Jean Hani said that the situation of the Virgin Mary in the doctrine and practice of Christianity continues to be afflicted with some ambiguity: on the one hand, in fact, the Church puts Mary very high, far above all the saints , and dogmatically declared "Mother of God" but, on the other hand, has continued to reaffirm that it considers purely human condition.
So to go to the fund, which is also the mystery of Mary, is better, in our view temporarily waive its theological approach, speculative order, and prefer the liturgical approach to the problem.
The title
"Mother of God, when you think about it, seems an extravagant expression on the monotheistic context, seems to have been completely satisfactory explanation in theological speculation, it is explained and justified by saying that, like Mary the mother of Christ, and as Christ is God, she is also mother of God. But he feels that this explanation does not reach the merits of the expression or exhausts all its contents.
liturgical texts, in turn, transmit the profound insights of faith and open to the spirit of knowledge regions beyond the reach of theological speculation. not just speaking of the texts from the Holy Scripture and the Church has chosen for the various feasts of Mary, text whose value is too obvious to insist on it, but also creations of order 'literary' in the highest sense, as hymns, prayers, etc.. Are the work personalities of great spiritual stature and that the Church has logged introducing them in worship and giving them tools and knowledge value for the faithful, which expresses the well-known adage lex lex orandi credendi "the rule of prayer is the rule of faith. "
To clarify the problem Marian epiclesis study essentially different to the Virgin, or the names with which is invoked and found, on the one hand, biblical texts, hymns and prayers made to the offices of the different parties, and, moreover, particularly in its litanies. These names, in effect, that are dozens and dozens throughout the Marian liturgy, reflecting the long and unremitting efforts of believers, supported by the Church to try to identify and to say the inexhaustible riches of the personality Mary. That is, in our opinion, the best way to access it.
The epiclesis that we consider belong to the Latin liturgy and eastern litanies, Byzantine and Syrian. Found in the readings of the Old and the New Testament of the Mass and Vespers of the Virgin in their anthems, anthems and motets, the Regina Coeli cone, the Alma Redemptoris Mater, etc., and, as already mentioned, prayers Litan, which are, for the Latin liturgy, the "Litany of Loreto", and the Byzantine, the "Prayer abides." be precise, however, that not all of these pieces epiclesis liturgical interest us to the topic at hand: good number of them, indeed, have only devotional value, and make it clear that we do not have anything to say that dismissive, of course, we simply want to say it will do nothing to delve into the mystery of Mary. Which we consider, however, and most of the time: they have an air at once poetic and mysterious, even amazing, are precisely those that should be further to advance our study.
EARTH (*)
The Incarnation of the Word of God in the virginal womb, as is often said, made the "marriage of heaven and earth", which is why Christian tradition has always perceived a close relationship between Mary and the earth. Father S. Boulgakof, in his great work Verbe Incarna Du, recounts his own making, these words of Dostoevsky: "The Virgin Mary is the Mother Earth wet. " There is indeed a collusion between a woman, mother and earth. The land is maternal and nurturing power, diffuse forces receptacle. Tirelessly procreate matrix, summarizes in itself the creative principle of life, nature, and therefore sacred in nature, is a hierophany "Holy Land, which generates all things", thus invoking the ancient sage cosmou Greece in the Core, and the wise Sioux replied in similar terms: "Mother Earth, you are sacred ... We come to you, we are part of you, "thus says Hehapa Sapa (Black Elk). The man himself, indeed, feel "son of the earth, like plants and trees having received it its substance is not Genesis explains the creation of Adam? Not what the Psalmist sings: "My substance was not hidden when I was made in secret, fabric art in the depths of the earth" (Ps. 138-139)? Hence the name "Demetrios ',' Dimitri ', ie' son of Demeter, the Earth." and if she feels close to Earth, much more than your partner, it is because it mimics the Earth when she gives birth and is aware of breaking into the mainstream activity of the life of nature, because the earth is an organism inert, is a living organism has a body composed of elements from its soil, stones, the mountains and their caves, images of vast array multiplied, so the Virgin Mary is associated with the caves and their surrogates, the crypts, from the Grotto of the Nativity to the Massabielle, and the earth not only has a body, but also has a soul, and the mysterious currents that run through it convey the vital energy. The Earth becomes for us a person, because in man the world is aware of itself, the world and each of its components: the land, which also has a life, but consciousness is hypostatize in man and it becomes Demeter, the Terra Mater.
and makes it eminently in that it was the Women for Excellence, the new Eve, and that's why we relied on formulas how are you drawn from the Achates, 'Hail, land of incorruptible fruit, "" Hail, friend Labrador culture of men (God). " It is a tradition that dates back East to the first centuries of Christianity, to San Gregorio Taumaturgo, St. Ephrem, etc., And in an old hymn of the West even found these two verses in which Mary is completely assimilated nurturing Earth:
Hail, earth that has produced
wheat that feeds us.
is especially this aspect that was developed in particular in the magnificent following texts, which belong the Eastern liturgies. Here first antiphon at Mass siriomaronita accompanying the transfer of gifts to the altar (it is Christ speaking):
I am the living bread come down from heaven to earth for the world to live through me
. The Father sent me, incorporeal Word, and delicious
wheat grain in a fertile land, I received the womb of Mary.
Syrian At Mass, we found that other anthem:
We glorify you, Creator of the world and order of the universe, blessed
has sprouted roots and its growth has taken the thirsty land, Mary, and all creation is perfume filling his glorious sweetness.
Reading these texts, one can not help but remember the wonderful verses that Aeschylus, in a fragment of his lost tragedy The Danaides, sing to Mother Earth and her sacred marriage with Heaven divine sacred Heaven feels
desire to penetrate the earth, to enjoy this
hymen: the rain falls as a husband kiss from heaven to earth, and behold
stop the deadly grazing herds are present
and Demeter, while
spring flowering ends under the shining dew.
In the passages quoted above, Mary acquires a cosmic because what is done it is the wedding of human nature with the divine nature of the creative Word, and that He brings to the world she is the Son of Heaven and Earth.
Like Earth, then, Mary is the mother, but is a virgin mother, and by assimilating it to the ground, is assimilated to a virgin land, "Hail, no-till field that has recognized the divine Tang around the world, "sings ACAT, which is the concern the hymn of Adam of St. Victor: Terra
qua non arabilis
fructum parturiit.
The issue is already in Tertullian and Saint Irenaeus, Adversus developed in its haereses this idea that Mary is the land of paradise once again has again virgin for God to mix with it the new Adam.
similar characters and qualities found in the other symbol of the Great Mother: the land. Is sometimes considered that the earth is an element less noble than the water and, a fortiori. the air and fire. No doubt affected in part by a symbolic "negative" because it is located "below" the peak shift away from "Heaven" is "on top" and where lies the divine world , hence the image of the earth may suggest the decline. the gravity and darkness. even the realm of death. But it is equally true that symbolism has a "positive." because it is the image of stability. fertility. Of the substantiality y. therefore. of purity that is obvious. precisely. through the sources we spoke a moment ago, and the substantiality implies that the depth and strength. Moreover, the situation as "low" of the earth. on the top floor of the cosmos. if I may say so. contrast is rich in an essential quality: humility. Humility. it just takes its name from one of the names of the earth. humus. and prominent feature is the raw material and its human manifestation. the Holy Mother of God. We have here an example of application of the "symbolism invested" in which an object most of the cosmic order elemental is suitable to represent a reality of an ontological or spiritual higher.
The suggestive power of the element "earth" is all that is most often considered could represent the "Matter" sensitive, while in form "plastic", capable of receiving the forms-like water-and that is the potter's clay, and as hard and tough, stone, marble, which is the most obvious image of the substantiality and stability. and spiritual safety, solid core of salvation, but that nevertheless is still able to lend a hand shape the sculptor, for example. But above all, land. the great land essential constituent of this world, is the "Mother. the array that receives the germs to develop. The water precedes the creation and produces germs. the earth receives in its bosom. produces and develops life forms.
How can we fail here too the virtues of Mary? In the heart of the earth born life forms of this world. and arguably, to use an expression of the parent S. Boulgakov. which is a "Cryptogram Maternity Dei in which God-Man is born, the supreme goal of all the created world." As Prakriti. The Virgin is the earth, is "the Mother, the moist earth." in the words of Dostoevsky. and nowhere can this be seen better uptake that the icon of the Nativity, which takes two forms. of the Virgin herself. lying on the same soil, Demetra true image, and the cave, well known chthonic image, which is also found in Lourdes, representing the womb of Mother Earth and by protecting Jesus, so that the Virgin Mary appears so at the same time, in its human and cosmic dimension.
TREE
Thus, ACAT and Syrian hymns, Virgin has become a paradise where you planted the Tree of Life "spiritual paradise that has at its core the Tree Life ' and has even become the same tree, "Tree of tasty fruit that nourishes the faithful", "blessed tree which has fruit (Christ) that seeks the joy of those who eat it." not be surprised by such assimilation. The tree, one of the most universal sacred symbols is the image of the inexhaustible source of cosmic fertility, of vegetation, which is summarized in him whole: the cycle of death and resurrection, regeneration through life's vital energy land, was equally well suited to symbolize spiritual regeneration. Moreover, when rooted in the earth for growth, says rising to life heaven: "The Eden of God is Mary ... it has left the Tree of Life and raises up to heaven to the exiles." Wisdom itself, which is identified with Mary, tells a biblical passage chosen for the readings of certain offices of the Virgin: "I am the Cedars of Lebanon, cypress on Mount Zion, and Cades palm Bananas to the waters edge. " For all its nature, the tree was called to be considered a manifestation of divinity and, more particularly, the Earth Mother, who offers him one of the most spectacular productions, and that was normal was also assimilated to the tree, and the Tree of Life, of course, but all the trees to the extent that the Tree of Life is in no way an archetype.
GARDEN
We have seen many statues of the Virgin was found in a tree or under a tree (...) otherwise, the scope of Mary is all plant life: the fields , crops, vines and flowers. That is why it sometimes has been attributed to green.
The Song of Songs, where it has taken so many themes developed in meditation on the Virgin and hymns and invocations in his honor, especially given a more famous, that of the 'Shed', 'Closed Garden' , evocación de los jardines de Oriente mantenidos secretos tras altos muros y en los que abundan las plantas fragantes que esparcen sus deliciosos perfumes. En un sermón que sirve de «lección» en el Oficio del 8 de diciembre, Pascasio Radberto, autor del siglo IX, habla así de María:
Se canta de ella en el Cantar de los Cantares (4,12): "Jardín cerrado, fuente sellada, lo que de ti emana es el paraíso". Sí, verdaderamente un jardín de delicias, todas las especies de flores están allí reunidas, y todos los perfumes de las virtudes.
Este tema del «Jardín cerrado» conoció un gran auge durante la Edad Media en la ilustración de los «Libros Hours' that represents the Virgin Mary in a celestial garden. and the offices of 7 and 14 September, the Byzantine liturgy hails Mary in these words: "Garden Light", "Garden vivo," You are the mystic garden, without being cultivated, has germinated to Christ " .
FLOR
Mary is the garden, and of course is the flower, and his mouth have been the words of the young heroine of the Song of Songs (2.1): "I am flower fields and the lily of the valley. " and why May is dedicated to Mary, because that is when The explosion of all vegetation and is the time when the gardens are covered with the first flowers. And that is full of meaning, as the flower is full of rich symbolism, otherwise similar to the tree: like this, the flower of the grain, open land where he was buried, and rises on a vertical shaft looking at the sky opened, it was therefore quite normal that he saw in her the image of the Virgin. So it is invoked with the name "Rosa divina" in the litany of ACAT and "Mystical Rose" Rosa Mystica, on the Litany of the Western Church. and liturgy puts in his mouth these words of wisdom: "I am ... Rose of Sharon. " San Pedro Damián said it is the 'Rose of Paradise. " A manuscript of the Biblioteca Nacional de Paris, 12483 Rosarius, is all the mystique of the Virgin florida in the Middle Ages under the sign of the rose. Count Raymond of Capua to St. Agnes of Montepulciano was a joyous vision of the Virgin-Rosa, and it is known that in Lourdes, before the first apparition, Bernadette was shaken wild rose before the appearance thereof, and the hip is still there. In the rose, the symbolism of the flower seems to reach their highest potential: rose is destined to become the Rosa Mystica, which expresses the realization of possibilities contained in the seed and, thus, spiritual fulfillment; why is the symbol at the same time the supreme divine knowledge, mystical, and pure love. In the Divine Comedy, Rose lays out the path of the chosen to heaven the song 21 to 23, and 30 songs that Dante sees himself blessed and Paradise are a huge pink.
