Lyrics for Advent

We are now in the midst of a cluster of feasts honoring Christ's mother. Today we commemorated Mary's conception in the Byzantine churches. Most Catholics observed the same feast yesterday, and they will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monday. This Sunday in the Byzantine Rite we commemorate the ancestors of Christ.

Earlier this week I heard the Lovemongers' cover of this song by Patty Griffin. You can hear a live recording of it by Patty with Natalie Maines here.


Mary

Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ashes
You're covered in rain
You're covered in babies, you're covered in slashes
You're covered in wilderness, you're covered in stains
You cast aside the sheet, you cast aside the shroud
Of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
On some sunny day and always stay, Mary

Jesus says Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
Flys right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary she moves behind me
She leaves her fingerprints everywhere
Everytime the snow drifts, everytime the sand shifts
Even when the night lifts, she's always there

Jesus said Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
Flys right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ruin
You're covered in secrets
You're covered in treetops, you're covered in birds
Who can sing a million songs without any words
You cast aside the sheets, you cast aside the shroud
Of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
On some sunny day and always stay
Mary, Mary, Mary


Patty Griffin
One Big Love Music/Chrome Dog Music (ASCAP)
From the 1998 album Flaming Red

Abp. Anastasios on "Theotokos Spirituality"

Theotokos simply means Mother of God or God-bearer. This is Mary, Christ’s mother. Think of her! She became the first and best disciple and sets the perfect example for anyone who is trying to follow her Divine Son. There are three main elements in her witness. She said to the archangel, ‘Be it done to me according to your word.’ God's will, not my own! She gives us this example and through it Christ enters our lives. She also said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord.’ We are asked to centre our lives on the Lord, not ourselves. And she says, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ We learn from her another type of freedom, the freedom to be free of your own plans. We realize he becomes present in our lives, as he became present in hers, through obedience. It is the obedience of love, a gift of the Holy Spirit. In her silence, in her capacity quietly to consider events in her heart, we also learn much about prayer as face-to-face conversation with God in silence. Contemplating the Mother of God is a great help and is itself a form of prayer.

His Beatitude Anastasios (Yannoulatos)
Archbishop of Tirana, Durrrës, and All Albania

from The Resurrection of the Church in Albania: Voices of Orthodox Christians, by Jim Forest

Hymns of the Arimathean

On Thursday evening, the eve of my name day, I attended Vespers at Holy Cross, hoping to hear a few hymns of my patron saint, and I was not disappointed. He shares his feast day with St. Germanus of Auxerre and the Forefeast of the Procession of the Precious Cross, so not all the hymns were about St. Joseph. After the service, I made copies of most of the hymns of St. Joseph of Arimathea for myself, with the exception of the canon (yes, he even has his own canon!). These all come from the appendix to the July Menaion, as published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery. I will share a few of my new favorite hymns.


Doxastikon of Saint Joseph. Plagal of Second Tone.
All generations call thee blessed, O Noble Counsellor; for thou wast deemed worthy to minister to the divine dispensation of the universal salvation of our race. Thou didst pluck that ever-living Flower of Forgiveness that burst into bloom on the trellis of the Cross, and hast delighted the whole world with the sweet fragrance of our restoration to God. Since thou art glorified by Christ as his disciple and friend, O Joseph, intercede with him to save them that keep thy memorial with faith and love.

Another Apolytikion of Saint Joseph. Plagal of First Tone.
Let us honour the man that gave burial to God and showed compassion to him by whose mercy all things exist: Christ the Angel of Great Counsel's Noble Counsellor: who gave his narrow grave to Christ and received as recompense the vast spaciousness of Heaven, where he entreateth the Saviour to show his mercy to those praising him.

Exapostilarion of Saint Joseph. Third Tone.
When the Apostles faltered, the Noble Counsellor valiantly went in, obtaining of Pilate that Body which shook all the world. Now he obtaineth forgiveness for all who keep his remembrance.

Fourth Sticheron of Saint Joseph at the Praises. Plagal of Fourth Tone.
Blessed are thine eyes, which looked on Christ; O Joseph, blest are thy hands, which conveyed him from off the Cross to that quickening Sepulchre where our race was reborn to God. Blest is thy heart, which was rended at his death, wherein he dwelt always, filling it with grace. O Noble Counsellor, as we honour thee with songs of hearfelt joy, intercede unceasingly with God to save us all.

