Christ the Body are, as Augustine says, Christus totus, Christ whole entire.

In the Temple, Christ is presented as the Law prescribes. Standing by is the figure who embodies prophecy and priesthood, old Simeon. Ephrem the Syrian (+373):

Simeon presented our Lord, and in Him he present two gifts he had, so that what had been given to Moses in the desert was passed on by Simeon in the temple. Because our Lord is the vessel in which all fullness dwells (Col 2:9), when Simeon presented him to God, he poured our both of these upon him: the priesthood from his hands and prophecy from his lips. The priesthood had always been on Simeon’s hands, because of ritual purifications. Prophecy, in fact, dwelt on his lips because of revelations. When both of these saw the Lord of both of these, they were combined and were poured into the vessel that could accommodate them both, in order to contain priesthood, kingship, and prophecy. [Homily on Our Lord 53.1-54.1]

Priesthood and prophecy are the cause of joy, but, just as the Cross precedes resurrection, they also are the source of pain. Simeon reveals to the Blessed Virgin in the moment of joy that she will experience great pain. Pain of spirit by which she experience the Passion of her Son. Here is the bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose (+397):

“And a sword will pierce through your own soul.” Neither Scripture nor history tells us that Mary departed this life by a violent death. For it is not the soul but the body that can be pierced by a material sword. This, therefore, proves that Mary was not unaware of the heavenly mystery: “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Heb 4:12) God’s Word exposes the thoughts and intents of the heart, because all things are open and naked to the eyes of Mary’s Son, to whom the secrets of our conscience are visible. [Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.61]

And let us not forget the person of Anna.

Origen has an interesting note about her presence at this mysterious event:

Because it was necessary that women too should be saved, after Simeon there came a woman who was a prophet. Scripture says of her, “And Anna was a prophetess, a daughter of Phanuel, from the tribe of Asher.” How beautiful the order is! The woman did not come before the man. First, came Simeon, who took the child and held Him in his arms. Then came the woman. Her exact words are not recorded. But the account says in general terms that “she gave priase to the Lord and spoke about him to everyone who was awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.” [Homilies on the Gospel of Luke 17.9]

The woman did not become the man.  We can turn this inside out and also say the man did not become the woman.  Each had their role with a mysterious content not to be subverted or confused.  This is also a point of reflection about the dignity of true marriage in the way GOD intended marriage.

The Presentation, with its dynamics of purification and, I will also bring in, of circumcision, of Law and of ritual purity and of blood, are perhaps hard for us to grasp in this day of egalitarianism. However, God’s ways are strange to us always, perhaps more so today in a desacralized society. Men and women are different, and have different roles in life and in the history of salvation. The Presentation underscores that this is as true now as it ever was. The point is this: who knows what it all means, but it is so; who knows why it is that way, but men and women, equally God’s image and equal in diginity, are given different and complimentary tasks.

Another thing to notice in the Presentation is that age plays a role. We have the very youngest in the Person of Jesus, those who are in the prime of life, Mary and Joseph, and the elderly Simeon and Anna. Ambrose writes:

Anna, who, by reason of her years of widowhood and her virtues, is set before us as wholly worthy of belief, announces that the Redeemer of all people has come…. Not without purpose, however, does he make mention of the eighty-four years of her widowhood, because both the seven twelves and the two forties seemed to imply a number that is sacred. [Exposition of the Gospel of Luke 2.62]

The mystery of the Presentation speaks to us all and its impact in the midst of joy embraces us all within the bloody Sacrifice of the Cross.

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 not 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!