Earlier we saw that the Eastern liturgies assimilated to the Virgin with a field that had germinated Christ as a grain of wheat to feed the world. But Mary did not only provides spiritual food, which is his Son, but also ensures food plots for their children. long understood the Christian piety, which was entrusted with the care to ensure the prosperity of the crops: hence these Notre-Dame des Champs (Our Lady of the Fields), Notre-Dame des Blés (Our Lady of Wheat), Notre-Dame des Moissons (Our Lady of the Harvest), or Notre-Dame du Pain (Our Lady of Pan). liturgy itself does not disdain to hold this protective role of menial jobs: honor the Byzantine liturgical calendar, May 15-please note the date, Our Lady of the Seeds, and sing the doxology in the trade:
Christ, Word of the Father , have fallen like rain upon the field of
Virgin and as a grain of wheat perfect, have appeared where there was no
sower scattered seed and food you've become for the world.
And we should mention all those little paraliturgies liturgy or popular, such as the offering of the harvest, each year, NotreDame Panetiere (the panetiere was a piece of furniture to keep the bread. N. T) ( Aire-sur-la-Lys), or to offer the last sheaf cut, offering practiced in several provinces, including Poitou, Berry, Beauce, etc. and do not think that these popular liturgies are neglected by the Church, instead of always encouraged, at least until some time, as shown in this prayer composed in the eleventh century by St. Peter Damian: Oh
all goodness, oh Almighty , one-word commands that do not hail
stoned us or ruin us ... Calms the storm, brings serene
time, bring us the warm light, the clouds disappear.
repeat the same practices during the harvest, is not the wine, bread, the living symbol of the heavenly food evoked a moment ago? In Champagne, it points to a statue of Notre-Dame des Vignes (Our Lady of the Vines) presiding over a vineyard, and in several regions are made, or did, processions in which they had a statue of Our Lady decorated with clusters . Also plant the vine is an expression of immortality, like wine, for that in the Middle East is often considered the symbol Tree of Life. and liturgical invocations to Mary join those already noted, in which the Virgin is assimilated to the tree: "O Mother of God, you are the true vine that brings forth the fruit of life", "Vine has offered the cluster of blessings to those who drink it "," Vine has produced wine that rejoices the soul. " These invocations, as can be seen, relate to a mother's role human capital: the feed, and coincides with that of the Cosmic Mother, Mother Earth.
Hence also those Nuestra Señora de la Leche, which is found mostly in Britain, giving the precious liquid to women who breastfeed: Notre-Dame des Marais, in Fougeres, Notre-Dame du Sein, in Lorient, Notre-Dame de Treguron in Gouézec, etc. New manifestation of the first attribute of the mother, fertility, for which Virgin is invoked in favor of infertile women, or to have a good birth. Thus, in Toulouse, are consecrated to the Virgin Daurade negrg of the "fertility belt" to let pregnant women have a safe delivery. Moreover, in the Middle Ages did not hesitate to represent the Virgin pregnant or parturient, as Cucugnan (Pyrénées Orientales) or Issoire. Today little remains of it, the image is intesesante the Black Madonna of Dijon, Notre-Dame de Bon Espoir (Our Lady of Good Hope) that appears with the bulging belly and breasts gravid (see illustration).
The fertility of the Virgin is also extended to animals, protect and prosper domestic herds. Hence the prayers for the flock, the blessings of herds, as in Le Forez and L'Aubrac, August IS, and la.misma date, Elna (Pyrénées Orientales), the blessing of the stables to prevent disease contagious. The most spectacular is the Notre-Dame de Vassivière, in Auvergne, where the statue is the pace of transhumance in the spring, protective black Madonna rises from the church to Vassivière Besse, in the high mountain which has a chapel in the grass, and herds, and the Virgin falls again in September. These facts are related to the theme of bovid, which plays an important role in the cult of Mary. We have seen in the previous chapter, in fact, that in the legends of invention are generally those that allow the horse to rediscover a certain statue of Mary, so in Er (in Roussillon) in Bolleme (in Manosque) in Villedieu (near Saint-Fluor) in Lantenay (in the area of \u200b\u200bDijon) in Bourisp (in the Pyrenees), etc. In Sarrance (in the Aspe Valley, Pyrénées Orientales), have had a bull that used to swim across the river every day to go to kneel before "a stone representing the Virgin, the people called Notre-Dame de la Pierre (Our Lady of the Rock) and ensured the fertility of the fields.
This last feature deserves attention: we refer to fertility, as the bull is a powerful manifestation of the life force. Noted that his association with the "legends" of the Virgin could be justified by the fact that the animal also is associated with the Nativity scene. This thesis is not negligible and it does seem that this animal here is related to the virile power that acts on the "femininity" of the earth, and hence a possible transposition the virginal conception through the heavenly power, in this case would be represented by the bull, which is totally plausible. Anyway, the idea seems to support the liturgy, because in the litany of ACAT is sung to Mary as "Cow has given birth to a calf without blemish." Let us note finally that the Taurus is the second spring, exactly 20 April to 20 May this period, the month of May, whose relationship with the Virgin and we have seen, and this sign, on the other hand, is a Earth sign telluric related to fertility. We will return to discuss the meaning of the zodiacal sign in the area in question.
WATER
The body of the earth, as we said, is crossed by streams of living energy, but also visit other energy flows, water flows. The source, the spring, at the same time as the land itself, is the image of the mother, and so is, therefore, of the Virgin: "Source living and incorruptible" ACAT sings, "inexhaustible source of life-giving water" , "O Mother of God, thou art the living fountain flowing with abundance." It is the "Source sealed" the Song of Songs, of which we spoke. From the first centuries, as can be seen for example in the Gospel Arab children, Mary is assimilated into the Fons Vitte, "Source of life ', the infinite Source which is cause and principle of growth and has inspired the icon of the Virgin zoodotes peghead," life-giving source ", represented sitting Children in the middle of a pile of falling water to a pond where there are blind, paralyzed waiting for the cure. That's because water is the original way of being, cradle of germs, parent of the possibilities of existence, the water, the earth and women, are the circuit antropocósmico fertility.
wells found in many ancient churches dedicated to Mary represent the 'Source sealed, "the" Source of Life "(...) To this must be added the fact, already mentioned, that several statues of the Virgin were found in wells or sources (...) Do not governed also Virgin hot springs? (...)
Returning the deep sense that the analysis has revealed two hierogramático of this Name, will have been warned and the amazing relationship that quickly awakens from the nature of the Virgin and her role in the mystery of the Incarnation in as 'universal mother', is that "water main" on which he planned the Spirit of God and, at the time of the Annunciation, the Angel says, "The Holy Spirit will about yourself and the power of the Most High will overshadow you "(Luke 1.35). The angel is almost copied from the text of Genesis that say: "The Spirit of God overshadowed Waters." And modified, following Chauvet, the usual translation for the term used by the Angel (episkiasei in Greek) has the sense of "shadow cover" with the connotation of "hatching" of "fruitful", just like the verb merakhepheth in the text of Moses, verb translated incorrectly by "planned", the complete verse is: ruach Elohim merakhepheth the phenel ha-maim. So the conception of the Messiah Mary's womb is operated as a completely analogous to the creation of the world. Later we will see why.
The waters symbolize all the virtues, are like the array of possibilities for existence. Top of the undifferentiated and the virtual, water is the foundation of all cosmic manifestation and the receptacle of all germs. It is therefore entirely appropriate symbol of the primordial substance of the Feminine Principle of Prakriti, the Magna Mater in all its forms, so in its Indian name of Maha Devi, Devi says the Upanishad:
The place of my birth is the water in the ocean interior, who knows what gets Devi's abode ... I who in the beginning created the father of this world.
The physical quality that underlies this symbolism is the plasticity of the water: absolutely no way, as the raw material, but, as she is apt to take all forms, is "virgin" and, Therefore, in itself, perfectly "pure" and "immaculate", Virgo immaculata, integrated et caste. And this physical attribute corresponds to a quality of behavior, submission, perfect submission to the action to be engaged, beautiful image of submission to God's will on the part of the Virgin Mary, but by no means "servant" : Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, that's the answer to the messenger of God, and glorifies his Magnificat, if I may say so, his humility: "My soul magnifies the Lord ... because he put his eyes on the lowliness of his servant. "
That purity and humility of "our sister water," as he called San Francisco, makes it the reflective element par excellence, the natural mirror. What a wonderful display is the sky reflecting in the calm water of a lake! and poets, who know instinctively switch from the visible to invisible, felt that there was something sacred in that vision, and Hugo in these verses of the Tristesse d'Olympio, the long looked
great ways
Let nature takes in the peaceful fields;
dreamed up the night
He missed all day along the ravine. Admiring
alternative in the sky, the divine face,
Lake, divine mirror. How
not see the last two verses the image of God the Creator is reflected in the fundamental nature? and thus better understand the invocation addressed to Mary: Speculum Justitia: 'Mirror of Justice, "and Justice, according to its scriptural meaning, here means the" Holiness, "the holiness of God. Water "virgin" perfectly "pure" perfectly "submissive," Mary, like a calm lake, is a "divine mirror" the mirror of the creator.
LIVING WATERS
But there is only the calm water of the tranquil lakes, there are also the waters that appear and jump from springs and fountains, its movement is an expression of the powerful energies that they hide, because if it is a cosmic forms of raw material, water in its submission still get the creative energy and converted into "shakti" turn becomes a creator. Water is the "living water", the "water of life", which fertilizes the earth with all the strength he has received and distributed. Hence, these springs, wells casts these sources everywhere found associated with the presence of the Virgin. This is the "Source sealed" spoken of the Song of Songs (4.2) and that ultimately is nothing but the primitive source that appears in Genesis (2.6): "He rose from the a spring that watered land surface of the earth. " Is certainly right when he says Grillot de Givry, in his beautiful book initiatique Lourdes ville, that this verse refers to the condition of purity of creation when communicating directly with the "Source of Life", which was dried after the 'Fall' but began to flow again after the Redemption, and adds that 'Mary feeds this source, as the source of the shrines. " These sources, as we have seen, by virtue purify and heal.
FIRE
What a contrast now with the following epiclesis that remind us all of the symbolism of fire! "Hail, fiery chariot of the Word ',' Hail, a pillar of fire that shines for which are in darkness, "" Hail, bush burning and not consumed. " This last symbol is taken from the famous scene in which Yahweh appears to Moses (Ex 3.2) and, in the Eastern tradition, became good start in sign of virginity Mary: God is hidden in the bush of flame does not burn and retains its integrity, and also locked himself the divine Word in the virginal womb leaving it intact.
ASTROS
But where poetic imaged Marian piety was mostly of the stars. is time to remember how far were sensitive to heaven men of past centuries, the Greek and Roman poetry is full of developments on the topic of the day sky, night sky and stars, and this continued even during Middle Ages. People knew that naturally raise your head high, as befits the man, providentially has a vertical position it normally took to turn our gaze toward God headquarters before the mechanical and materialistic era stubbornly returning his eyes to the ground and no longer allows you to read the "signs in the sky." All the poetry of heaven, especially the night sky, it seems condensed in this beautiful verse out of Euripides' Electro: dark night
Oh, mother of the stars of gold!
