The Immaculate Conception: Towards Meditation I

Originally published by me, Jane Mossendew in 'Gardening with God: Light in Darkness' Continuum/Burns & Oates 2002. Copyright Material.

"Towards Meditation:

'Mystic Rose! that precious name
Mary from the Church doth claim'
(from an old medieval verse)

The Litany of the Blessed Virgin, or of Loreto, was approved by Pope Sixtus V in 1587Much of it, however, is older than the foundation of the Sanctuary at Loreto, which dates from 1294. My reflections today are on Mary, the mystical rose, and on the meaning of the Immaculate Conception in relation to several other titles of Mary featured in the Litany. They take the form of a prayer to her. The appellation 'Queen conceived without original sin' seems to me to embody all the others. She could not be any of them unless she had been immaculately conceived, and she could not have been immaculately conceived unless she were all of them. But as well as honouring Mary, we love her. A friend said to me one 8 December after we had listened to Lennox Berkeley's setting of 'I Sing of a Maiden', that it was the most beautiful love song he had ever heard. In Latin, the words 'my rose' were a term of endearment, and so they are used to introduce my prayer:

ROSA MEA

Mystical Rose, Morning Star, pray for us.
By being conceived immaculate in God's mind before time began, your were heralded as the one without sin, the thornless rose who would crush the head of the serpent and be the new Eve. As a human creature, you were redeemed by Christ outside time at the moment of your conception, before you bore him; we receive the fruits of redemption at our baptism. By your bringing Him into the world, God began to carry out His plan to make our redemption possible.

Mystical Rose, Ark of the Covenant, pray for us.
Because of your Immaculate Conception before time began, the Old Covenant rested in you as the Word, all the way through the wanderings of the Children of Israel; you were the receptacle containing the Old Law, kept in the holiest place in the Tabernacle; you were the temple of the Word, who would bring the new Covenant, and found the body of his Church of which we are members."

The next two parts of my prayer. which address Our blessed Lady as 'Mirror of Justice' and 'Gate of Heaven' will follow tomorrow.

JM