Mediæval Poetry in praise of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Part Eight)

As we have seen, the Blessed Virgin's five joys have given rise to a number of mediæval Marian poems. Chistians who, even today, recite what is known as the five joyful mysteries of the Rosary meditate respectively on the Angel Gabriels' annunciation, Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple and the finding of Jesus in the Temple.

In the mediæval Five Joys poems, however, we find several different "joys" described.
The main joys generally include events such as the Annunciation, the birth of Christ, His Resurrection from the dead and the Blessed Virgin's own assumption into heaven, interspersed with other noteworthy events in the lives of Jesus and Mary.
So, for example, in A Song of the Five Joys (Ase y me rod þis ender day), the five joys are described as comprising the Annunciation, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Epiphany, the Resurrection and the Blessed Virgin's Assumption into heaven. 
In Oracio de sancta Maria: Heyle be þou, ladye so bryʒt, instead of the Epiphany, the poet names Christ's Ascension into heaven; wan þou (Mary) seie [saw] ihesu crist, flour of all mankinne/steye vp [ascend] to heuene (34-35).
Likewise in Oracio de sancta Maria (Heyle be þou, ladye so bryʒt) the poet describes the holy þursdaye (27) [Ascension Thursday] when Mary saw her Son vp-styʒe/hoom in-to heuen so hyʒe (28-29) [ascend home into heaven so high].
In the example given here, likewise titled A Song of the Five Joys, the poet names for his second joy the fact that the Blessed Virgin was left wemles [spotless] and ai sal be [will remain so forever] (23-24).

A SONG OF THE FIVE JOYS

Haile be þu, mari maiden bright!                                                Hail to thee
þu teche me pe wais right:                                                          teach; right ways
I am a sorful dreri wight                                                             sad, dreary creature
als þu mai se
Quer i sal in þe hard pine of hel be                                             when; grievous pain

(M)i sinful saule sighes sare;                                                        soul; sorely
Liued i haue in sin and care                                                         I have lived
Leve i wil and do na mare                                                           believe; more
mi leud(i) fre
Saul and bodi, lijf and dede,                                                        soul; life; death
        bi-teche i þe                                         10                           I commit to thee

þar þu lay in þi bright boure                                                         when; bower
Leuedi, quite als leli floure                                                            white; lily flower
An angel com fra heue (ne toure)                                                  from heaven's tower
sant gabriel
And said, 'leuedi, ful of blis                                                           blissful lady,                                                         ai worth þe wel!'                                                              stay well forever!

Stil þu stod, ne stint þu noght                                                        stood; not refuse
þu said til him þe bodword brough(t)                                            messenger
'Al his wil it sal be wroght                                                             done
in his ancele'.                                                                                to his handmaid.
Leuedi, bi-for þi suete sun                                                            to thy sweet Son
            mak vs lele.                                         20                         faithful

(þ)e toþer ioy i wate it was                                                           other joy; know
Als sun schines thoru þe glas                                                         as; through
Sua ert þu, leued(i) welmes                                                           so art; spotless
and ai sal be.                                                                                forever will be.
Leued(i), for þat suete ioy                                                             for that sweet joy
          þu reu on me.                                                                     pity thou me

(þ)e third ioy i vnderstand                                                              third
Thre kinges com of thrin land                                                         came; three
To fal þi suete sun til hand                                                              to fall before; son
and gaf him gift                                                                              gave; gifts
Mir, reclis and gold red, als                                                            myrrh; frankincense
        it was right.                                              30                          was fitting.