A hymn of Lauds for the feast of February 2 and called to her: "Glorious among virgins, sublime among the stars." Mary was matched first to the moon in reference to a passage from the Song of Songs, which many texts gave the anthems of the trades, whence come all the "Common of the Virgin." Here referred to the moon: "Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon?" More significant still is that it represents Mary with feet flat on the crescent, according to the passage of Revelation (Chapter 12): "a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head." We discuss the sun and stars for now see the sense of the presence of the moon.
LUNA Y SOL
The moon symbolizes
traditional rhythms of life increases, decreases, disappears, reappears, her life is subject to the universal law of becoming, including death but also resurrection, the resurrection which precisely represents the crescent moon. The moon controls all levels of cosmic evolution governed by the cyclical: water, vegetation, fertility, the tides and the fertility of women, hence its relationship with the sign of Taurus, with which we have found that is the second sign of spring and important detail, the "place of exaltation" of the moon.
Christian thought, second heir to the thought old, mused at length on this issue and applied it to the mystery of Christ and his mother. In this thought, Christ is the sun, but the Suns light of Christ to the dark land taken by the maternal mediation of Mary (and the Church), because the moon is the symbol of that being that received light and maternally received with humility the development and prosperity on earth follow the rhythm of the maternal age.
This theme was developed a kind of myth of the "marriage of sun and moon 'Moon is pregnant with the light of the sun, becomes a mother and engenders all living things. In the silence and darkness, the 'moon' talks with his beloved, is the dialogue Mystics of the 'harmony of the spheres' of the Pythagoreans, as evoked Plutarch in his treatise On the face on the moon, "Selene described in all ages love circles around Helios, and he receives, by binding , the power to give birth. " Thus, the Moon is the intermediary between the sun and earth, the mediator, whose function attenuate the strength of the light adding to the "fire" Sun "water" of his being, the "celestial water of the moon" the "heavenly dew" which is a mix of "hot" and "wet" to generate the creative principle of life on earth.
From there, Christian reflection focused on the moon and the sun of Christmas: Mary has given birth to the "Sun of Justice" has become its 'mirror', "Speculum justitiae", "Mirror of Justice" as they call the Litany of Loreto, driving at night the chariot of the sun in the morning, the Moon with the Sun has joined in the destruction of his incarnation night, and so is the mother of all living.
AURORA
This theme also belong epiclesis who ingest the dawn: "Who is this that appears like the dawn?", "Aurora mysterious day ' "Aurora light."
DOOR
To this we must add also what makes Mary the "Puerta del Sol", in the motet Ave Regina coelorum, it presents as well: ex qua save world carries lux est orta, "Hail, door through which the light has risen on the world" and an anthem of the office on September 8, in the Byzantine rite: "She is the East Gate entrance ready for the Great King ', the image us to the "door orientab" Temple of Jerusalem, door closed and reserved for Yahweh theophanies but also reminds us, and I would say first of all, the 'door the sun ", the point at which the sun rises in the East, and especially to the" door solstice "Christmas by the sunlight, to continue rising in the heart of the winter night. With the same idea linking the invocation of the Litany to the Virgin called "Stella Matutina", "Morning Star", in fact, this star is actually a planet, the planet Venus, announces, to appear for morning, sunrise: ACAT why sing unto Mary: "Hail, star in the world does come to Christ, the great sun."
When the Litany of the symbolism of the "door" is presented in Porta Coeli short form, Janua coeli, has another meaning. Means that Mary is the gate of heavenly paradise, such as San Pedro OHIM sings this anthem for the Advent season: La Virgen pregnant
the Word Turns gate of Paradise:
brought God to the world
We opened up the sky.
LUNA
And that brings us to the subject of the moon and the lunar image of Mary. To understand, we must place the expression Janua coeli in the old system of representation of the cosmos, built on the phasing of the seven planetary spheres, the first of the moon between the world there under, sublumar this world called, subject to the cycle of becoming, in the higher spheres, including the sun, which participate in the ongoing life and divine "heaven" in the religious sense. From this perspective, the moon is called Janua coeli, is the passageway of the lower world to the divine world. It will be recalled that in the celestial ascent of the Divine Comedy, Dante placed precisely in the sphere of the moon Purgatory, for sinners to repentance opens the way to the sun, the Milky Way and the "Circle supreme", and there Plutarch says the treaty cited above, were purified in a state fair to ascend to the abode of the Gods. By Mary the Janua coeli, it meant the huge role it plays in the way of salvation, not only because it brought the world to Christ, the author of salvation, but also because it continues to assist the man in his journey on this path, in Women's figure evoked the Apocalypse before the Virgin, as it is, is over the moon and is clothed with the sun, gives birth to men and passed the field and mortal world to the eternal world. We will have several chances to talk about it again.
STAR
we mentioned just now Stella morning invocation of the Litany. There is another that opens the familiar motet Ave, maris stella, 'Hail, Star of the Sea, and this time places the Virgin in the "field of stars" and even at the highest point. Because this "Star of the Sea" is the star, "without setting star" in the Byzantine prayers, because it is always fixed and, therefore, determines the Axis mundi, the cosmic pole around which describes the whole sky revolution. Therefore, this Polaris became a symbol hugely significant in all religious traditions. From a practical standpoint, it serves to determine the direction of travel of all men, and more specifically of the sailors, hence the name of "Star of the Sea", which refers to Mary's role as patron and protector of sailors. Their shrines are in particular those who harbor or harbored a Black Madonna: St. Victor at Marseilles, where on 2 February, the famous still navettes distributed, pastries in small ships, in honor of the "Good Mother black 'patron seafarers, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where according to legend founded the statue arrived in unabarca self-directed, in the Mont-Saint-Michel, where the chapel of the Virgin is under the invocation of Stella Maris, in Rocamadour, where chronicle records many miracles that have benefited the survivors.
There is another stellar sky region where we find Mary, is the sixth sign of the Zodiac, called just the "sign of the Virgin." This name, incidentally, does not come from Mary, but of the Virgin Astrea, which belongs to the Greco-Roman mythology and legend as Hesiod and Aratos concern us. Events this in mind that the Virgin Astrea, who personified justice, lived among men in the golden age in the Silver Age, a time when mankind began to lose primordial innocence, withdrew to the solitude, and the Bronze Age left the land, which was infected by sin, to look at the sky near the constellation Bootes, which is holding the splendid Tang (the Tang, Spica Virginis, is the main star of the constellation). All legend was especially strong at the time of Augustus Neopythagoreans circles, particularly P. Nigidio Figulo, which was the Grand Master of the Guild during the reign of the emperor. With the momentum of revival inaugurated by Augustus, was making his way is the belief that his reign could well advertise something as a new Golden Age; belief echoed in the famous Virgil Eclogue IV of his Eclogues, where he sings the return of the Virgin Astrea:
The great number of centuries begins anew:
is Back Lady, turn the kingdom of Satum.
All this poem is suffused with the atmosphere of Neopythagoreans circles, which was part of Virgil, and believed in the nearby regeneration of mankind. For century mystical spirits of Virgil, the time was really the end of the "Great Year" painful transformation whose father went to the new golden age connected with the return of Astraea, the Virgen de la Justice.
If we have expanded a bit with this is because the Middle Ages always established a relationship between Mary and the "prophecy" of Virgil on the one hand, and the constellation of the Virgin on the other. Abelard, in his Epistle VII, stated that Virgilio, announcing to the consulate of the miraculous birth Pollio, had wanted to call mankind to rejoice in it as a notice of redemption. In fact, the belief that Virgil had announced the Christian era and the "Virgin" of the Eclogue IV was the mother of Christ went back to the early Christian centuries: Filargirio, comment on a note of the poem verse 6 says: "The Virgin, ie, justice, or rather, Mary." In the tradition of Greek Christianity, attributed to Constantine and transmitted by Eusebio, verse 6 was amended as follows: "the Virgin will come to the king that we longed" with a note that stated that the Virgin was Mary. and then came the Middle Ages, which had Virgil for genuine prophet, like the Old Testament surely was not wrong.
As for the zodiacal constellation of the Virgin, plays a large role in the cult of Mary. First on the calendar of festivals, the constellation appears in the east in March, rising in the South during the months of April, May and June, and then descends to the west from July to September, on the other hand, the sun enters the sign on August 23 and remains there until 22 September, already have noticed that the major Marian feasts are located precisely at these times: March 25, May, 15 August and 8 September. Furthermore, remember the amazing relationship that links the zodiacal constellation in question with the introduction of some Marian shrines. The great cathedrals, which over the centuries XII and XIII were put under the patronage of Our Lady in the territory of Northern France (Champagne, Picardy, Ile de France, the ancient Neustria) are divided according to an order that reproduces accurately approximate the ground with the order of the stars of the constellation of the Virgin. Thus, the shank is located in Reims, the star Gamma in Chartres, the Delta, in Amiens, the Epsilon, in Bayeux, the stars correspond to small Evreux, Etampes, Laon and Notre-Dame de l'Épine (a small star near the Tang).
This should not surprise us, it is known that all traditional people used to establish sanctuaries and major cities according to a projection on the ground of this or that part of the sky map, projection, which of course was related to a precise symbolism of which are an example the events just described. The beautiful works of Jean Richer well have clarified this aspect of sacred geography as the case of Greece and Rome. This mode should be the conclusion, fully justified, of course, that all parts of the world are in "sympathy" and that is important, emphasizing their relationships, awareness of the unity of the cosmos and, particularly in the case before us, "capture" the beneficent influence descending from heaven to earth.
All these considerations justify Mary and stars the famous invocation to be addressed in several motets of the Trade: Regina Coeli, coelorum Regina, "Queen of Heaven," "Queen of Heaven", which refers to the image repeatedly evoked Women's apocalyptic vision celestial and otherwise materialized iconography often giving the Virgin a dark blue mantle sown with stars.
PALOMA
And should not it also "Queen of Heaven" that Mary is the bird has been treated, and more particularly to the dove? Two of the Magnificat antiphons at Vespers on February 11, the feast of the apparition of Mary, once again take his praise of the Song of Songs, (2.10, 6.8) and say: "Come, my dove hidden ' and "This is my dove, my perfect, my immaculate." This assimilation goes back to far behind, as found in the oldest known prayer to Mary, published by Reizenstein, which proclaims: "The Dove has started the death to men. " and this gives us a gloss explanatory ACAT in this invocation: "Paloma has begotten the Merciful."
SCALE
This is also the sense of another title that is given: "Jacob's Ladder." It is known passage in Genesis (28.12 ..) which has an episode of the patriarch's life:
had a dream saw a ladder resting on the ground and whose top touched the sky, and over it went up and down angels. Above all was the Lord.
This scale is obviously a picture of the universe, from the bottom, the earth, to top, God, and that itself is also a symbol of ontological and metaphysical, the deployment of multiple states of being, from the lowest, represented by the earth to the highest, that of pure Being, and Angels personify the intermediate states above the human state land. So, call the Virgin "Jacob's Ladder" is to say that it has integrated itself all ontological levels to "divine region." It's another way of saying it's "Queen of the world," Queen of Heaven "and" Queen of the angels. "
If we now recapitulate all the comments made on epiclesis of the Virgin, we realize that they relate in order that we have followed, the four elements constituting the visible universe: Earth, Water, Air and Fire, so we see that the figure of Mary that they seen covering the whole visible world, but she dominates the world, says this other invocation: Regina mundi, "Queen of the world, in an antiphon for the feast of Our Lady of Mount Caramel and Our Lady of Sorrows , or between the Byzantines: "Empress of the universe." All Christian thinking, once he felt well this universal dimension of the Mother of God is found evoked as a poet Villon which expresses in his famous ballad, according to the traditional tripartite structure of the world:
Lady of Heaven, ruler Tercena, marsh Emperatriz
hell.
And the great rose window in the facade of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is the Virgin in the center with the Zodiac in the outer circle: a way to proclaim that Mary is truly the Empress of the World, since which is based at the Centre, at the point marked by the Axis mundi.