Theotokion. Grave Tone.
A virgin womb, conceiving thee, revealed thee; a virgin tomb, receiving thee, concealed thee. We glorify her from whom thou didst receive a beginning in time, and we honour him that ministered to the end of thine earthly life for our sakes, asking that through their prayers, O merciful Saviour, we might be deemed worthy of thy Kingdom of the Heavens.

Dormition Lamentations

Last night after Vespers I had the great joy and privilege to join in singing the Dormition Lamentations. Some 15 years ago, the service from which these hymns are taken served as my introduction to devotion to the Theotokos. But, since this service is no longer done by either Melkites or Antiochians (and, as far as I can tell, never was done by anyone else in this country), I was afraid I would never hear these hymns again.

At Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic Church, they used to have a service on the Eve of the Dormition known as the Epitaphios of the Theotokos. It is exactly parallel to the Epitaphios service of Holy Friday, a service of lamentation for the death of Christ. Central features of that service include the singing of three long, beautiful lamentation hymns and the veneration of the epitaphios, an embroidered icon of the preparation of Christ’s body for burial by Joseph and Nicodemus, which is placed in a flower-covered bier. The Dormition Eve service included lamentation hymns for Our Lady, sung to the same tunes as those of Holy Friday, and veneration of an embroidered Dormition icon.

The first time I visited Holy Transfiguration for its title feast on 6 August, Fr. Joseph encouraged everyone to return the following week for the Epitaphios of the Theotokos, emphasizing its similarity to the service of Holy Friday, which is by far the parish’s best attended service. The Dormition Eve service was not nearly as well attended, but that just made it feel more intimate. The hymns gave me the sense of attending the funeral of a stranger who was universally loved, making me wish I had the privilege of knowing her. At Holy Transfiguration their custom is to come forward and gather close around the priest for the reading of the Gospel. On this occasion, since the congregation was so small, Fr. Joseph invited us all to remain up close for the homily. After the service I went forward again to venerate the icon and to receive a flower from the bier.

I returned every year, always inviting friends to join me for my favorite service. After serveral years of declined invitations, one friend finally joined me. But the service was not the one I remembered – instead of the Lamentation service they were doing Vespers. My friend Mary was impressed, but I was disappointed. Hoping this was just a one-off aberration, I returned the next few years, but it was always Vespers. I finally asked their cantor about it, and he informed me that they were no longer permitted to do the service because there were problems with the English translation they had been using. Until they had an approved translation, they could not do the service. And no one was working on a new translation.

Around the same time, I have learned, Metropolitan Philip also discontinued the service in the Antiochian Archdiocese, reportedly because he felt there was a danger of excessive devotion to Mary in some Middle Eastern ethnic parishes.

This past Thursday evening I had planned to be out of town, but a mishap forced me to return home. Therefore I was able to attend the Vesperal Liturgy for the Dormition at Holy Cross. During communion, standing at the front near the chanters’ stand, I heard some women of the choir singing the opening words of a hymn:

In a grave they laid thee, O my life and my Christ.
In a grave as well, the Mother of Life;
A strange sight both to angels and mankind.

Even though I had not heard the hymn in a decade and the tune was a bit different than the one the Melkites used, I knew instantly that I was hearing the first Dormition lamentation, and I moved to the back of the church, right in front of the choir, to hear it better. After the Liturgy, during the veneration of the cross, they sang the other two lamentation hymns. Afterwards, I thanked protopsalti Emily for these hymns. On Saturday evening after Vespers, when the lamentations were sung again, I joined in.

My favorite verse comes from the second of the three hymns:

Heaven now becomes passable by men and women:
Come, all you Christ-bearing people,
and rise with the Mother of God!

Here is the old Melkite translation of the same verse:

Now Heaven is opened even unto all the members of mankind;
Come, then, all you baptized who bear Christ the Lord,
Let us enter with the Mother of God.

Our veneration of the Theotokos is not entirely disinterested. We see in her a basis for our own hope of admission into heaven. She is a type of the Church, and, as such, she represents all Christians. Other hymns of the Epitaphios of the Theotokos, as I recall, are quite explicit in presenting Our Lady’s Assumption in terms of bridal imagery: Christ invites his Mother, representing his Bride the Church, into his heavenly marriage bower. This touches on the eschatological and soteriological implications of the Dormition.