þe kin was riche-þe gold was rede
þe reclis rel til his goddhed
Mir to man þat sal be ded                                                               myrrh; about to die
for vr sake
Leuedi to þi suete sun at ane                                                            unite us
        vs make

þe feird, it is al thoru his grace                                                          fourth; through
Quen he fra ded to lijf ras                                                                when; dead; rose 
Quen he sua hard suongen was                                                        swung so cruelly
on rode tre
Leuedi, of vr sinnes al þu                                                                  from all our sins
        make us fre                                               40

þe fijft, þu was til heuen broght                                                         fifth; brought to
þe iuus þe soght and fand þe noght                                                   Jews sought; found;
Als þi suete sun it wroght                                                                  as; wrought
almighti king
Leuedi mari, be vr helpe at
        vr ending

Leuedi, for þi ioies fiue                                                                      thy five joys
þu kid þi might and help vs suith                                                        show; swiftly
Leuedi mari, moder o liue, wid flur                                                     mother; the living
wid flur and fruit                                                                                with flower
Rose and leli þu sprede ay wide                                                         lily; spread out
         and helpe þi suite                                        50                          followers

Leuedi mari, wele þu wast                                                                  well thou knowest
þe feindes fraistes me ful fast                                                              assail me sorely
wele i hope i sal þaim cast                                                                  sincerely; cast out                              
thoru might of þe;                                                                               through thy power
Quen i neuen þi suete name i                                                              When; call on; I
         ger þaim fle                                                                               cause them to flee                                                                                      
þir iois er said als i can sai                                                                   these joys
Mi site, mi soru, i cast away                                                                position; sorrow
Nu help me leuedi, wele þu may                                                          now; well
and be mi spere                                                                                  my spear
Fra þe har pain of hell þu me                                 60                          protect me
        were

Al þat singes þis sang                                                                          All who sing; song
And all þat ligges in paines strang                                                         lie; severe pains
pu lede þaim right þar þai ga wrang                                                      where they err
and haue merci
On all þat trous þat good was                                                              believe
        born of þe, fait leuedi.

Here, as seen in other mediæval poeme cited in this study such as Marye, Mayde mylde and fre, the devil is often described as the fiend [Middle English: feind, plural: feindes] (52) with the same connotation of hostility as the Dutch word vijand (enemy).
To the mediæval poet, the devil was the enemy because he could only harm, not benefit, his victims.
Bodword [message] (17) is reminiscent of the Dutch boodschap or bode's woord, the word of the messenger; viz Gabriel.
In Dutch, were(n) (6) means avert, defend, rather than the translation !"protect" as given.
A closer translation, therefore, might be: "from the terrible pain of hell, defend thou me".

A sense of deep confidence is clear when the poet begs Mary: þu sprede ay wide (5) [ever spread (thine arms out) wide], manifesting a total sense of easse.
He wants to hide in her arms, to shelter at her breast from þe feindes (52), so that when God in His Divine Justice seeks to punish him on account of his sinful saule (6), Mary will keep him from his just deserts, since he clearly believes that Christ, Mary's suete sun (28) (and) almighti king (44) is powerless to withstand his mother's pleadings.

Mother of Sorrows

Image by Catherine Nicolette

Mother and Child

Image by Catherine Nicolette

Candle has been lit in Remembrance of all Marian Praise Readers this Christmas Day

For unto us the Prince of Peace is born

A CANDLE HAS BEEN LIT IN REMEMBRANCE
OF ALL MARIAN PRAISE READERS THIS 
CHRISTMAS DAY. MAY BLESSINGS BE WITH

YOU AND YOUR LOVED ONES AT THIS

TIME OF PEACE, JOY AND GOODWILL.

MAY THE BABY - WHO WITHOUT HIS

MOTHER'S CONSENT WOULD NOT

HAVE BEEN INCARNATED -

BE WITH YOU TODAY AND

THROUGHOUT THE COMING

YEAR. HAPPY CHRISTMAS 

AND A BLESSED NEW YEAR!

Image by Catherine Nicolette

My Fatima Book

 

 

Luky;
MANY YEARS AGO I compiled a children's book about the Fatima visits of Our Blessed Lady to Three Shepherd Children, with the aim of enkindling a love of the Rosary within the hearts of those who read it.
Alas, poor me. 
My book, surely the simplest little story ever related, travelled to publishers in America, Australia, Scotland, the Netherlands and I can't recall where else. It cost us a fortune in stamps, but nobody wanted it. Nearly everyone said it was very nice but that nobody was interested in stories of that sort at that time.
My mother, who was most astute, said to me: "You may not believe it now, but one day that story will be published", and she said it with such conviction that I believed her, even though that manuscript had lain unopened in a drawer for years.