All these invocations demonstrate the efforts that inspired writers and scholars were to try to express the unfathomable riches of the Virgin through symbols. At modern minds, we are aware of it, find it difficult at times to grasp its scope and, above all, will be tempted to look at what they see as inconsistency: how to, to take just one example, the idea that the Virgin is " land "and at the same time, the 'moon' or 'Star of the Sea"? But do not try to coordinate these different symbols in a system to point to rationalize, that is, in fact, to destroy them. There is among them, in fact, logical coherence, but something much more interesting, ontological convergence, for each symbol-speak, of course, true symbols, not allegories, is also of their specific determination, an image of the whole, a microcosm that contains virtually the macrocosm. When presented in a wide range, as in the case that concerns us here, do not form a manifold in which join in a linear sequence, but a multiple unit, and radiating lines leading from a central object or being you have to qualify, and leading to it, albeit asymptotically. All these cosmic symbols have been paraded before our eyes look to see something of the mystery of Mary, are the mediators needed to, using images of the sensible world, to reach the intelligible otherwise than by abstract concepts that can not reach the heart.
WARRIOR
Because it's "Queen of the world, Mary is the Virgo Potens, the" Virgin most powerful, "with a motherly power exercised in favor of men: it is Auxilium Christianorum," the relief of the Christians. " A relief involved in all circumstances and in first place in an area that is no longer used to find the war. Yet, the liturgy has not stopped celebrating it as a formidable warrior, "terrible as an army in battle formation" (Antiphon of Vespers August 15). An antiphon for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary calls "majestic and powerful Virgin, Tower of David, a thousand shields are suspended from it, and all the host of the brave", invoking also taken from the Song of Songs (4.4). We also find the image "Tower of David" is also found in the Litany of Loreto, in terms of ACAT to proclaim Mary "strong tower", "Wall impregnable", "Force fighters," "Relief of warriors ',' Terror of the enemies like thunder, "" Ray to shoot down the enemies. "
History has preserved the memory of their statements they made in several places to call "Our Lady of Victory. " For example, in Tuira, which routed the Saracens at the time of Charlemagne, during the Reconquista, King of Aragon, Pedro II, was painted on their banners the image of the Black Madonna of Rocamadour, by which obtained great victory of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the Black Madonna of Chartres liberated the city, besieged by the Normans, in Dijon, also the Black Madonna, Notre-Dame de Bon Espoir [Our Lady of Good Hope], protected the Swiss inhabitants against invasion in 1513, the Black Madonna of Czestochowa forced the Swedes to raise the siege of the city in 1655, and gave the victory to John Sobieski on the Turks in 1683.
Hence the representations of the Virgin turrígeras, ie, with a crown made up of elements representing fortified walls. This can be explained by two reasons. The first is that the liturgy treats Mary to a city, more exactly to the City, the holy city, is called "universal King City," "City of God," "City of the Lord which rivers flow Blessed Life "(assimilation can be seen here in Paradise, which we have spoken). The second reason, which explains the fundamental and the first belongs to the same status of the Mother: In traditional thinking, the city is assimilated to the womb, the breast protector, hence, in almost all languages, the name that means is female.
Virgin interventions considered here relate to material life. There are others, certainly much more important, in which the warrior aspect of Mary is exerted against spiritual enemies. Mary then is the "Punishment of invisible enemies," the "overthrow of the demons," "The Empire has overthrown the tyrant of men." The rationale and justification for this paper is found naturally in the famous passage in Genesis (3, 14) in which God tells the serpent: "I put enmity between you and the woman, etc.." Hence sentences como esta, que pertenece a la eucología latina:
Augusta Reina de los cielos y Señora de los Angeles, tú que has recibido de Dios el poder y la misión
de aplastar la cabeza de Satán, te lo pedimos humildemente,
envía tus santas legiones para que, a tus órdenes y por tu poder, persigan a los demonios,
los combatan en todo lugar, repriman su audacia y los arrojen al abismo.
Esta mención de las «santas legiones» explica que al arcángel San Miguel, el llamado Archiestratega, se lo asocie a menudo con el culto a la Virgen en los santuarios marianos, como el Mont-Saint-Michel, Rocamadour y Le Puy.
Es sabido que la acción de la Shekhina en the establishment operates under the two "pillars" of the tree Sefirotic, Rigor or Justice and Mercy, then, Christ is both the Judge, the Just and Merciful, but in parallel, so is Madonna. Because if it is the "Mother of Mercy," also presents, as we have seen, a fearsome appearance also often appears in black statues. Again, it is appropriate to refer to metaphysical point of view. The Shakti, the feminine and maternal aspect of divinity, is sweetness, kindness, goodness, joy and relief, appeals, offers thanks, but on the other hand, may appear in a terrible aspect. Indeed, the universal possibility implies As mentioned, besides the beauty, richness, fullness, etc., denial of Being and the possibility of evil, hence the divine reaction manifested through Rigor and what the Scriptures call the "Cholera" divine Shakti is terrible. These two aspects, in India, are those of Kali, "the Black", which is sometimes Ellamma Bhavani and the "benevolent" and other times it Kalama, "the Terrible" and Durga 'the inaccessible'. It is true that the Virgin Mary the contrast is far from being so marked, but nevertheless there, but too often forget. While it is full of love and mercy for the 'men of good will, although it is the "refuge of sinners" to help them repent, it is also terrible for all the enemies of God, men and demons. Recall the epiclesis we have cited in the previous chapter: "Virgin most powerful," "Terrible as an army in battle formation", "terror of the enemies ',' lightning shoot down the enemies."
MERCIFUL
Despite being fearsome warrior, Maria is also-and this is its most famous, the Virgo Clemens, the Mater Misericordiae, loving mother for her children - "I am the Mother of fairest love ", says several times in the liturgy application and full of misfortune. We have already seen rescue the sailors. Salus also infirmorum "health of the sick." should be cited dozens of books to account for all the cures wrought by Mary, healing of the deaf, dumb, blind, crippled, epileptic, etc.. and resurrection of the dead, remember the Livre des miracles de Notre-Dame de Chartres, Jehan Marchant, the Livre des miracles de Notre-Dame de Rocamadour, 1172, ninety mentioned cures, including crazy, memoirs written by Toulouse Benedictines of healing due to the Black Virgin Daurade, and without going back that far, think of Lourdes. Mary is also "merciful" as Consolatrix Afflictorum "Comforter of the Afflicted" and especially as Regugium peccatorum, "Refuge of sinners, particularly related to them appears primarily as the" Mother of mercy. " We do not insist on this point by now, because we will have to treat it more extensively in what follows, let us note here only the relationship between Mary merciful and the dead. Curious way, a number of statues of him were found in different cemeteries (...) What emerges from these findings is above all the obvious connection to the land, then the role of the Virgin as protector of the dead, that is, its fate in the Hereafter; it also will speak again.
MOTHER
But the first title that honors Mary piety is that of "Mother", and do not forget that while the Church proclaimed "Mother of God, Theotokos, also calls it "Mother of men." and this word is also the New Eve, which was the "Mother of the living" (Gen. 3.20) mother live horribly miserable. Redemption to the individual man is the "second birth", which is conferred by the baptismal initiation. Now, as we have said, this second birth only operates ritually via a 'return to the mother', ie the origin. So it has always treated the font to a womb. But the baptismal initiation, like any initiation, is virtual: depositing a divine seed, emerged from the Holy Spirit, who must pass a womb to be born. It is Mary who welcomed the baptized into it and is prepared to make the switch to act under the baptismal initiation. "St. Augustine" writes St. Louis Grignon de Montfort in his Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, "calls the Virgin Form Dei," God mold, the mold suitable for forming gods, he who is cast in that divine mold is formed and shaped early in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ in it, will become God, since it is cast into the same mold that formed a God. "
Baptism, the Eucharist, is certainly capable of giving the man Christ nature, driving it to theosis, but after it has given birth to Mary, as did Jesus, when he told San Juan, and him to all men: "Son, behold your mother." That is also the meaning of the adage, officially recognized by the Church: Ad Jesum per Mariam. The man could rise, according to Mary in his "ownership" to the top of heaven, because, if Mary is called "Queen of Angels" and "Queen of Heaven", that means that as a woman on earth, has come and recapitulated all higher state of being symbolized by "heaven" and "angels" and in his "Coronation" returned to the divinity of which it came, like Jesus after his resurrection, he had risen too, and the first-in man "above all the heavens" (Acts 1.10, Heb, 4.15) where he resides as the Divine Word from eternity. That is also the meaning of "Jacob's Ladder" and that is the reason why in the litany of ACAT invokes the Virgin Mary with the title "Scale that raises men from earth to heaven. " The Virgin, as a woman on earth, joined all the higher states of being and so he became, together with Christ, the prototype of the glorified humanity. So, for those who according to the will of Jesus has become "a son of Mary" is no longer necessary to actually go after death, according to the mode of transmigration, the multiplicity of higher states to achieve the deification , since at that as' son of Mary, "and therefore" son of God, and has integrated virtually.
This close collaboration of Mary in the full implementation of the Spiritual Life Christian, who is the "christification" the faithful, as the true Christian, according to the traditional formulation, is "another Christ (alter Christus), invites us to think differently from the usual icon found in the principle of our study, the "Virgin in Majesty," sitting, presenting his son sitting on his knees as if to come out of her womb (fructus Ventris tui), in the East, the icon known as the "Virgin of the Sign" represents Mary with the child in her womb open. The child is truly the Christ Child, Jesus, but also the divine child in what must be chosen to 'imitation Jesus Christ, through the womb of the Virgin. and the statue of black is particularly significant in this respect, as we shall see.
Following this search on epiclesis and titles of the Virgin Mary and the snack we just did with the pre-Christian god forms, we feel that we can answer the question we posed at the end of the first chapter this book, namely, if we are led to see that Mary can be considered a "divine personality." Well, we all concur to make a positive response. Undoubtedly will object that the magisterium has always rejected such a conception. It is true, but we find three things: first, as we have said, is that the invocations of the Virgin and the titles we've examined, and are canonically accepted by the Church, can not reasonably consistent with an ordinary woman. The second is that the Christian people, in obedience to a kind of fundamental religious instinct has always tended to behave toward Mary as if it belonged to the superhuman world, the divine order, is sufficient proof of Villon's "Ballade at Notre-Dame "where does speak to his mother and where it does not hesitate to call" High God. " Formula "writer, poet hyperbole? Maybe, but it belongs to the poets, in fact, express often the insights and deep convictions, but sometimes dark, of a people. I do not know that he was disturbed Villon anyone for these words, in an era in which, however, did not play with these materials, when disturbed, it was for very different reasons. Finally, the third and final point, we find in sentences, as in the writings of the Orthodox spiritual writers, the names of "Divine Mother" and "Divine Mary 'names fully justified by the Council of Ephesus, whose common explanation for official theology, as we have noted, there seems to exhaust its meaning.
(*) NOTE ON SYMBOLISM
us understand it when we say that Mary "is" the land, because somebody might believe that the Virgin that reduce to nothing more than an image of a cosmic reality, fear is not unfounded, because unfortunately that is what many intellectuals who claim to have seen the Blessed Virgin. And that gives us the opportunity to clarify once and for all the meaning and operation of the symbolism. When we say that "Mary is the land" that must be understood in the sense of what in another book we call the "theological metonymy" and looks perfectly Plutarch in his treatise On Isis and Osiris, in criticizing precisely the materialist exegesis say that "Demeter is the ear of wheat" in the sense that "only the spike of wheat," says that this is a distortion of religious truth and ends up falling into idolatry. They say he continues, that "Demeter is the spike" in the same way that says "represent Menander" to mean "represent the comedies of Menander," or even "this is in Menander"
The metonymy is do with the symbolism well understood in the traditional sense: the symbol has ontological value, of course, when we take in the interpretation "vertica1", ie according to the direction that links together all aspects of being and that makes certain higher reality is reflected in another that is less certain, so that no analogy to be between two and we can say that lower reality 'is' the higher reality, which means that the states very accurately and allows go back to it. But it is clear that there is no absolute identity between the two, which otherwise would be absurd, because if that were the two realities are no more than one.
