Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M.
Today is the feast of Our Lady of the Expectation. This feast has an interesting history that Brother Andre reviewed for us this morning (one aspect being the deferred feast of the Incarnation — Annunciation — from the days when no feasts were kept in Lent). In Spain, this feast day is Nuestra Senora de la O: Our Lady of the O, the “O” coming from the expression of longing said in the office of the Mozarabique Liturgy. In the Latin Rite, today’s feast comes in the middle of the “O” Antiphons (where we get the words for the hymn Veni, Veni, Emmanuel — in English O Come, O Come Emmanuel).
All this reminded me of a poem combining these ideas that I discovered some years ago when I was doing research for an English Literature class. I found it in the book, I Sing of a Maiden – The Mary Book of Verse, edited by Sister M. Therese of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Savior, Macmillan, 1947. Since the book is out of print, I feel justified in sharing the following with you.
Lady of O
by James J. Galvin
A Lily Among Thorns (a type of Our Lady - detail of a pillar in Norte Dame de Montreal)
By the seven stars of her halo
By her seven swords of woe
Oh Holy Spirit anneal my pen
To utter sweet words for the ears of men
In praise of Our Lady of O.
With seven O’s we salute Thee
Each evening as Christmas comes;
We hail thee adazzle with sunset gold
Repeating prophecies new and old
Like salvoes of guns and drums.
O Woman, the Word in Thy keeping
Thy secret from God most High,
Shall soon be whispered over the earth
And men shall listen and leap for mirth
Like stars in the Christmas sky.
O Lady, lone tent in the battle
Where our Leader awaits His time;
Though the day grow darker and Satan scorn
The tide of battle shall veer at morn
When He sallies forth to the cheer of horn
And trumpet and timbrel-chime.
Waterlily
O Stalk on the brink of blossom,
Shooting green through the frosty mire;
The peoples pray for thy Spring to come
And the mighty ones of the earth go dumb
For the Flower of the World’s Desire.
O Tower of Grace untrespassed
Since Eden by God’s decree;
At thine ivory spire and jasper gate
The pining kindred of Adam wait
For the turning of Christ the Key.
Morning (taken on the Auriesville Pilgrimage by Agnes Burki)
O Damsel more welcome than morning
To a world gone blind since the fall;
The stars go pale at Thy sandals’ sound
And skylines glimmer, and men peer round
For a virgin in simplest homespun gowned
With the Sunrise under her shawl.
O milk-and-honey-run Mountain
Whence the crystal Cornerstone
Shall issue unsullied by tool or hand
The Stone that shall fasten each race and land
Together like flesh and bone.
O City ashine on the hill-tops
The nations uplift their eyes
From rainy island and sunken sea
And the ends of the earth they throng to Thee
To dwell in thy Christ-lit skies.
By the seven stars of Thy halo
By Thy seven swords of woe
Forgive us, O Lady, these phrases worn
In praise of Thy season with God unborn
O ineffable Lady of O.
Queen of Heaven and Earth (picture taken in the crypt chapel of Saint Anne de Beaupre)
Comments 4
The picture taken in the crypt chapel of Saint Anne de Beaupre (Canada?), “Queen of Heaven and Earth” is quite beautiful. So is the poetry. It is also the major reason why Protestants (such as myself, at least on paper) have an almost impossible to break minset against what is depicted here. No matter how much we would like to accept this, what is presented is apparently the Holy Ghost/Spirit hovering above Mary, with Jesus on one side and God(?) on the other. Once again this is the Trinity (3 equals one and 1 equals 3) in a different form. Mary is clearly replacing Jesus as our primary savior. Where is this in the Bible?
But aside from all this, where is the Trinity in the Bible? In the meantime we have umpteen million Muslims and an untold number of Jews who will never convert to Catholicism just because of all of this. Yes, I know, there will always be exceptions like Edith Stein. But conversion levels are always going to be small.
In any event, the primary stumbling block for Protestants and others is the elevation of Mary to a position that for all practical purposes is equal to God’s. But the world will keep turning and people will continue to believe whatever they want anyway.
Posted 09 Jul 2009 at 11:58 am ¶Dear Mr. Sifdol,
It has taken me quite some time to reply to your comment, but in the meantime, you have been in our prayers. (And I see that you have had some exchange of comments with Brother Andre on Catholicism.org.)
Yes, the picture was taken at St. Anne’s shrine in Canada. You seem to be asking three questions: 1) Why is Mary so prominent in the picture? 2) Why do Catholics put Mary in a “position for all practical purposes” that is equal to God? 3)Where is the Trinity in the Bible? There is so much that could be said, but let me take them in order.
1) Why is Our Lady shown up on a level with God the Father and God the Son? The chapel where this picture was taken is dedicated to Our Lady, so the emphasis is her coronation as the Queen of Heaven and earth. The positioning is due, I believe, only to space restrictions (the ceiling is low). No Catholic who knows his faith would dream of replacing Jesus with His mother.
2) Why do Catholics elevate Our Lady so high? The quick answer is: because that is what God Himself did. Our Lord came to us through Mary and we go best to Him through her. However, there is an infinite difference between God and Mary.
3) This is actually your most fundamental question: Where is the Trinity in the Bible? Briefly, you will see the Trinity implicitly in the Old Testament and explicitly in the New. Why? Because we needed the revelation of the Incarnation in order to understand the Trinity.
Here are some links for your own research:
(See especially the section Proofs from Scripture)
(This article covers both the Trinity and devotion to Mary.)
As far as conversion levels go, that is between God and the souls He created — with eternal consequences, of course. We have to do our part by being of good will and teaching/learning the truth.
May Our Lady bless you with Her Holy Child!
In Her Immaculate Heart,
Posted 21 Feb 2012 at 4:34 pm ¶Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M.
Dear All
In the book of Jeremaih7:16-19 God YAHWEH our ELOHIM says the following:
Jer 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.
You read and deside!!
Shalom
Johan
Posted 29 Mar 2013 at 5:54 am ¶The “queen of heaven” mentioned in Jeremias is Ishtar, the Assyro-Babylonian goddess of fertility. We’re not talking about the same person!
Posted 07 Apr 2013 at 1:03 pm ¶Post a Comment