Offer to pay
She was right. One day a Southern Cross reader to whom I'd lent a copy, wrote to tell me that if I would donate my manuscript to charity, she'd pay out of her own pocket to have the book printed.
I could have done that myself, and in fact the thought had occurred to me, but I felt after reflection that if nobody but me was interested in printing the book, it wasn't worth printing.

To cut costs, she asked if I'd type the final product and arrange for illustrations, so a period of great activity ensued. It all took a while, because my friend paid off the printing costs in monthly instalments of R100 each. When the book was ready, we advertised.
The books sold very cheaply and there was no sales tax because all proceeds went to charity. We didn't want to become rich, it's the message of the importance of the Rosary we yearned to spread.

Quick roundup
When I looked at my copy, I found that the last page, which explains the great promise of the first five Saturdays, was missing, so I rounded up some Fatima literature from my Portuguese buddies.
I made my own five first Saturdays many years before, but I was again touched to the core of my heart to read how Sister Lucia, Fatima missionary, experienced the request.

Message
You will probably recall that after the deaths of Jacinta and Francesco, their cousin Lucia entered the convent of St Dorothy at Pontevedra. She told us she was in her cell one night when she saw our Lady, accompanied by the Holy Child.
Touching Lucia's shoulder with one hand, our Lady showed her a heart, encircled by thorns, which she was holding in the other. The Child Jesus pointed to it and spoke to Lucia:
"Take pity on the heart of your most holy Mother, which is covered with thorns which ungrateful men at every moment nail into it with no one to make an act of reparation to remove them."
Our Lady added: "Look my daughter, at my heart, encircled by thorns, which ungrateful people at every moment nail into me with blasphemy and ingratitudes. You at least try to console me, and announce that I promise to help at the hour of death with all graces necessary for salvation all those who, on the first Saturdays of five consecutive months, confess, receive holy Communion, recite the rosary, and keep me company for fifteen minutes, meditating on its mysteries with the intention of offering reparation to me."

I was changed
Nobody could have been more indifferent to our holy Mother than me when I made the first five Saturdays, but even I felt as though my cold heart was rent apart when first I read our Lady's diffident plea; "Do you at least try to console me."
I felt as though she were talking to me directly, because my name too is Lucia, and despite my disinclination I obeyed her. I was rewarded by the gifts of a strong devotion to and special protection from the Queen of queens, and Mother Most Holy during this life, and I confidently await the fulfilment of her promise to help me with all the graces necessary for salvation at the hour of my death.

Photograph by Catherine Nicolette - poster on side of Garage; with thanks to the Garage Attendant and poster Artist

BOOK; THREE LITTLE SHEPHERDS MEET OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY CAN BE FOUND ON 
http://childrenpraise.blogspot.ie/2014_03_01_archive.html

Breaking News; Mary, Mother of the Child; Belfast Rally for Life tomorrow

MARY'S CONTRIBUTION TO OUR WORLD WAS AS MOTHER OF THE CHILD OF DESTINY. LIFE CONTINUES TO BE HELD SACRED IN IRELAND. 
All Ireland Rally for Life will be taking place in Belfast at 2pm Irish time tomorrow. The numbers of Pro-Lifers in Ireland continue to grow. Seats have been booked out and people are pleading for lifts to get to Belfast tomorrow.
WHY NOT COME? 
BRING YOUR ROSARY!
Marian Praise, Lumiere Charity and Supportlife Group will be representing dedication to the sanctity of life tomorrow.
WHERE? CUSTOM HOUSE SQUARE, BELFAST IRELAND
WHEN? 2 PM TOMORROW, SATURDAY 5 JULY 2014

Marian Praise
Marian Praise supporters and our contemplative group will be praying the Holy Rosary tomorrow in Belfast in support of the sanctity of the Unborn Child.
  
