St Jerome, Doctor of the Church

When I ask God for an Orthodox Western Rite parish to be founded in San Francisco, I do so under the intercession of the Four Latin Doctors of the Church, the Great Teachers of the West: Sts Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine of Hippo, and Jerome.  Today is the feast of the latter-most and I post here his Vita, as recorded in the Breviary Office for this day.

Antiphon: O Doctor right excellent, O light of Holy Church, O blessed Jerome, lover of the divine law, entreat for us the Son of God.

V. The Lord loved him, and adorned him.
R. He clothed him with a robe of glory.

Collect
O God, who for the exposition of thy holy Scriptures didst bestow upon thy Church the wondrous teachings of blessed Jerome thy Confessor and Doctor : grant, we beseech thee ; that by the intercession of his merits, we may of thee be enabled to perform those things which he taught in word and deed. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

The Rosary: The Garden of Gathsemene

The Passion in the Garden is Jesus' last "alone time" before the climax of his ministry.  He often went aside to pray, but, as it were, those might be considered "training prayers" for this one.  He experienced stress, certainly (as seen by the bloody sweat) and probably fear.  He asked his Father if there was another way - even after he had committed to doing this.  See the verses below from Byzantine Holy Week: as God he was among the plotters agreeing to his own betrayal.

For the Orthodox, it is Jesus' action in his own passion that is important: for us mortals, a "passion" implies (as Kallistos Ware points out) the Latin passio, something that happens to us.  For Jesus, it's something he undertakes willfully.  He allows Judas to sell him to the Jews. He allows the Jews to give him to the Romans. He allows the Romans to nail him to the Cross.  He allows the demons to take him into hell. And then... O, Glorious God of All, what then! Oh, and what more in your love for us!  Glory to Thee!

Dolorous Mysteries - Introduction

The Dolorous or Sorrowful mysteries are the events at the End of Christ's ministry:

1. The Passion in the Garden
2. The Scourging at the Pillar
3. The Crowning with Thorns
4. The Carrying of the Cross
5. The Crucifixion, Death, and Burial of Our Lord

Perhaps these are what many people think about when they think of "meditating on the Rosary".  Any sort of "Affective Piety" or "Pious Visualization" may give one a very stereotyped idea of someone conjuring up a mental image of the Crucifixion or the Scourging and, working themselves into an emotional state, having a good, cathartic cry.

Introduction to the Joyful Mysteries

I know, I just finished all the posts on the Joyful Mysteries. But I didn't do an intro. And I realized that each set of mysteries probably needs an intro.  So back track a bit: here's this one.

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The Joyful Mysteries are those events at the beginning of the life of Christ:

1. The Annunciation of the Archangel to Mary
2. The Visitation of Our Lady to St Elizabeth
3. The Nativity of Our Lord
4. The Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple
5. The Finding of Christ teaching among the Elders in the Temple

Each one of these represents a direct interplay between Our Lady and Our Lord.  These are called Joyful because of the deep joy they signified to Mary, but also to us! The joys of Lady Day in March and Christmas in December, of Candlemas

The first two can seem as if Christ is very passive, but it should never be forgotten that Christ is God in the Flesh: he is never passive, no matter how it may seem to us. But he is never over-ruling either. Mary was asked if she would partake of this joy and she consented.  Likewise in the Visitation, it was Christ who made the Forerunner leap for joy, but it was at his Mother's actions and words.

His actions for our salvation have been the divine plan of the ages.  Fr John Behr says that Protestantism can make it sound like God made the world, man messed it up, and Christ's Life, Death, and Resurrection are a sort of "Plan B".  But God knew from the beginning, from before the beginning how Man's freedom would take him away: the Mysteries of the Incarnation were always there, waiting for Man's freedom to be ready to participate in the Divine Dance: that's the Orthodox Doctrine of Synergy.  We are saved in a dance with God, not by "following your bliss" or by "submission" to a divine override, but by participation.

The Joyous Mysteries are the revelation of the Dance.  All of Creation from "let us make..." to "it is finished" were the opening measures of it.  Praying the Rosary will draw you in to the same dance by letting you hear the same music.

Rosary VI - the Finding in the Temple

The Fifth Joyous Mystery contemplates the time when, as a child, Christ lingered in Jerusalem after his parents had departed for home. The Gospel text relates that they were traveling with a party so large they assumed he was some place out of sight and didn't discover he was gone until three days into their homeward journey.  When they got back to Jerusalem they found him teaching in the Temple and he said "Didn't you know I would be about my father's business?" ("Wist ye not" it says in the Authorized Version.) This event in the childhood of Christ is not commemorated liturgically at all in the West. It only comes up here in the Rosary.