TOP
So to go to the fund, which is also the mystery of Mary, is better, in our view temporarily waive its theological approach, speculative order, and prefer the liturgical approach to the problem.
The title
"Mother of God, when you think about it, seems an extravagant expression on the monotheistic context, seems to have been completely satisfactory explanation in theological speculation, it is explained and justified by saying that, like Mary the mother of Christ, and as Christ is God, she is also mother of God. But he feels that this explanation does not reach the merits of the expression or exhausts all its contents.
liturgical texts, in turn, transmit the profound insights of faith and open to the spirit of knowledge regions beyond the reach of theological speculation. not just speaking of the texts from the Holy Scripture and the Church has chosen for the various feasts of Mary, text whose value is too obvious to insist on it, but also creations of order 'literary' in the highest sense, as hymns, prayers, etc.. Are the work personalities of great spiritual stature and that the Church has logged introducing them in worship and giving them tools and knowledge value for the faithful, which expresses the well-known adage lex lex orandi credendi "the rule of prayer is the rule of faith. "
To clarify the problem Marian epiclesis study essentially different to the Virgin, or the names with which is invoked and found, on the one hand, biblical texts, hymns and prayers made to the offices of the different parties, and, moreover, particularly in its litanies. These names, in effect, that are dozens and dozens throughout the Marian liturgy, reflecting the long and unremitting efforts of believers, supported by the Church to try to identify and to say the inexhaustible riches of the personality Mary. That is, in our opinion, the best way to access it.
The epiclesis that we consider belong to the Latin liturgy and eastern litanies, Byzantine and Syrian. Found in the readings of the Old and the New Testament of the Mass and Vespers of the Virgin in their anthems, anthems and motets, the Regina Coeli cone, the Alma Redemptoris Mater, etc., and, as already mentioned, prayers Litan, which are, for the Latin liturgy, the "Litany of Loreto", and the Byzantine, the "Prayer abides." be precise, however, that not all of these pieces epiclesis liturgical interest us to the topic at hand: good number of them, indeed, have only devotional value, and make it clear that we do not have anything to say that dismissive, of course, we simply want to say it will do nothing to delve into the mystery of Mary. Which we consider, however, and most of the time: they have an air at once poetic and mysterious, even amazing, are precisely those that should be further to advance our study.
EARTH (*)
The Incarnation of the Word of God in the virginal womb, as is often said, made the "marriage of heaven and earth", which is why Christian tradition has always perceived a close relationship between Mary and the earth. Father S. Boulgakof, in his great work Verbe Incarna Du, recounts his own making, these words of Dostoevsky: "The Virgin Mary is the Mother Earth wet. " There is indeed a collusion between a woman, mother and earth. The land is maternal and nurturing power, diffuse forces receptacle. Tirelessly procreate matrix, summarizes in itself the creative principle of life, nature, and therefore sacred in nature, is a hierophany "Holy Land, which generates all things", thus invoking the ancient sage cosmou Greece in the Core, and the wise Sioux replied in similar terms: "Mother Earth, you are sacred ... We come to you, we are part of you, "thus says Hehapa Sapa (Black Elk). The man himself, indeed, feel "son of the earth, like plants and trees having received it its substance is not Genesis explains the creation of Adam? Not what the Psalmist sings: "My substance was not hidden when I was made in secret, fabric art in the depths of the earth" (Ps. 138-139)? Hence the name "Demetrios ',' Dimitri ', ie' son of Demeter, the Earth." and if she feels close to Earth, much more than your partner, it is because it mimics the Earth when she gives birth and is aware of breaking into the mainstream activity of the life of nature, because the earth is an organism inert, is a living organism has a body composed of elements from its soil, stones, the mountains and their caves, images of vast array multiplied, so the Virgin Mary is associated with the caves and their surrogates, the crypts, from the Grotto of the Nativity to the Massabielle, and the earth not only has a body, but also has a soul, and the mysterious currents that run through it convey the vital energy. The Earth becomes for us a person, because in man the world is aware of itself, the world and each of its components: the land, which also has a life, but consciousness is hypostatize in man and it becomes Demeter, the Terra Mater.
and makes it eminently in that it was the Women for Excellence, the new Eve, and that's why we relied on formulas how are you drawn from the Achates, 'Hail, land of incorruptible fruit, "" Hail, friend Labrador culture of men (God). " It is a tradition that dates back East to the first centuries of Christianity, to San Gregorio Taumaturgo, St. Ephrem, etc., And in an old hymn of the West even found these two verses in which Mary is completely assimilated nurturing Earth:
Hail, earth that has produced
wheat that feeds us.
is especially this aspect that was developed in particular in the magnificent following texts, which belong the Eastern liturgies. Here first antiphon at Mass siriomaronita accompanying the transfer of gifts to the altar (it is Christ speaking):
I am the living bread come down from heaven to earth for the world to live through me
. The Father sent me, incorporeal Word, and delicious
wheat grain in a fertile land, I received the womb of Mary.
Syrian At Mass, we found that other anthem:
We glorify you, Creator of the world and order of the universe, blessed
has sprouted roots and its growth has taken the thirsty land, Mary, and all creation is perfume filling his glorious sweetness.
Reading these texts, one can not help but remember the wonderful verses that Aeschylus, in a fragment of his lost tragedy The Danaides, sing to Mother Earth and her sacred marriage with Heaven divine sacred Heaven feels
desire to penetrate the earth, to enjoy this
hymen: the rain falls as a husband kiss from heaven to earth, and behold
stop the deadly grazing herds are present
and Demeter, while
spring flowering ends under the shining dew.
In the passages quoted above, Mary acquires a cosmic because what is done it is the wedding of human nature with the divine nature of the creative Word, and that He brings to the world she is the Son of Heaven and Earth.
Like Earth, then, Mary is the mother, but is a virgin mother, and by assimilating it to the ground, is assimilated to a virgin land, "Hail, no-till field that has recognized the divine Tang around the world, "sings ACAT, which is the concern the hymn of Adam of St. Victor: Terra
qua non arabilis
fructum parturiit.
The issue is already in Tertullian and Saint Irenaeus, Adversus developed in its haereses this idea that Mary is the land of paradise once again has again virgin for God to mix with it the new Adam.
similar characters and qualities found in the other symbol of the Great Mother: the land. Is sometimes considered that the earth is an element less noble than the water and, a fortiori. the air and fire. No doubt affected in part by a symbolic "negative" because it is located "below" the peak shift away from "Heaven" is "on top" and where lies the divine world , hence the image of the earth may suggest the decline. the gravity and darkness. even the realm of death. But it is equally true that symbolism has a "positive." because it is the image of stability. fertility. Of the substantiality y. therefore. of purity that is obvious. precisely. through the sources we spoke a moment ago, and the substantiality implies that the depth and strength. Moreover, the situation as "low" of the earth. on the top floor of the cosmos. if I may say so. contrast is rich in an essential quality: humility. Humility. it just takes its name from one of the names of the earth. humus. and prominent feature is the raw material and its human manifestation. the Holy Mother of God. We have here an example of application of the "symbolism invested" in which an object most of the cosmic order elemental is suitable to represent a reality of an ontological or spiritual higher.
The suggestive power of the element "earth" is all that is most often considered could represent the "Matter" sensitive, while in form "plastic", capable of receiving the forms-like water-and that is the potter's clay, and as hard and tough, stone, marble, which is the most obvious image of the substantiality and stability. and spiritual safety, solid core of salvation, but that nevertheless is still able to lend a hand shape the sculptor, for example. But above all, land. the great land essential constituent of this world, is the "Mother. the array that receives the germs to develop. The water precedes the creation and produces germs. the earth receives in its bosom. produces and develops life forms.
How can we fail here too the virtues of Mary? In the heart of the earth born life forms of this world. and arguably, to use an expression of the parent S. Boulgakov. which is a "Cryptogram Maternity Dei in which God-Man is born, the supreme goal of all the created world." As Prakriti. The Virgin is the earth, is "the Mother, the moist earth." in the words of Dostoevsky. and nowhere can this be seen better uptake that the icon of the Nativity, which takes two forms. of the Virgin herself. lying on the same soil, Demetra true image, and the cave, well known chthonic image, which is also found in Lourdes, representing the womb of Mother Earth and by protecting Jesus, so that the Virgin Mary appears so at the same time, in its human and cosmic dimension.
TREE
Thus, ACAT and Syrian hymns, Virgin has become a paradise where you planted the Tree of Life "spiritual paradise that has at its core the Tree Life ' and has even become the same tree, "Tree of tasty fruit that nourishes the faithful", "blessed tree which has fruit (Christ) that seeks the joy of those who eat it." not be surprised by such assimilation. The tree, one of the most universal sacred symbols is the image of the inexhaustible source of cosmic fertility, of vegetation, which is summarized in him whole: the cycle of death and resurrection, regeneration through life's vital energy land, was equally well suited to symbolize spiritual regeneration. Moreover, when rooted in the earth for growth, says rising to life heaven: "The Eden of God is Mary ... it has left the Tree of Life and raises up to heaven to the exiles." Wisdom itself, which is identified with Mary, tells a biblical passage chosen for the readings of certain offices of the Virgin: "I am the Cedars of Lebanon, cypress on Mount Zion, and Cades palm Bananas to the waters edge. " For all its nature, the tree was called to be considered a manifestation of divinity and, more particularly, the Earth Mother, who offers him one of the most spectacular productions, and that was normal was also assimilated to the tree, and the Tree of Life, of course, but all the trees to the extent that the Tree of Life is in no way an archetype.
GARDEN
We have seen many statues of the Virgin was found in a tree or under a tree (...) otherwise, the scope of Mary is all plant life: the fields , crops, vines and flowers. That is why it sometimes has been attributed to green.
The Song of Songs, where it has taken so many themes developed in meditation on the Virgin and hymns and invocations in his honor, especially given a more famous, that of the 'Shed', 'Closed Garden' , evocación de los jardines de Oriente mantenidos secretos tras altos muros y en los que abundan las plantas fragantes que esparcen sus deliciosos perfumes. En un sermón que sirve de «lección» en el Oficio del 8 de diciembre, Pascasio Radberto, autor del siglo IX, habla así de María:
Se canta de ella en el Cantar de los Cantares (4,12): "Jardín cerrado, fuente sellada, lo que de ti emana es el paraíso". Sí, verdaderamente un jardín de delicias, todas las especies de flores están allí reunidas, y todos los perfumes de las virtudes.
Este tema del «Jardín cerrado» conoció un gran auge durante la Edad Media en la ilustración de los «Libros Hours' that represents the Virgin Mary in a celestial garden. and the offices of 7 and 14 September, the Byzantine liturgy hails Mary in these words: "Garden Light", "Garden vivo," You are the mystic garden, without being cultivated, has germinated to Christ " .
FLOR
Mary is the garden, and of course is the flower, and his mouth have been the words of the young heroine of the Song of Songs (2.1): "I am flower fields and the lily of the valley. " and why May is dedicated to Mary, because that is when The explosion of all vegetation and is the time when the gardens are covered with the first flowers. And that is full of meaning, as the flower is full of rich symbolism, otherwise similar to the tree: like this, the flower of the grain, open land where he was buried, and rises on a vertical shaft looking at the sky opened, it was therefore quite normal that he saw in her the image of the Virgin. So it is invoked with the name "Rosa divina" in the litany of ACAT and "Mystical Rose" Rosa Mystica, on the Litany of the Western Church. and liturgy puts in his mouth these words of wisdom: "I am ... Rose of Sharon. " San Pedro Damián said it is the 'Rose of Paradise. " A manuscript of the Biblioteca Nacional de Paris, 12483 Rosarius, is all the mystique of the Virgin florida in the Middle Ages under the sign of the rose. Count Raymond of Capua to St. Agnes of Montepulciano was a joyous vision of the Virgin-Rosa, and it is known that in Lourdes, before the first apparition, Bernadette was shaken wild rose before the appearance thereof, and the hip is still there. In the rose, the symbolism of the flower seems to reach their highest potential: rose is destined to become the Rosa Mystica, which expresses the realization of possibilities contained in the seed and, thus, spiritual fulfillment; why is the symbol at the same time the supreme divine knowledge, mystical, and pure love. In the Divine Comedy, Rose lays out the path of the chosen to heaven the song 21 to 23, and 30 songs that Dante sees himself blessed and Paradise are a huge pink.
