Nations have their histories drawn up against defining past-events that shape the identity of a group of people living within the precincts of a particular area. It is these events that neatly demarcate historical segments forming the historical trail of a particular country or race. The history of Israel, however, is not construed on account of events. In the Scriptures, the Israelites do not reminisce particular historical occurrences that shape their very identity as the people of God. Rather, they recall divine promises and their ultimate fulfilment. To be sure, it is God’s promises with his chosen people, through the patriarchs and the prophets, that actually give Israel a history. For a promise essentially points outwardly toward a future fulfilment.
The first promise to be encountered in the Scriptures is found in Genesis 3. As the human being finds himself ousted from the Garden, on account of his sin, he loses access to the tree of life (Gen 1:24). As a result, the future of humanity - and creation at large - is cut short. Death narrows the span of man’s history and circumscribes his existence. In the midst of such cosmic tragedy, God makes a promise that throws wide open the doors of history:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel (Gen 3:15).
Instructively, it is the woman that becomes a sign of hope for creation. On the one hand, the woman replaces the Tree of Life, locked away in the Garden, and becomes creation’s source of historical continuation. The woman ensures, then, that creation does not come to nothing but is constantly renewed. The woman pushes the annihilation of death further away and consequently broadens the horizons of history. On the other hand, this promise opens up history toward a future of fulfilment.
The Old Testament is riddled with crises of this kind. Each time the wife of the patriarch, the heir of the promise, fails to bear him a son, the future existence of Israel is threatened; death once again rears its ugly head and cuts time short. Consider for example the stories of Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. They all face difficulties in conceiving a child until God’s intervention ensures that the history of Israel does not come to an untimely end. In each case, the promise, enacted through the childbearing woman, is propelled to a new future.
Yet there are two important texts that advance this promise towards a future fulfilment. The first may be found in the 1st book of Samuel. Hannah, we are told, has difficulty in conceiving a child. She goes to the temple and asks the Lord to open her womb, which he does. Upon giving birth, Hannah sings a canticle of praise (1 Samuel 2) in which she thanks the Lord for ‘the barren has borne seven’ (1 Samuel 2:5). Yet, by the time of her death Hannah had only borne six children. The reader of the Sacred Scriptures is therefore left hanging, expecting the seventh child, until he comes to the 1st chapter of the Gospel according to Luke. There he encounters Mary singing a song of praise whose similarity to that of Hannah is arresting (Lk 1:46-55). It is as if the Evangelist is intimating that the awaited seventh child has finally arrived.
The second episode that advances the promise of the childbearing woman towards a future fulfilment is the famous prophecy in Isaiah chapter 7. The prophet had been sent to King Ahaz to warn him not to put his trust in any political allegiances with the Assyrian King but to entrust the salvation of his people in the God of Israel. As a token of Yahweh’s faithfulness, Isaiah gives the King a sign: ‘the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel’ (Is 7:14). Once again, the reader of the Sacred Scriptures is left in suspense, awaiting fulfilment, until he reaches the 1st chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, wherein as an epilogue to the evangelist’s account of Christ’s birth, he writes, ‘All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”’ (Mt 1:23).
What is significant in these two episodes is that the promise made through the childbearing woman appear to suddenly converge onto the Virgin Mary. The future of Israel’s history seems to be at hand with the Virgin of Nazareth. To be sure, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews unhesitatingly marks the time of Christ’s advent as ‘the fullness of time’ when ‘God sent his Son, born of a woman’ (Gal 4:4). The Virgin Mary fulfils the promise of the childbearing woman and becomes the new beacon of hope for creation’s victory over the threat of death. In Mary the doors of history are thrown wide open. Henceforth, the hope of Israel is no longer based on a promise of a yet unfulfilled future but on the fulfilment ushered in by the incarnation of Christ. The promise is turned into the disclosed mystery of God’s providence for the future of creation. It is, to be sure, the historical unfolding of Christ’s mystery that founds the new promise by which hope for a future is had. For, through Christ, the Father promised us the shedding of the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26). In Christ history receives its most definite opening pointing towards a fulfilment that accrues to each and every human person through grace.
In praying the Rosary, the Christian is taken up once again in this drama of salvation. The very structure of the Rosary reinstates the Christian between the proclamation of a mystery, the gradual progression towards fulfilment (the 10 Hail Marys) and the praise of God at the conclusion of a mystery (the Glory be). The Rosary, then, is constituted by three elements: (i) a proclamation, (ii) a period of anticipation or tensional movement, and (iii) a fulfilment. By being of a somewhat repetitive nature, the Rosary is intent on inducing hope, for while arduously working his way through it, the Christian is imbued with earnestness for a completion. She who prays the Rosary is trained to patiently persevere until the end is reached. She is taught that the unfolding of Christ’s mysteries in one’s life requires time, perseverance and patience.
In a world where time is short and patience is thin, the Rosary is a gymnasium of Christian hope. Whoever takes up the Rosary learns that the promise of perfection in grace accrues to him incrementally and, alas, fragmentedly, due to constant setbacks. It instructs the Christian in persevering in grace, until one day he attains to his object of hope, namely a direct union with God, the source of all grace.
More than any other ascetical practice, the Rosary is a school of hope. In this sense, the Rosary is also a microcosm of salvation history. The cross that stands at the beginning of each Rosary reminds us of the promise that had been founded in the disclosure of Christ’s mystery. Thence, embarks our journey of hope. The cross also stands at the end of each Rosary, marking the end point of our hope. The fulfilment of our hope is found, to be sure, in the very source that instilled it, Christ’s very mystery. Augustine, taking his cue from Philippians 3:14, describes hope as a movement that stretches forward toward God who is, nevertheless, before all things.[1] Throughout this prayerful journey, Mary stands as the morning star guiding us toward a fulfilment, a conclusion, of our Christian hope. In praying the Rosary, we are instructed in hope in the school of Mary, in whom the hope of Israel was fulfilled.
This contribution is written by Fr. Alan Joseph Adami OP
[1] Cf. De Doctr. Chr., I, 34, 38, Augustine refers to the notion in various other places, see Sol. I, 14.25 [PL 32, col. 882]; De Div. Quest 83.30; De Civ. Dei XI, 25; In Epistolam Ioannis ad Parthos Tractatus Decem 4.6.
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