The back cover of today’s bulletin related how the service is celebrated in Jerusalem, where it originated:

Nowhere is this feast celebrated with as much solemnity as in Jerusalem itself. On the eve of the feast, a large procession begins at the Jerusalem Patriarchate and winds its way through the narrow streets of the Old City, slowly making its way to Gethsemane. An icon of the Dormition leads the procession, with clergy, monks, nuns, and pilgrims following closely by. The two-hour walk ends at the church there, with the Lamentations Service celebrated at that time. In front of the altar in the edifice – beyond the burial chamber of the Mother of God – is a raised spot, upon which rests the shroud in which the body of the Virgin was wrapped. It is customary for those in attendance to venerate the processional icon of the Dormition and then stoop down and go beneath it as a sign of piety.

Steward of the Treasury of Grace

A friend, formerly Anglo-Catholic, now Roman, just sent me a list of links to his favorite blogs. This one, written by an Anglo-Papalist priest and scholar in the UK, recently featured a series of four short posts that, together, constitute a translation of a short passage from a homily by St. Gregory Palamas on the Mother of God. The section I found most striking was the end of part three, which offers the image of Mary as keeper of the treasury of grace:

[T]hrough thee is illumined the spirit by the indwelling of the divine Spirit; for thou didst become steward (tamiouchos) and full content (perioche) of graces; not so that thou mightest keep them by thyself, but so that thou might fill the whole of everything (ta sumpanta) with grace – because the Dispenser of inexhaustible treasures ordains (epitropeuei) it on account of the distribution: for why would he make the undiminshed wealth to be closed up?

To read the whole thing (which is quite short, even though it is spread out over four posts), click here and then scroll down to the second-to-last post. The four posts are titled, "Mary's Month of May."

Road Trip to Western Pennsylvania

I concluded my first week as an Orthodox Christian with a trip to the Pittsburgh area. The main reason for the trip was the fall meeting of the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was to be held at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral. I have been an active member of the ESBVM for nearly a decade, and I usually attend the semi-annual meetings. I even gave presentations at the 2003 and 2006 fall meetings.

I drove up a day early to visit the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Ellwood City while I was in the area. I had originally planned to visit this monastery the previous week as part of my preparation for chrismation, but I just could not fit it into a week that was already packed with activity. Their limited guest facilities were already full when I scheduled my visit, so I spent Thursday and Friday nights at the nearby Beaver Valley Motel. I arrived after midnight. After a short night's sleep, I went to my car and found the battery dead. (My dome light has not been working, so I turned on the map light when I was unloading the car and forgot to turn it off.) Fortunately, I always carry jumper cables, and the man working the desk at the hotel gave me a jump, so I lost less than ten minutes.


When I arrived at the monastery, Matins, which had begun at 7:30, was already in progress. I remained in the narthex, which was larger than the nave and separated from it only by a pew on either side of the entrance. After they completed the Six Psalms, one of the nuns came out to greet me and invite me to sit in the back pew. Matins continued with the kathisma, the assigned section of the Psalter, which is often skipped or truncated in parish worship but not in monasteries. This was followed by the canon, a long hymn that has come to substitute for the Biblical canticles at Matins in some Orthodox traditions. The canon was interrrupted by two readings of spiritual advice from the writings of an elder. Matins was followed by the Divine Liturgy. Even though everything was in English, I had refrained from joining in the singing at Matins. In the Liturgy I couldn't not sing, but I kept it soft since I was at least an octave below all the other voices.

After the Liturgy, Mother Barbara, the guestmistress, introduced herself. Then I joined the priest who had celebrated the Liturgy, Fr. John, in the dining room with one of the nuns, who made us coffee and toast. Fr. John, who was originally from northern Indiana, is now the priest of the local parish, St. Elias. After breakfast I spent the morning in the library reading a book I found on the shelf there, Liturgy and Architecture, by the French Catholic scholar Louis Bouyer. At lunch I sat next to the abbess, Mother Christophora, at the head of the table. Unlike monasteries I had visited previously, where everyone eats in silence while one monk reads, here we conversed as we ate. Even though it was Friday, a fasting day, the food was quite good. After buying a few things in the gift shop and reading some more Bouyer, I returned to the dining room to make a cup of tea. As I was drinking it, one of the sisters brought me a piece of apple pie, which was delicious. I took my dirty dishes to the kitchen and found a nun and another guest shelling chestnuts. When they both wondered if they would finish the job before they had to run off and do other jobs, I said, "Give me a knife!" We finished early, and I returned to the library to resume reading.