There is, however, a feast in the East called "Midpentecost". It is celebrated at the half-way point between Pascha and Pentecost, the 4th Wednesday after Pascha. It has no real scriptural warrant: the Gospel used is of Christ crying out "in the middle of the feast" which, of course, would be only the one-week long feast of Passover. But the icon used is "Christ Among the Doctors" which is of the youth Christ - in other words, it's an icon of the Mystery of the Finding of Christ in the Temple. The liturgical hymns for this feast - such as I've used below - are taken from various events in the scriptures as you will see from the texts I used below. 

The feast itself is made up: a conflation of events to make a point.  That's not a bad thing; the West does it as well with feasts for the Motherhood of Mary, the Holy Eucharist, and even Trinity Sunday.  The feasts of the Church's Calendar are not all tied to an historical event that happened on that specific day. The entire Calendar is a teaching tool,  and icon, if you will. The Truth of Christ revealed in the Calendar is the reason for the Calendar.

When praying this mystery the embolism I use is:

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, teaching the Elders in the Temple. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Custodia Oculorum

The Latin Phrase which was employed as the title of this article is translated as "Custody of the Eyes".  It's a quaint, perhaps Victorian-sounding, phrase to which I was introduced by a Priest in NYC who had once been an Benedictine at the Great House of Nashdom in the UK. He noticed me, please forgive me, of a Sunday after Mass, ogling someone on the street.  Leaning to me he said, "Custodia, Frater!" Custody, brother. Since I'd no idea what he meant, he explained: training to remove the eyes from gazing upon the vanities of the world.

Rosary V - The Presentation in the Temple

Candlemas is one of my favourite feasts. The following from the Catholic Encyclopedia shares a little bit of the history of the feast:

According to the Roman Missal the celebrant after Terce, in stole and cope of purple colour, standing at the epistle side of the altar, blesses the candles (which must be of beeswax). Having sung or recited the five orations prescribed, he sprinkles and incenses the candles. Then he distributes them to the clergy and laity, whilst the choir sings the canticle of Simeon, "Nunc dimittis". The antiphon "Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel" is repeated after every verse, according to the medieval custom of singing the antiphons. During the procession which now follows, and at which all the partakers carry lighted candles in their hands, the choir sings the antiphon "Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion", composed by St. John of Damascus, one of the few pieces which, text and music, have been borrowed by the Roman Church from the Greeks. The other antiphons are of Roman origin. The solemn procession represents the entry of Christ, who is the Light of the World, into the Temple of Jerusalem. It forms an essential part of the liturgical services of the day, and must be held in every parochial church where the required ministers can be had. The procession is always kept on 2 February even when the office and Mass of the feast is transferred to 3 February. Before the reform of the Latin liturgy by St. Pius V (1568), in the churches north and west of the Alps this ceremony was more solemn. After the fifth oration a preface was sung. The "Adorna" was preceded by the antiphon "Ave Maria". While now the procession is held inside the church, during the Middle Ages the clergy left the church and visited the cemetery surrounding it. Upon the return of the procession a priest, carrying an image of the Holy Child, met it at the door and entered the church with the clergy, who sang the canticle of Zachary, "Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel". At the conclusion, entering the sanctuary, the choir sang the responsory, "Gaude Maria Virgo" or the prose, "Inviolata" or some other antiphon in honour of the Blessed Virgin.

The mention of the pagan feast of the Lupercalia is because of the lamentable German Protestant "scholars" and their anti-Catholicism attempting to show that every Christian tradition handed down was really a pagan custom.

The Blessing of Candles has found its way into the Slavonic (at least) Orthodox practice. One source indicates that the Ukrainians may have brought it into the Orthodox Church (from Rome) and thence to the other Slav churches.  I remember being quite surprised at seeing the blessing of Candles in an OCA parish, but the west got the Feast from the East - at least some backwash is seen to happen as well.  The Russians also took bells and their blessings from the West.

Below I have woven in texts from the services of February 2nd in the Byzantine Rite - mostly from Vespers the night before.  When contemplating this Mystery while walking, I add an embolism like this:

Hail, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, presented by thee in the Temple. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.