Earlier we saw that the Eastern liturgies assimilated to the Virgin with a field that had germinated Christ as a grain of wheat to feed the world. But Mary did not only provides spiritual food, which is his Son, but also ensures food plots for their children. long understood the Christian piety, which was entrusted with the care to ensure the prosperity of the crops: hence these Notre-Dame des Champs (Our Lady of the Fields), Notre-Dame des Blés (Our Lady of Wheat), Notre-Dame des Moissons (Our Lady of the Harvest), or Notre-Dame du Pain (Our Lady of Pan). liturgy itself does not disdain to hold this protective role of menial jobs: honor the Byzantine liturgical calendar, May 15-please note the date, Our Lady of the Seeds, and sing the doxology in the trade:
Christ, Word of the Father , have fallen like rain upon the field of
Virgin and as a grain of wheat perfect, have appeared where there was no
sower scattered seed and food you've become for the world.
And we should mention all those little paraliturgies liturgy or popular, such as the offering of the harvest, each year, NotreDame Panetiere (the panetiere was a piece of furniture to keep the bread. N. T) ( Aire-sur-la-Lys), or to offer the last sheaf cut, offering practiced in several provinces, including Poitou, Berry, Beauce, etc. and do not think that these popular liturgies are neglected by the Church, instead of always encouraged, at least until some time, as shown in this prayer composed in the eleventh century by St. Peter Damian: Oh
all goodness, oh Almighty , one-word commands that do not hail
stoned us or ruin us ... Calms the storm, brings serene
time, bring us the warm light, the clouds disappear.
repeat the same practices during the harvest, is not the wine, bread, the living symbol of the heavenly food evoked a moment ago? In Champagne, it points to a statue of Notre-Dame des Vignes (Our Lady of the Vines) presiding over a vineyard, and in several regions are made, or did, processions in which they had a statue of Our Lady decorated with clusters . Also plant the vine is an expression of immortality, like wine, for that in the Middle East is often considered the symbol Tree of Life. and liturgical invocations to Mary join those already noted, in which the Virgin is assimilated to the tree: "O Mother of God, you are the true vine that brings forth the fruit of life", "Vine has offered the cluster of blessings to those who drink it "," Vine has produced wine that rejoices the soul. " These invocations, as can be seen, relate to a mother's role human capital: the feed, and coincides with that of the Cosmic Mother, Mother Earth.
Hence also those Nuestra Señora de la Leche, which is found mostly in Britain, giving the precious liquid to women who breastfeed: Notre-Dame des Marais, in Fougeres, Notre-Dame du Sein, in Lorient, Notre-Dame de Treguron in Gouézec, etc. New manifestation of the first attribute of the mother, fertility, for which Virgin is invoked in favor of infertile women, or to have a good birth. Thus, in Toulouse, are consecrated to the Virgin Daurade negrg of the "fertility belt" to let pregnant women have a safe delivery. Moreover, in the Middle Ages did not hesitate to represent the Virgin pregnant or parturient, as Cucugnan (Pyrénées Orientales) or Issoire. Today little remains of it, the image is intesesante the Black Madonna of Dijon, Notre-Dame de Bon Espoir (Our Lady of Good Hope) that appears with the bulging belly and breasts gravid (see illustration).
The fertility of the Virgin is also extended to animals, protect and prosper domestic herds. Hence the prayers for the flock, the blessings of herds, as in Le Forez and L'Aubrac, August IS, and la.misma date, Elna (Pyrénées Orientales), the blessing of the stables to prevent disease contagious. The most spectacular is the Notre-Dame de Vassivière, in Auvergne, where the statue is the pace of transhumance in the spring, protective black Madonna rises from the church to Vassivière Besse, in the high mountain which has a chapel in the grass, and herds, and the Virgin falls again in September. These facts are related to the theme of bovid, which plays an important role in the cult of Mary. We have seen in the previous chapter, in fact, that in the legends of invention are generally those that allow the horse to rediscover a certain statue of Mary, so in Er (in Roussillon) in Bolleme (in Manosque) in Villedieu (near Saint-Fluor) in Lantenay (in the area of \u200b\u200bDijon) in Bourisp (in the Pyrenees), etc. In Sarrance (in the Aspe Valley, Pyrénées Orientales), have had a bull that used to swim across the river every day to go to kneel before "a stone representing the Virgin, the people called Notre-Dame de la Pierre (Our Lady of the Rock) and ensured the fertility of the fields.
This last feature deserves attention: we refer to fertility, as the bull is a powerful manifestation of the life force. Noted that his association with the "legends" of the Virgin could be justified by the fact that the animal also is associated with the Nativity scene. This thesis is not negligible and it does seem that this animal here is related to the virile power that acts on the "femininity" of the earth, and hence a possible transposition the virginal conception through the heavenly power, in this case would be represented by the bull, which is totally plausible. Anyway, the idea seems to support the liturgy, because in the litany of ACAT is sung to Mary as "Cow has given birth to a calf without blemish." Let us note finally that the Taurus is the second spring, exactly 20 April to 20 May this period, the month of May, whose relationship with the Virgin and we have seen, and this sign, on the other hand, is a Earth sign telluric related to fertility. We will return to discuss the meaning of the zodiacal sign in the area in question.
WATER
The body of the earth, as we said, is crossed by streams of living energy, but also visit other energy flows, water flows. The source, the spring, at the same time as the land itself, is the image of the mother, and so is, therefore, of the Virgin: "Source living and incorruptible" ACAT sings, "inexhaustible source of life-giving water" , "O Mother of God, thou art the living fountain flowing with abundance." It is the "Source sealed" the Song of Songs, of which we spoke. From the first centuries, as can be seen for example in the Gospel Arab children, Mary is assimilated into the Fons Vitte, "Source of life ', the infinite Source which is cause and principle of growth and has inspired the icon of the Virgin zoodotes peghead," life-giving source ", represented sitting Children in the middle of a pile of falling water to a pond where there are blind, paralyzed waiting for the cure. That's because water is the original way of being, cradle of germs, parent of the possibilities of existence, the water, the earth and women, are the circuit antropocósmico fertility.
wells found in many ancient churches dedicated to Mary represent the 'Source sealed, "the" Source of Life "(...) To this must be added the fact, already mentioned, that several statues of the Virgin were found in wells or sources (...) Do not governed also Virgin hot springs? (...)
Returning the deep sense that the analysis has revealed two hierogramático of this Name, will have been warned and the amazing relationship that quickly awakens from the nature of the Virgin and her role in the mystery of the Incarnation in as 'universal mother', is that "water main" on which he planned the Spirit of God and, at the time of the Annunciation, the Angel says, "The Holy Spirit will about yourself and the power of the Most High will overshadow you "(Luke 1.35). The angel is almost copied from the text of Genesis that say: "The Spirit of God overshadowed Waters." And modified, following Chauvet, the usual translation for the term used by the Angel (episkiasei in Greek) has the sense of "shadow cover" with the connotation of "hatching" of "fruitful", just like the verb merakhepheth in the text of Moses, verb translated incorrectly by "planned", the complete verse is: ruach Elohim merakhepheth the phenel ha-maim. So the conception of the Messiah Mary's womb is operated as a completely analogous to the creation of the world. Later we will see why.
The waters symbolize all the virtues, are like the array of possibilities for existence. Top of the undifferentiated and the virtual, water is the foundation of all cosmic manifestation and the receptacle of all germs. It is therefore entirely appropriate symbol of the primordial substance of the Feminine Principle of Prakriti, the Magna Mater in all its forms, so in its Indian name of Maha Devi, Devi says the Upanishad:
The place of my birth is the water in the ocean interior, who knows what gets Devi's abode ... I who in the beginning created the father of this world.
The physical quality that underlies this symbolism is the plasticity of the water: absolutely no way, as the raw material, but, as she is apt to take all forms, is "virgin" and, Therefore, in itself, perfectly "pure" and "immaculate", Virgo immaculata, integrated et caste. And this physical attribute corresponds to a quality of behavior, submission, perfect submission to the action to be engaged, beautiful image of submission to God's will on the part of the Virgin Mary, but by no means "servant" : Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum, that's the answer to the messenger of God, and glorifies his Magnificat, if I may say so, his humility: "My soul magnifies the Lord ... because he put his eyes on the lowliness of his servant. "
That purity and humility of "our sister water," as he called San Francisco, makes it the reflective element par excellence, the natural mirror. What a wonderful display is the sky reflecting in the calm water of a lake! and poets, who know instinctively switch from the visible to invisible, felt that there was something sacred in that vision, and Hugo in these verses of the Tristesse d'Olympio, the long looked
great ways
Let nature takes in the peaceful fields;
dreamed up the night
He missed all day along the ravine. Admiring
alternative in the sky, the divine face,
Lake, divine mirror. How
not see the last two verses the image of God the Creator is reflected in the fundamental nature? and thus better understand the invocation addressed to Mary: Speculum Justitia: 'Mirror of Justice, "and Justice, according to its scriptural meaning, here means the" Holiness, "the holiness of God. Water "virgin" perfectly "pure" perfectly "submissive," Mary, like a calm lake, is a "divine mirror" the mirror of the creator.
LIVING WATERS
But there is only the calm water of the tranquil lakes, there are also the waters that appear and jump from springs and fountains, its movement is an expression of the powerful energies that they hide, because if it is a cosmic forms of raw material, water in its submission still get the creative energy and converted into "shakti" turn becomes a creator. Water is the "living water", the "water of life", which fertilizes the earth with all the strength he has received and distributed. Hence, these springs, wells casts these sources everywhere found associated with the presence of the Virgin. This is the "Source sealed" spoken of the Song of Songs (4.2) and that ultimately is nothing but the primitive source that appears in Genesis (2.6): "He rose from the a spring that watered land surface of the earth. " Is certainly right when he says Grillot de Givry, in his beautiful book initiatique Lourdes ville, that this verse refers to the condition of purity of creation when communicating directly with the "Source of Life", which was dried after the 'Fall' but began to flow again after the Redemption, and adds that 'Mary feeds this source, as the source of the shrines. " These sources, as we have seen, by virtue purify and heal.
FIRE
What a contrast now with the following epiclesis that remind us all of the symbolism of fire! "Hail, fiery chariot of the Word ',' Hail, a pillar of fire that shines for which are in darkness, "" Hail, bush burning and not consumed. " This last symbol is taken from the famous scene in which Yahweh appears to Moses (Ex 3.2) and, in the Eastern tradition, became good start in sign of virginity Mary: God is hidden in the bush of flame does not burn and retains its integrity, and also locked himself the divine Word in the virginal womb leaving it intact.
ASTROS
But where poetic imaged Marian piety was mostly of the stars. is time to remember how far were sensitive to heaven men of past centuries, the Greek and Roman poetry is full of developments on the topic of the day sky, night sky and stars, and this continued even during Middle Ages. People knew that naturally raise your head high, as befits the man, providentially has a vertical position it normally took to turn our gaze toward God headquarters before the mechanical and materialistic era stubbornly returning his eyes to the ground and no longer allows you to read the "signs in the sky." All the poetry of heaven, especially the night sky, it seems condensed in this beautiful verse out of Euripides' Electro: dark night
Oh, mother of the stars of gold!
A hymn of Lauds for the feast of February 2 and called to her: "Glorious among virgins, sublime among the stars." Mary was matched first to the moon in reference to a passage from the Song of Songs, which many texts gave the anthems of the trades, whence come all the "Common of the Virgin." Here referred to the moon: "Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon?" More significant still is that it represents Mary with feet flat on the crescent, according to the passage of Revelation (Chapter 12): "a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head." We discuss the sun and stars for now see the sense of the presence of the moon.