On Friday it is their custom to follow Vespers with an Akathist, during which they intercede for youth whose names have been submitted in prayer requests. This day they sang an Akathist to St. Paraskeva in honor of her upcoming feast day. I was given a stack of slips of paper with the names of young people, which I read quietly as the Akathist was sung. After an un-eventful night at the motel, I returned in the morning for the first hour of Matins, and then headed for Pittsburgh.

The topic of the ESBVM meeting was Marian apparitions, in honor of this being the 90th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, Portugal. The meeting began with the viewing of a new DVD on the apparitions and message of Fatima. After lunch, we heard from three speakers: Fr. Brian J. Welding, a Roman Catholic priest, spoke about criteria for Vatican-approved apparitions; Fr. Gregory Jensen, a Greek Orthodox priest, spoke about apparitions in the Orthodox tradition; and the Rev. Dr. Judith Marie Gentle, an Episcopal priest, spoke on the significance of the Fatima apparitions and messages. Their talks were followed by a too-short question-and-answer period, during which most of the written questions submitted seemed to be for Fr. Gregory to answer. This was the best-attended ESBVM meeting I have seen, with a lot of Pittsburgh locals, including a number of college students, and a group that came all the way from Wisconsin, in addition the the regulars.

After the meeting, I spent the rest of the day with Mother Judith and Virginia Kimball, an Orthodox theologian. After coffee, we went to Vespers at St. George Cathedral, Oakland, a cathedral of the Antiochian Diocese of Charleston, Oakland, and the Mid-Atlantic (my own diocese). Oakland is a neighborhood of Pittsburgh, and St. George Cathedral is only a mile from St. Nicholas, the Greek cathedral where the ESBVM met. The iconography at St. George's is extensive and beautiful. The side walls feature icons of saints in roundels, surrounded and connected by vines. The lead chanter was one of the students we had met earlier in the day at the ESBVM meeting, a student of engineering at the nearby University of Pittsburgh and a friend of Fr. Gregory. We concluded the day with dinner at the Holiday Inn where the ESBVM's International Congress will be held next year.

Joy of All Joys

In my recent post on prayer, I mentioned St. Seraphim of Sarov, a 19th-century Russian monk who is said to have practiced a devotion nearly identical to the Rosary. As depicted in the icon accompanying that post, St. Seraphim would pray this devotion daily, kneeling in his cell before an icon of the Theotokos. This Umilenie (Tenderness) icon is very unusual, in that it depicts the Blessed Virgin alone, without her son. In fact, it was possibly not a traditional Orthodox icon at all, but a Western image of Our Lady. This image, which St. Seraphim called "Joy of All Joys," represents Mary's feelings of tenderness at the Annunciation.

With oil from the lampada that burned before this holy icon, St. Seraphim would anoint the sick and they would be healed. He was praying in front of this icon when he died on 2 January 1833. After his death, the abbot gave the holy icon to the sisters of the monastery at Diveyevo. The icon is sometimes known as the Seraphim-Diveyevo icon of the Theotokos, after the convent where it now resides.

While searching on-line for an icon of St. Seraphim to use with my post, I frequently encountered a very different icon of the Theotokos that was said incorrectly to be this icon of St. Seraphim's. One might think that a particular icon that is often depicted in the icons of a popular saint, and which is still in existence in a known location, would be immune to problems of mistaken identity. But in thinking this, one would be seriously underestimating the Orthodox penchant for uncritically believing and repeating misinformation.

This beautiful icon is of the Eleousa type. While Eleousa is sometimes translated, like Umilenie, as "Tenderness," more strictly it means "Merciful." I would conjecture that someone, reading that St. Serphim's icon was of the "Tenderness" type found the most beautiful "Tenderness" icon he could find and assumed St. Seraphim's must be similar. This surprisingly popular misidentification has been appearing in some pretty authoritative places on-line, such as the Website of the Orthodox Church in America (here). But the OCA displays the very same icon here, where it is labeled as the Mother of God of the Pskov Caves Monastery. I think this latter identification is probably correct – I have seen it in other places, as well.

Meanwhile, the only other image of Our Lady I have seen that is similar to St. Seraphim's Umilenie is the wonder-working image of Our Lady of Ostrobrama, which resides in Vilnius, Lithuania, where it is venerated by Catholics and Orthodox alike.