http://www.rallyforlife.net/

See Facebook for following shared image;

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Supportlife-Group/128274477354743

With thanks to Precious Life

Waiting with Mary

  Mary of Nazareth is the uniting factor between God and the human race. 
  The medieval lyricists - such as Friar William Herebert (d 1333) -  had exquisite ways of expressing the link between God and His servant, the Lady Mary of Nazareth.
  Later poets - such as Robert Southwell (d 1594) and John Donne (1573-1631) - had their own ways of describing Mary of Nazareth. 
  In the nineteenth century, Robert Stephen Hawker (1804-1875 ) and the Pre-Raphaelite painter-poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)  followed this great tradition. 
Rossetti calls Mary of Nazareth a daughter born to God, mother of Christ from stall to rood (meaning cross).

  The twentieth century American writer of poetry and prose,  Cornelia Otis Skinner, wrote a poignant little verse after a visit to Italy;



TO THE SISTINE MADONNA
Mary, most serenely fair
Hear an unbeliever's prayer
Nurtured in an austere creed,
Sweetest Lady, she has need
Of the solace of thy grace:
See the tears that stain her face
As she kneels to beg your love,
You whom no one told her of.

  What was Mary doing spiritually during those last few weeks leading up to the birth of Christ?
  She must have simply been doing what all pregnant women do in their final stages of pregnancy, meditating upon the miracle of human growth taking place within them.

  In this case this was even more of a miracle because she was a virgin and her baby was the Son of God.
The metaphysical poet Mother Mary Frances calls Mary - during the time of the Advent of her Son - the Queen of Craftsmen.
  She itemises the elements of construction of the human body of Jesus reaching completion within His Mother's womb.


   Note the time imagery inherent in the allusion to the crystal hammers moving to the beat of Mary's heart as well as the metaphor describing the heart of the developing infant Jesus as a clock.
This latter image incorporates the movement of God the Eternal into the temporal sphere of humanity.


QUEEN OF CRAFTSMEN
Blow by exquisite blow
The crystal hammers of her love
Fasten the careful joinings of His bones
Prophets have sung this craft: how men may number
These bones, but never break an one of them

What blueprint guides you, Queen of architects
To trace sure paths for wandering veins
That run Redemption's wine?

Who dipped your brush, young artist, so to tint
The eyes and lips of God? Where did you learn
To spin such silk of hair, and expertly
Pull sinew, wind this Heart to tick our mercy?

Thrones, Powers fall down, worshipping your crafts
Whom we, for want of better word, shall call
Most beautiful of all the sons of men.

Worker in motherhood, take our splintery songs
Who witness What you make, in litanies:
O, Queen of craftsmen, pray for us who wait.

Annunciation 
  The Advent period began with the Annunciation.
  What was Mary doing when the angel appeared to her?
Mary was aware of the prophecies regarding the coming of the Messiah, and was well versed in the sacred writings.
  That this is in fact the case becomes evident to us when we compare Mary's own ode of praise to God, the Magnificat, with the words of Hannah, the mother of Samuel.

Presentation
  After weaning her son, Hannah presented him to Eli in the temple and dedicated him to God.

What was Our Lady doing when the angel Gabriel appeared to her as God's messenger?
  The Renaissance poets show her pondering over the words of a book.
But she might have been clearing up for all we know.
  What we can be sure of is that when she spoke the word: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord.
Be it done unto me according to Thy Word," a radiance came over her as God overshadowed her and the mystery of the Incarnation took place.

Incarnation
  Upon the miracle of the Incarnation, Mary's heart flooded over with joy at the thought of the imminent arrival of the Christ Child.
  We know He would not be born in her home in Nazareth and that His early childhood would be spent in exile in Egypt.
  However, was it likely that Mary of Nazareth expected her Son to be born in a stable?
Her husband Joseph was a carpenter.
  Surely in Nazareth he must have built a cot for the Child with the finest wood he could afford and of course she wove and fashioned small blankets for it.
  It may not have been costly but we can be sure it was as pleasant and comfortable as possible.