LUNA Y SOL
The moon symbolizes
traditional rhythms of life increases, decreases, disappears, reappears, her life is subject to the universal law of becoming, including death but also resurrection, the resurrection which precisely represents the crescent moon. The moon controls all levels of cosmic evolution governed by the cyclical: water, vegetation, fertility, the tides and the fertility of women, hence its relationship with the sign of Taurus, with which we have found that is the second sign of spring and important detail, the "place of exaltation" of the moon.
Christian thought, second heir to the thought old, mused at length on this issue and applied it to the mystery of Christ and his mother. In this thought, Christ is the sun, but the Suns light of Christ to the dark land taken by the maternal mediation of Mary (and the Church), because the moon is the symbol of that being that received light and maternally received with humility the development and prosperity on earth follow the rhythm of the maternal age.
This theme was developed a kind of myth of the "marriage of sun and moon 'Moon is pregnant with the light of the sun, becomes a mother and engenders all living things. In the silence and darkness, the 'moon' talks with his beloved, is the dialogue Mystics of the 'harmony of the spheres' of the Pythagoreans, as evoked Plutarch in his treatise On the face on the moon, "Selene described in all ages love circles around Helios, and he receives, by binding , the power to give birth. " Thus, the Moon is the intermediary between the sun and earth, the mediator, whose function attenuate the strength of the light adding to the "fire" Sun "water" of his being, the "celestial water of the moon" the "heavenly dew" which is a mix of "hot" and "wet" to generate the creative principle of life on earth.
From there, Christian reflection focused on the moon and the sun of Christmas: Mary has given birth to the "Sun of Justice" has become its 'mirror', "Speculum justitiae", "Mirror of Justice" as they call the Litany of Loreto, driving at night the chariot of the sun in the morning, the Moon with the Sun has joined in the destruction of his incarnation night, and so is the mother of all living.
AURORA
This theme also belong epiclesis who ingest the dawn: "Who is this that appears like the dawn?", "Aurora mysterious day ' "Aurora light."
DOOR
To this we must add also what makes Mary the "Puerta del Sol", in the motet Ave Regina coelorum, it presents as well: ex qua save world carries lux est orta, "Hail, door through which the light has risen on the world" and an anthem of the office on September 8, in the Byzantine rite: "She is the East Gate entrance ready for the Great King ', the image us to the "door orientab" Temple of Jerusalem, door closed and reserved for Yahweh theophanies but also reminds us, and I would say first of all, the 'door the sun ", the point at which the sun rises in the East, and especially to the" door solstice "Christmas by the sunlight, to continue rising in the heart of the winter night. With the same idea linking the invocation of the Litany to the Virgin called "Stella Matutina", "Morning Star", in fact, this star is actually a planet, the planet Venus, announces, to appear for morning, sunrise: ACAT why sing unto Mary: "Hail, star in the world does come to Christ, the great sun."
When the Litany of the symbolism of the "door" is presented in Porta Coeli short form, Janua coeli, has another meaning. Means that Mary is the gate of heavenly paradise, such as San Pedro OHIM sings this anthem for the Advent season: La Virgen pregnant
the Word Turns gate of Paradise:
brought God to the world
We opened up the sky.
LUNA
And that brings us to the subject of the moon and the lunar image of Mary. To understand, we must place the expression Janua coeli in the old system of representation of the cosmos, built on the phasing of the seven planetary spheres, the first of the moon between the world there under, sublumar this world called, subject to the cycle of becoming, in the higher spheres, including the sun, which participate in the ongoing life and divine "heaven" in the religious sense. From this perspective, the moon is called Janua coeli, is the passageway of the lower world to the divine world. It will be recalled that in the celestial ascent of the Divine Comedy, Dante placed precisely in the sphere of the moon Purgatory, for sinners to repentance opens the way to the sun, the Milky Way and the "Circle supreme", and there Plutarch says the treaty cited above, were purified in a state fair to ascend to the abode of the Gods. By Mary the Janua coeli, it meant the huge role it plays in the way of salvation, not only because it brought the world to Christ, the author of salvation, but also because it continues to assist the man in his journey on this path, in Women's figure evoked the Apocalypse before the Virgin, as it is, is over the moon and is clothed with the sun, gives birth to men and passed the field and mortal world to the eternal world. We will have several chances to talk about it again.
STAR
we mentioned just now Stella morning invocation of the Litany. There is another that opens the familiar motet Ave, maris stella, 'Hail, Star of the Sea, and this time places the Virgin in the "field of stars" and even at the highest point. Because this "Star of the Sea" is the star, "without setting star" in the Byzantine prayers, because it is always fixed and, therefore, determines the Axis mundi, the cosmic pole around which describes the whole sky revolution. Therefore, this Polaris became a symbol hugely significant in all religious traditions. From a practical standpoint, it serves to determine the direction of travel of all men, and more specifically of the sailors, hence the name of "Star of the Sea", which refers to Mary's role as patron and protector of sailors. Their shrines are in particular those who harbor or harbored a Black Madonna: St. Victor at Marseilles, where on 2 February, the famous still navettes distributed, pastries in small ships, in honor of the "Good Mother black 'patron seafarers, in Boulogne-sur-Mer, where according to legend founded the statue arrived in unabarca self-directed, in the Mont-Saint-Michel, where the chapel of the Virgin is under the invocation of Stella Maris, in Rocamadour, where chronicle records many miracles that have benefited the survivors.
There is another stellar sky region where we find Mary, is the sixth sign of the Zodiac, called just the "sign of the Virgin." This name, incidentally, does not come from Mary, but of the Virgin Astrea, which belongs to the Greco-Roman mythology and legend as Hesiod and Aratos concern us. Events this in mind that the Virgin Astrea, who personified justice, lived among men in the golden age in the Silver Age, a time when mankind began to lose primordial innocence, withdrew to the solitude, and the Bronze Age left the land, which was infected by sin, to look at the sky near the constellation Bootes, which is holding the splendid Tang (the Tang, Spica Virginis, is the main star of the constellation). All legend was especially strong at the time of Augustus Neopythagoreans circles, particularly P. Nigidio Figulo, which was the Grand Master of the Guild during the reign of the emperor. With the momentum of revival inaugurated by Augustus, was making his way is the belief that his reign could well advertise something as a new Golden Age; belief echoed in the famous Virgil Eclogue IV of his Eclogues, where he sings the return of the Virgin Astrea:
The great number of centuries begins anew:
is Back Lady, turn the kingdom of Satum.
All this poem is suffused with the atmosphere of Neopythagoreans circles, which was part of Virgil, and believed in the nearby regeneration of mankind. For century mystical spirits of Virgil, the time was really the end of the "Great Year" painful transformation whose father went to the new golden age connected with the return of Astraea, the Virgen de la Justice.
If we have expanded a bit with this is because the Middle Ages always established a relationship between Mary and the "prophecy" of Virgil on the one hand, and the constellation of the Virgin on the other. Abelard, in his Epistle VII, stated that Virgilio, announcing to the consulate of the miraculous birth Pollio, had wanted to call mankind to rejoice in it as a notice of redemption. In fact, the belief that Virgil had announced the Christian era and the "Virgin" of the Eclogue IV was the mother of Christ went back to the early Christian centuries: Filargirio, comment on a note of the poem verse 6 says: "The Virgin, ie, justice, or rather, Mary." In the tradition of Greek Christianity, attributed to Constantine and transmitted by Eusebio, verse 6 was amended as follows: "the Virgin will come to the king that we longed" with a note that stated that the Virgin was Mary. and then came the Middle Ages, which had Virgil for genuine prophet, like the Old Testament surely was not wrong.
As for the zodiacal constellation of the Virgin, plays a large role in the cult of Mary. First on the calendar of festivals, the constellation appears in the east in March, rising in the South during the months of April, May and June, and then descends to the west from July to September, on the other hand, the sun enters the sign on August 23 and remains there until 22 September, already have noticed that the major Marian feasts are located precisely at these times: March 25, May, 15 August and 8 September. Furthermore, remember the amazing relationship that links the zodiacal constellation in question with the introduction of some Marian shrines. The great cathedrals, which over the centuries XII and XIII were put under the patronage of Our Lady in the territory of Northern France (Champagne, Picardy, Ile de France, the ancient Neustria) are divided according to an order that reproduces accurately approximate the ground with the order of the stars of the constellation of the Virgin. Thus, the shank is located in Reims, the star Gamma in Chartres, the Delta, in Amiens, the Epsilon, in Bayeux, the stars correspond to small Evreux, Etampes, Laon and Notre-Dame de l'Épine (a small star near the Tang).
This should not surprise us, it is known that all traditional people used to establish sanctuaries and major cities according to a projection on the ground of this or that part of the sky map, projection, which of course was related to a precise symbolism of which are an example the events just described. The beautiful works of Jean Richer well have clarified this aspect of sacred geography as the case of Greece and Rome. This mode should be the conclusion, fully justified, of course, that all parts of the world are in "sympathy" and that is important, emphasizing their relationships, awareness of the unity of the cosmos and, particularly in the case before us, "capture" the beneficent influence descending from heaven to earth.
All these considerations justify Mary and stars the famous invocation to be addressed in several motets of the Trade: Regina Coeli, coelorum Regina, "Queen of Heaven," "Queen of Heaven", which refers to the image repeatedly evoked Women's apocalyptic vision celestial and otherwise materialized iconography often giving the Virgin a dark blue mantle sown with stars.
PALOMA
And should not it also "Queen of Heaven" that Mary is the bird has been treated, and more particularly to the dove? Two of the Magnificat antiphons at Vespers on February 11, the feast of the apparition of Mary, once again take his praise of the Song of Songs, (2.10, 6.8) and say: "Come, my dove hidden ' and "This is my dove, my perfect, my immaculate." This assimilation goes back to far behind, as found in the oldest known prayer to Mary, published by Reizenstein, which proclaims: "The Dove has started the death to men. " and this gives us a gloss explanatory ACAT in this invocation: "Paloma has begotten the Merciful."
SCALE
This is also the sense of another title that is given: "Jacob's Ladder." It is known passage in Genesis (28.12 ..) which has an episode of the patriarch's life:
had a dream saw a ladder resting on the ground and whose top touched the sky, and over it went up and down angels. Above all was the Lord.
This scale is obviously a picture of the universe, from the bottom, the earth, to top, God, and that itself is also a symbol of ontological and metaphysical, the deployment of multiple states of being, from the lowest, represented by the earth to the highest, that of pure Being, and Angels personify the intermediate states above the human state land. So, call the Virgin "Jacob's Ladder" is to say that it has integrated itself all ontological levels to "divine region." It's another way of saying it's "Queen of the world," Queen of Heaven "and" Queen of the angels. "
If we now recapitulate all the comments made on epiclesis of the Virgin, we realize that they relate in order that we have followed, the four elements constituting the visible universe: Earth, Water, Air and Fire, so we see that the figure of Mary that they seen covering the whole visible world, but she dominates the world, says this other invocation: Regina mundi, "Queen of the world, in an antiphon for the feast of Our Lady of Mount Caramel and Our Lady of Sorrows , or between the Byzantines: "Empress of the universe." All Christian thinking, once he felt well this universal dimension of the Mother of God is found evoked as a poet Villon which expresses in his famous ballad, according to the traditional tripartite structure of the world:
Lady of Heaven, ruler Tercena, marsh Emperatriz
hell.
And the great rose window in the facade of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is the Virgin in the center with the Zodiac in the outer circle: a way to proclaim that Mary is truly the Empress of the World, since which is based at the Centre, at the point marked by the Axis mundi.