Relics to Kazan

Yesterday, an Italian noblewoman gave a fragment of Our Lady’s robe, along with relics of six other saints, to the Russian Orthodox Church in the city of Kazan, in the heart of Russia. His Eminence Anastasi, Archbishop of Kazan and Tatarstan, received the relics from the Marquise Immacolata Solaro del Borgo, 77, a member of Rome's historically powerful Colonna family, in a cermony at the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul. The well attended ceremony was broadcast live throughout the country on Russia's main television channel, NTV.

The relics will eventually be housed in a new pilgrimage center along with the icon of Our Lady of Kazan, which was returned to Russia by Pope John Paul II in 2004.

The full article in English appears on Inside the Vatican. A short article in Russian with numerous photos appears on the website of the Kazan Diocese.

Most Holy Theotokos, Save Us

In recent years, my primary formal role at St. Paul's was as the official proponent, instigator, and organizer of Marian devotion. I was secretary of both the parish ward of the Society of Mary and the parish cell of the Society of Our Lady of Walsingham. In the former role I organized the monthly meeting of the Society of Mary. On the third Saturday of the month, after Morning Prayer at 9:15 and Low Mass at 9:30, we would recite a Scriptural Rosary at the Lady Altar and then gather in the Common Room (or later the Guild Room) for brunch. Occasionally I would give a short talk or invite a speaker. Whenever I could not get a volunteer to lead the Rosary or provide brunch, I would do it myself.

In addition, I spent a lot of time on my knees at the Lady Altar. I went through a period where I found it difficult to engage in intercessory prayer except at places dedicated to Mary, so I got into the habit of always praying here and at other shrines of Our Lady, such as the Guadalupe Shrine at St. Luke's, Bladensburg.

As with most things in Anglo-Catholicism, Marian devotion requires a high degree of intentionality. It's not something you will find in most parishes of the Episcopal Church, and even in an Anglo-Catholic parish you might have to look for it. This points to one of the major differences I have found in Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the Orthodox Church, all of the things that Anglo-Catholics have had to work so hard to establish and maintain are just part of the base package, not optional extras. If you participate in any service at any Orthodox Church you're going to commemorate and request the intercession of "our all-holy, pure, most blessed, and glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary."

Theotokos is Mary's dogmatic title, which is most often translated as Mother of God, but might be rendered more precisely as Birthgiver of God or Godbearer. In honoring Mary as Theotokos we acknowledge both that her son is God and that he was born of a human mother, thus affirming the Church's teaching that Jesus is fully divine and fully human and that the divinity and humanity are perfectly joined in him. Those who refused to honor Mary as Theotokos were judged not to share the Church's understanding of the Incarnation, and they were excommunicated at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431. Conversely, my own devotion to Mary is tied closely to my commitment to the centrality of Christ's Incarnation.

Obviously, I am glad to be in a church where everyone joins in honoring Our Lady and begging her prayers. But no matter how extravagantly we honor her collectively, I am left feeling that I should do more. More generally: After cultivating a highly intentional devotional life as an Anglican, where is there room for that intentionality in my new Orthodox life?

As if to address my questions, Holy Cross just instituted a monthly Paraklesis service on the first Thursday of the month. This service is a supplication for the intercession of the Theotokos. Thus, it plays a role roughly equivalent to the Rosary for Anglo-Catholics. Naturally, I made a point of attending the first Paraklesis on Thursday evening, and I will try to do so regularly in the future.

From death and corruption he has saved
My nature, held by death and corruption;
For unto death
He himself has surrendered;
For which reason, O Virgin, please intercede
With him who is your Lord and Son,
From the enemies' evils deliver me.

Most Holy Theotokos, save us.

The History and Development of the Angelus

A few years ago, St. Paul's Parish introduced the Angelus preceding the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer. To help introduce the devotion to parishioners, I gave a short talk at a meeting of the parish ward of the Society of Mary. I later adapted that talk into the following article, which appeared in the June 2005 issue of the parish newsletter, The Epistle.

When the faithful gather in the Angel Chapel each weekday at 6:45 AM to begin the daily cycle of prayers at St. Paul's, the first words we hear are these: "The Angel of the Lord announced unto Mary: And she conceived by the Holy Ghost." These are the opening versicle and response of the Angelus, a popular devotion commemorating the Incarnation. This devotion developed into its current form over a period of several centuries.

