O Glorious Lady, Throned In Rest

 'O glorious Lady, throned in rest, amid the starry host above, who offered nurture from your breast to God, with pure maternal love.'

This the first stanza of a hymn text by the 19th century English divine, John Mason Neale, an Anglican scholar and hymnographer and contemporary of Saint John Henry Newman.  Like Newman, Neale was part of the Oxford movement and had a particular devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Unlike Newman, in the end, Neale never undertook the ultimate step of becoming a Roman Catholic.  

In Morning Prayer this morning for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception - a Marian dogma confirmed by another contemporary of Neale's, Pope Pius IX in 1854 - I came across this beautiful hymn to the Blessed Mother, entitled: "O Glorious Lady Throned in Rest" sung by Kathleen Lindquist in an album entitled : "Hymns and Chants of the Divine Office, Vol.1"

All of which coincides nicely with the Virgo Lactans or Nursing Mother of God icon* I've started working on as a way of meditating on the mystery of the Incarnation during Advent and Christmas.  How Mary could give birth to God, much less nourish and nurture her Creator from her own body is a lot to reflect on, which I do better with a brush in my hand. 

*In the Christian East icons of this type had the title of Galaktotrophousa in Greek and Mlekopitatelnitza in Slavonic. 

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

 

In the Western Church we began singing the O antiphons last evening as the antiphon before and after the Magnificat.  Tonight we sang: O Adonai and Ruler of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush and on Mount Sinai gave him your law.  Come and with outstretched arm redeem us.

.I had hoped to have finished this little Jesse Tree (which in the bottom left corner shows Moses and the Burning Bush) by the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but I completed it on the Fouth Sunday, which was just in time to look at it while praying tonight's antiphon.

 As always, praying with these images during Advent has given me it me much to ponder.  As we approach Christmas  I'm grateful to have brought this little Jesse Tree to completion.  A good project for this short season, since it is egg tempera on paper, which is much more quickly painted(at least for me) than an icon on a gessoed wooden panel.   

 

(Detail of the center image of the Mother of God and Jesus)

Be Watchful! Be Alert!

Bishop Edward Burns, Deacon Vincent Hansen and server Shannon Olmstead

 The bishop of my diocese, Edward J. Burns.  It was announced this morning that the Holy Father has selected him to be the new bishop of the Diocese of Dallas, Texas.

I suppose its particularly appropriate that this happen during Advent.  Jesus, who told his disciples, "Be watchful! Be alert!  You do not know when the time will come!"  He was speaking about the coming of the Son of Man at the end of time, when all will be all in Christ, but I suppose this could be applied to our news too.

And at some day and time that we do not yet know, Pope Francis will be sending a new bishop to our little corner of the universal Church in Southeast Alaska.