Mary, the Mystical Rose, Mary: Day 151

Mary, the Mystical Rose

Blessed John Henry Newman proposes that Mary is called the “mystical” (or “hidden”) rose because after her assumption, her body has been hidden from us in heaven.

Mary is the queen of spiritual flowers; and therefore she is called the rose, for the rose is fitly called of all flowers the most beautiful. But moreover, she is the mystical, or hidden, rose; for “mystical” means “hidden.” How is she now “hidden” from us more than are other saints? What does this unique title mean, which we apply to her specially? It is this: If her body was not taken into heaven, where is it? How did it come to be hidden from us? Why don’t we hear of her tomb as being here or there? Why aren’t pilgrimages made to it? Why can none of her relics be produced, as they can for the saints in general?

Isn’t it even a natural instinct which makes us reverent towards the places where our dead are buried? We bury our great men honorably. Christians from the earliest times went from other countries to Jerusalem to see the holy places. And when the time of persecution was over, they paid still more attention to the bodies of the saints. Thus, from the first to this day, it has been a great feature and characteristic of the Church to be most tender and reverent towards the bodies of the saints. Now, if there was anyone who more than all would be pre- ciously taken care of, it would be Our Lady. Why then do we hear nothing of the Blessed Virgin’s body and its separate relics? Why is she thus the hidden rose? Is it conceivable that they who had been so reverent and careful of the bodies of the saints and martyrs should neglect her—the one who was the Queen of Martyrs and the Queen of Saints, who was the very mother of our Lord?

It is impossible. Why then is she thus the hidden rose? Plainly because that sacred body is in heaven, not on earth. —Blessed John Henry Newman, Meditations and Devotions

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Some have challenged the Church’s teaching that Mary was assumed into heaven, both body and soul, noting that the doctrine was not formalized by the Church until modern times. How might Blessed John’s insights about the absence of her relics from the very beginning show the matter in a new light?

CLOSING PRAYER
Mary, Mystical Rose, hidden from our sight: Grant that I, too, may be hidden with you, with Christ at the right hand of God.

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