In monasteries of the 10th century, the office of Compline was followed by three prayers, said kneeling by the monks. Each of the three prayers came to be accompanied by three tolls of a bell. By the 14th century, devout laymen would kneel in imitation of the monks and recite three Hail Marys when they heard the three triple tolls of the bell. The devotion was thought particularly appropriate to the hour of sunset, which was believed to be the time of day when the angel greeted Mary, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women" (Luke 1:28). In time, the recitation of the three Hail Marys each evening became a familiar custom.

The monks also recited the three prayers, accompanied by the bell, in the morning after the office of Prime. Within another century, people were saying the three Hail Marys in the morning as well as the evening. The three triple tolls came to be known in some places as "the peace bell," and citizens were exhorted to pray the Hail Mary for the intention of the preservation of peace whenever they heard the bell.

The third daily Angelus, at midday, was a later development. In some medieval cities, the bell was rung at noon on Fridays to commemorate the Passion of Christ. By the 16th century, the noon bell was rung daily, and the three familiar Hail Marys had come to precede the Passion prayer. It was also around this time that the modern Angelus versicles came to be associated with the devotion. The concluding prayer, however, apparently varied between the different times of day, commemorating the Resurrection in the morning, the Passion at midday, and the Incarnation in the evening. It was not until the 18th century that the Collect of the Annunciation became fixed as the regular concluding prayer.

Today, many churches still ring the Angelus bells two or three times each day, and good Catholics, upon hearing them, stop what they are doing for a few seconds, quietly joining in this brief devotion with Christians from across the centuries.

The History and Development of the Rosary

I originally wrote this piece as a short lecture to accompany an instructed Rosary. It was published in the December 2003 issue of The Tilma, the monthly newsletter of the Ward of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the chapter of the Society of Mary in the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. I later reprinted it in the Eastertide 2006 issue of AVE, the thrice-yearly newsletter of the Society of Mary, American Region, which I edit.

The oldest name for the devotion we know as the Rosary is "Our Lady's Psalter," a reference to its development from the custom of recitation of the psalms. It is customary for monks to recite the 150 psalms weekly. The early desert fathers are said to have recited the entire Psalter daily. In various times and places, private recitation of the psalms, or a third part of the psalms – that is, 50 – was enjoined on Christians. When a monk died, for instance, the priests of the community would say a Requiem Mass for their departed brother, but the monks who were not priests would recite 50 psalms in lieu of the Requiem Mass. Devout, educated laymen would also recite 50 psalms as a daily devotion. But this form of prayer was possible only for those who could read Latin and who could afford a personal copy of the Psalter. A form of daily prayer was also required for those who were poor or illiterate. Those who could not read the Psalms would instead recite 50 Paternosters, or repetitions of the Lord's Prayer.

Throughout history and across all religions, wherever prayers are repeated many times, counting devices have come into use to assist those who prayed. A sculpture from ancient Nineveh appears to show two winged women in an attitude of prayer, holding rosaries. Muslims use bead-strings to count the 99 names of God. One early Christian monk would gather 300 stones every morning and discard one with each prayer until he had discarded them all and fulfilled his daily obligation. Eastern monks use knotted cords to count 100 repetitions of the Jesus Prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner." The famous Lady Godiva, upon her death in the 11th century, bequeathed to a monastery "the circlet of precious stones which she had threaded on a cord in order that by fingering them one after another she might count her prayers exactly."

So it is not unexpected that strings of 50 beads came into popular use to count Paternosters. The devotion was sufficiently popular to support craft guilds of paternosterers all over 13th century Europe to manufacture these strings of prayerbeads.

Around the 12th century, the angel's salutation to Mary came into popular use as a devotion to be repeated 50 or 150 times: "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb." (The concluding petition, "Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death," was not appended to the Hail Mary until sometime later.) The Hail Marys were sometimes said in groups of 10, with bows and prostrations.

All of these streams came together in the preaching of the Dominican friar, Alan de Rupe (aka Alain de La Roche), in the 1470s. It was he who first promoted devotion to Our Lady's Psalter – the recitation of 150 Hail Marys. (It was also apparently he who first attributed the origin of the Rosary to St. Dominic, two centuries earlier.) Subsequently, Rosary confraternities associated with the Dominican Order began to spring up all over Europe to encourage and support the praying of Our Lady's Psalter. It was under their influence that the Rosary came to be standardized in its now-familiar form of 15 decades, each associated with a mystery from the life of Christ and his mother.