Anticipation
  What was it like for Mary, that period of anticipation?
We know that she did not become absorbed in her own preparations to the exclusion of the needs of others.
  In her poem "The Visitation" Sister Liguori OP wrote about Mary's concern for her aged pregnant cousin Elizabeth.
  She told how when Mary entered Elizabeth's house, Elizabeth's own son John, the future John the Baptist, Christ's cousin and the one who would be His first messenger, leaped in His mother's womb.

THE VISITATION
Mary hastened over the hills
And never a word spoke she,
But the flowers knew, and they curtsied low
To the Mother of God, to be.

Mary stepped softly through the town
Guarding her gladdened eyes
But the palm trees nodded knowingly,
And the wind hummed lullabies.

Mary tapped gently at the door
And spoke in a low sweet voice
But when she entered an unborn babe
Knew her and leaped to rejoice.

Leapt for joy
  It was when Elizabeth's child leapt in her womb for joy that Mary launched into her Magnificat and joyfully proclaimed:
"My soul magnifies the Lord
And my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour;
because He has looked upon the humility of His handmaid
For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed
for the Almighty has done great things for me, 
Holy is His Name
and His faithful love extends age after age to those who fear Him.
He has used the power of His Arm
He has pulled down princes from their thrones and raised high the lowly
He has filled the hungry with good things, sent the rich away empty
He has come to the help of Israel His servant, mindful of His faithful love
- according to the promise He made to our ancestors -
of His Mercy to Abraham and to his descendents for ever."
(Luke Chapter 1, verses 46 to 55)

Boundless joy
  The Magnificat in all its joy and spontaneity demonstrates to us the boundless joy of Mary of Nazareth at the distinction lavished upon her by the Most High.
  The clear knowledge of the scriptures it reveals endorses the fact that Mary had all the sincerity, goodness and intelligence necessary to make her an excellent educator to the growing Infant Jesus after her Advent period had come to its conclusion.


   How did Mary interact with Joseph during this period of Advent?
At the onset of her pregnancy, their friendship became fraught with dark patches for this man was devastated by the unanswered questions.
  Great relief flooded the hearts of both Mary and Joseph when the angel reassured him during a dream.
  Joseph from then on took care of her and of God's Son until his own death took place. 

Joseph

  Joseph was a prayerful and thoughtful person. 
  The poem of Sister Maris Stella speaks of the eloquence of Christ, the Word of God, juxtaposed with the silence of His foster father Joseph.

SAINT JOSEPH AND THE WORD
Saint Joseph was the most silent saint of all
No one has written down one word of his
for our edification. Not one small
word of his was saved unless it is
the Word that was the sum of all his life,
the precious Word he saved for everyone
that it might speak the cross, and not the knife,
long, long after he was dead and gone
and gathered to his fathers, and never again
could he spirit the Child and the young girl, His mother,
out of the dangerous city. From all men
of all times he was chosen and no other -
not one from among the prophets - but this rarely heard
and wordless man, to save God's mighty Word.

Prophecies

  There is much more poetry relevant to the Advent times, not the least of which is contained in the Isaian and Zecharian prophecies in the Old Testament and which bears quiet study and personal reflection. 

  Mary during the first Advent might not have known yet, as we do with the wisdom of hindsight, that there would be no room in the Bethlehem inn for her Holy Child to be birthed.
  In obedience to the temporal powers of the day and filled with confidence in the power of God she dragged her weary pregnant girl's body from Nazareth to Bethlehem, knowing all would be well in the end.

  For us and those we love all too will be well if we can but remember not only during Advent but throughout all our lives to pattern our behaviour towards our Redeemer on the silent but beautiful example shown to us by the Lady Mary of Nazareth, and on that of her husband Joseph.


*Why not listen to the beautiful song about Joseph;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A7w8ZIpdrs

Dr Luky Whittle

With thanks to youtube