All these invocations demonstrate the efforts that inspired writers and scholars were to try to express the unfathomable riches of the Virgin through symbols. At modern minds, we are aware of it, find it difficult at times to grasp its scope and, above all, will be tempted to look at what they see as inconsistency: how to, to take just one example, the idea that the Virgin is " land "and at the same time, the 'moon' or 'Star of the Sea"? But do not try to coordinate these different symbols in a system to point to rationalize, that is, in fact, to destroy them. There is among them, in fact, logical coherence, but something much more interesting, ontological convergence, for each symbol-speak, of course, true symbols, not allegories, is also of their specific determination, an image of the whole, a microcosm that contains virtually the macrocosm. When presented in a wide range, as in the case that concerns us here, do not form a manifold in which join in a linear sequence, but a multiple unit, and radiating lines leading from a central object or being you have to qualify, and leading to it, albeit asymptotically. All these cosmic symbols have been paraded before our eyes look to see something of the mystery of Mary, are the mediators needed to, using images of the sensible world, to reach the intelligible otherwise than by abstract concepts that can not reach the heart.
WARRIOR
Because it's "Queen of the world, Mary is the Virgo Potens, the" Virgin most powerful, "with a motherly power exercised in favor of men: it is Auxilium Christianorum," the relief of the Christians. " A relief involved in all circumstances and in first place in an area that is no longer used to find the war. Yet, the liturgy has not stopped celebrating it as a formidable warrior, "terrible as an army in battle formation" (Antiphon of Vespers August 15). An antiphon for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary calls "majestic and powerful Virgin, Tower of David, a thousand shields are suspended from it, and all the host of the brave", invoking also taken from the Song of Songs (4.4). We also find the image "Tower of David" is also found in the Litany of Loreto, in terms of ACAT to proclaim Mary "strong tower", "Wall impregnable", "Force fighters," "Relief of warriors ',' Terror of the enemies like thunder, "" Ray to shoot down the enemies. "
History has preserved the memory of their statements they made in several places to call "Our Lady of Victory. " For example, in Tuira, which routed the Saracens at the time of Charlemagne, during the Reconquista, King of Aragon, Pedro II, was painted on their banners the image of the Black Madonna of Rocamadour, by which obtained great victory of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the Black Madonna of Chartres liberated the city, besieged by the Normans, in Dijon, also the Black Madonna, Notre-Dame de Bon Espoir [Our Lady of Good Hope], protected the Swiss inhabitants against invasion in 1513, the Black Madonna of Czestochowa forced the Swedes to raise the siege of the city in 1655, and gave the victory to John Sobieski on the Turks in 1683.
Hence the representations of the Virgin turrígeras, ie, with a crown made up of elements representing fortified walls. This can be explained by two reasons. The first is that the liturgy treats Mary to a city, more exactly to the City, the holy city, is called "universal King City," "City of God," "City of the Lord which rivers flow Blessed Life "(assimilation can be seen here in Paradise, which we have spoken). The second reason, which explains the fundamental and the first belongs to the same status of the Mother: In traditional thinking, the city is assimilated to the womb, the breast protector, hence, in almost all languages, the name that means is female.
Virgin interventions considered here relate to material life. There are others, certainly much more important, in which the warrior aspect of Mary is exerted against spiritual enemies. Mary then is the "Punishment of invisible enemies," the "overthrow of the demons," "The Empire has overthrown the tyrant of men." The rationale and justification for this paper is found naturally in the famous passage in Genesis (3, 14) in which God tells the serpent: "I put enmity between you and the woman, etc.." Hence sentences como esta, que pertenece a la eucología latina:
Augusta Reina de los cielos y Señora de los Angeles, tú que has recibido de Dios el poder y la misión
de aplastar la cabeza de Satán, te lo pedimos humildemente,
envía tus santas legiones para que, a tus órdenes y por tu poder, persigan a los demonios,
los combatan en todo lugar, repriman su audacia y los arrojen al abismo.
Esta mención de las «santas legiones» explica que al arcángel San Miguel, el llamado Archiestratega, se lo asocie a menudo con el culto a la Virgen en los santuarios marianos, como el Mont-Saint-Michel, Rocamadour y Le Puy.
Es sabido que la acción de la Shekhina en the establishment operates under the two "pillars" of the tree Sefirotic, Rigor or Justice and Mercy, then, Christ is both the Judge, the Just and Merciful, but in parallel, so is Madonna. Because if it is the "Mother of Mercy," also presents, as we have seen, a fearsome appearance also often appears in black statues. Again, it is appropriate to refer to metaphysical point of view. The Shakti, the feminine and maternal aspect of divinity, is sweetness, kindness, goodness, joy and relief, appeals, offers thanks, but on the other hand, may appear in a terrible aspect. Indeed, the universal possibility implies As mentioned, besides the beauty, richness, fullness, etc., denial of Being and the possibility of evil, hence the divine reaction manifested through Rigor and what the Scriptures call the "Cholera" divine Shakti is terrible. These two aspects, in India, are those of Kali, "the Black", which is sometimes Ellamma Bhavani and the "benevolent" and other times it Kalama, "the Terrible" and Durga 'the inaccessible'. It is true that the Virgin Mary the contrast is far from being so marked, but nevertheless there, but too often forget. While it is full of love and mercy for the 'men of good will, although it is the "refuge of sinners" to help them repent, it is also terrible for all the enemies of God, men and demons. Recall the epiclesis we have cited in the previous chapter: "Virgin most powerful," "Terrible as an army in battle formation", "terror of the enemies ',' lightning shoot down the enemies."
MERCIFUL
Despite being fearsome warrior, Maria is also-and this is its most famous, the Virgo Clemens, the Mater Misericordiae, loving mother for her children - "I am the Mother of fairest love ", says several times in the liturgy application and full of misfortune. We have already seen rescue the sailors. Salus also infirmorum "health of the sick." should be cited dozens of books to account for all the cures wrought by Mary, healing of the deaf, dumb, blind, crippled, epileptic, etc.. and resurrection of the dead, remember the Livre des miracles de Notre-Dame de Chartres, Jehan Marchant, the Livre des miracles de Notre-Dame de Rocamadour, 1172, ninety mentioned cures, including crazy, memoirs written by Toulouse Benedictines of healing due to the Black Virgin Daurade, and without going back that far, think of Lourdes. Mary is also "merciful" as Consolatrix Afflictorum "Comforter of the Afflicted" and especially as Regugium peccatorum, "Refuge of sinners, particularly related to them appears primarily as the" Mother of mercy. " We do not insist on this point by now, because we will have to treat it more extensively in what follows, let us note here only the relationship between Mary merciful and the dead. Curious way, a number of statues of him were found in different cemeteries (...) What emerges from these findings is above all the obvious connection to the land, then the role of the Virgin as protector of the dead, that is, its fate in the Hereafter; it also will speak again.
MOTHER
But the first title that honors Mary piety is that of "Mother", and do not forget that while the Church proclaimed "Mother of God, Theotokos, also calls it "Mother of men." and this word is also the New Eve, which was the "Mother of the living" (Gen. 3.20) mother live horribly miserable. Redemption to the individual man is the "second birth", which is conferred by the baptismal initiation. Now, as we have said, this second birth only operates ritually via a 'return to the mother', ie the origin. So it has always treated the font to a womb. But the baptismal initiation, like any initiation, is virtual: depositing a divine seed, emerged from the Holy Spirit, who must pass a womb to be born. It is Mary who welcomed the baptized into it and is prepared to make the switch to act under the baptismal initiation. "St. Augustine" writes St. Louis Grignon de Montfort in his Treatise of True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, "calls the Virgin Form Dei," God mold, the mold suitable for forming gods, he who is cast in that divine mold is formed and shaped early in Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ in it, will become God, since it is cast into the same mold that formed a God. "
Baptism, the Eucharist, is certainly capable of giving the man Christ nature, driving it to theosis, but after it has given birth to Mary, as did Jesus, when he told San Juan, and him to all men: "Son, behold your mother." That is also the meaning of the adage, officially recognized by the Church: Ad Jesum per Mariam. The man could rise, according to Mary in his "ownership" to the top of heaven, because, if Mary is called "Queen of Angels" and "Queen of Heaven", that means that as a woman on earth, has come and recapitulated all higher state of being symbolized by "heaven" and "angels" and in his "Coronation" returned to the divinity of which it came, like Jesus after his resurrection, he had risen too, and the first-in man "above all the heavens" (Acts 1.10, Heb, 4.15) where he resides as the Divine Word from eternity. That is also the meaning of "Jacob's Ladder" and that is the reason why in the litany of ACAT invokes the Virgin Mary with the title "Scale that raises men from earth to heaven. " The Virgin, as a woman on earth, joined all the higher states of being and so he became, together with Christ, the prototype of the glorified humanity. So, for those who according to the will of Jesus has become "a son of Mary" is no longer necessary to actually go after death, according to the mode of transmigration, the multiplicity of higher states to achieve the deification , since at that as' son of Mary, "and therefore" son of God, and has integrated virtually.
This close collaboration of Mary in the full implementation of the Spiritual Life Christian, who is the "christification" the faithful, as the true Christian, according to the traditional formulation, is "another Christ (alter Christus), invites us to think differently from the usual icon found in the principle of our study, the "Virgin in Majesty," sitting, presenting his son sitting on his knees as if to come out of her womb (fructus Ventris tui), in the East, the icon known as the "Virgin of the Sign" represents Mary with the child in her womb open. The child is truly the Christ Child, Jesus, but also the divine child in what must be chosen to 'imitation Jesus Christ, through the womb of the Virgin. and the statue of black is particularly significant in this respect, as we shall see.
Following this search on epiclesis and titles of the Virgin Mary and the snack we just did with the pre-Christian god forms, we feel that we can answer the question we posed at the end of the first chapter this book, namely, if we are led to see that Mary can be considered a "divine personality." Well, we all concur to make a positive response. Undoubtedly will object that the magisterium has always rejected such a conception. It is true, but we find three things: first, as we have said, is that the invocations of the Virgin and the titles we've examined, and are canonically accepted by the Church, can not reasonably consistent with an ordinary woman. The second is that the Christian people, in obedience to a kind of fundamental religious instinct has always tended to behave toward Mary as if it belonged to the superhuman world, the divine order, is sufficient proof of Villon's "Ballade at Notre-Dame "where does speak to his mother and where it does not hesitate to call" High God. " Formula "writer, poet hyperbole? Maybe, but it belongs to the poets, in fact, express often the insights and deep convictions, but sometimes dark, of a people. I do not know that he was disturbed Villon anyone for these words, in an era in which, however, did not play with these materials, when disturbed, it was for very different reasons. Finally, the third and final point, we find in sentences, as in the writings of the Orthodox spiritual writers, the names of "Divine Mother" and "Divine Mary 'names fully justified by the Council of Ephesus, whose common explanation for official theology, as we have noted, there seems to exhaust its meaning.
(*) NOTE ON SYMBOLISM
us understand it when we say that Mary "is" the land, because somebody might believe that the Virgin that reduce to nothing more than an image of a cosmic reality, fear is not unfounded, because unfortunately that is what many intellectuals who claim to have seen the Blessed Virgin. And that gives us the opportunity to clarify once and for all the meaning and operation of the symbolism. When we say that "Mary is the land" that must be understood in the sense of what in another book we call the "theological metonymy" and looks perfectly Plutarch in his treatise On Isis and Osiris, in criticizing precisely the materialist exegesis say that "Demeter is the ear of wheat" in the sense that "only the spike of wheat," says that this is a distortion of religious truth and ends up falling into idolatry. They say he continues, that "Demeter is the spike" in the same way that says "represent Menander" to mean "represent the comedies of Menander," or even "this is in Menander"
The metonymy is do with the symbolism well understood in the traditional sense: the symbol has ontological value, of course, when we take in the interpretation "vertica1", ie according to the direction that links together all aspects of being and that makes certain higher reality is reflected in another that is less certain, so that no analogy to be between two and we can say that lower reality 'is' the higher reality, which means that the states very accurately and allows go back to it. But it is clear that there is no absolute identity between the two, which otherwise would be absurd, because if that were the two realities are no more than one.
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