As regards the origin of the name, the Latin word rosarius means a garland or bouquet of roses. An early legend that traveled all over Europe connected this name with a story of Our Lady, who was seen to take rosebuds from the lips of a young monk when he was reciting Hail Marys and to weave them into a garland which she placed upon her head. Other names for the Rosary, corona and chaplet, also refer to Mary's crown of roses from this story.

The old English name for the Rosary, found in Chaucer and elsewhere was a "pair of beads." The word bead originally meant a prayer, and it is cognate with our word bid, meaning to beg, entreat, or pray. The more familiar meaning of bead referring to ornamental stones that are threaded together comes from the use of such beads to count prayers.

Fr. Kevin J. Scallon, an Irish Vincentian priest, wrote the following:

The greatness of the Rosary lies in its power to help us walk in the footsteps of Jesus. It draws us into those eternal moments in the life of Christ. In each mystery we gaze, as through a window, to contemplate with Mary the life and mysteries of her son. As at all her great shrines, Mary is never concerned to draw her children to herself but to her son. We recite the Hail Marys and gaze on Jesus who allows us to be with him at each moment from the Annunciation to the Crowning of his mother as Queen. . . . As we finger the beads and recite the Hail Marys, the words of Scripture pass before our mind and we drink from "the spring of living water welling up to eternal life" and "our hearts burn within us."

Pilgrimage, Part 2: Walsingham

Continuing my photos of the 2003 Walsingham pilgrimage. See part 1 here.

Anglican Shrine

The 11th Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross

Pilgrims

Orthodox Chapel of St Seraphim

Icon of Our Lady of Walsingham

St Mary's, Little Walsingham

East window, designed by John Hayward in 1964

Walsingham Abbey

Bridge over pedestrian tunnel

Looking east

East window arch of priory church, with Anglican Shrine in background

Facing in opposite direction from last picture - southeast

Remains of priory church - base of west pillar and east windon arch

Court room

Chapel of Reconciliation

Icon of Our Lady of Walsingham

Saints of England

Slipper Chapel

West window, designed by Alfred Fisher in 1997

Friary Ruins

 

Assumption, West Barsham

Basket windows, 11th century or earlier

South porch

St Peter's, Great Walsingham

View from the east

The nave

Side altar

Pre-Reformation glass

Pre-Reformation glass depicting the Coronation of the Virgin

Holy Transfiguration Church

Russian Orthodox church in Great Walsingham

St Withburga & St Fursey

Anglican Shrine

Chapel of St Wilfrid & St Cuthbert

Annunciation window

Pilgrimage, Part 1: London, Canterbury, and Ely

The rector of my old Anglo-Catholic parish leads a pilgrimage to Walsingham every two or three years. In May 2003 I was among the pilgrims who visited London, Canterbury, Ely, Walsingham, and Oxford. All of these photos were taken with a 35mm camera and transferred to a CD as part of the film processing. I originally posted them on the Kodak website shortly after the pilgrimage, but they could only remain up there as long as someone purchased prints of the photos every six months, so they evaporated sometime in 2004. Anticipating that demise, I copied all of my photo captions to a file so that I could recreate it when the opportunity arose. This first post (of two) covers the pre-Walsingham portion of the pilgrimage. We stayed in London, made a day trip to Canterbury Cathedral, and stopped at Ely Cathedral on our way to Walsingham. The second post will cover our time in Walsingham. I don't seem to have taken any pictures in Oxford.

London Churches

St Paul's Knightsbridge: Chapel of St Luke

St Michael's Priory: London house of the Community of the Resurrection

Brompton Oratory: Chapel of Our Lady of Victories

Canterbury Cathedral

Jesus Chapel

Martyrdom shrine, through cloister door



Prior's stall in the Chapter House

Tomb of Edward, the Black Prince

St Gabriel's Chapel

Romanesque painting in the apse of St Gabriel's Chapel

Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, London

North aisle window, designed by William Blake Richmond

North aisle window depicting English saints

Ely Cathedral

14th-century painting in St Edmund's Chapel

St Dunstan's Chapel (?)

Links
St Paul's, Knightsbridge
Community of the Resurrection
Brompton Oratory

Canterbury Cathedral

Holy Trinity, Sloane Street
Ely Cathedral