Recently, I've taken to reading Hans Urs Von Balthasar's meditations on the Rosary, The Threefold Garland subtitled The World's Salvation in Mary's Prayer. I'm half-expecting John Piper to break down the door of my southwestern-style adobe house screaming something about Mariolatory. Alas, I am too far gone. Once I read JPII's encyclical concerning the Rosary, I couldn't escape it's Christological center. Conveniently placed here for your reading pleasure. On the Rosary of the Virgin Mary One of the most crucial texts of my life...

Balthasar's work is divided into three sections of five chapters each mirroring the structure of the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries. The title of every chapter is taken from its corresponding clasulae(Attributed to the spiritual practices of Dom Dominic Eloynus, originating among the Germans in the late Middle Ages. They are a set of phrases one may recite at the center of each Hail Mary to clarify and emphasize the character of the particular mystery. For instance, for each Hail Mary of the Joyful Mystery of the Nativity one would add to whom you gave birth, O Virgin following blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.) And the rose-garland(rosenkranz for those Germanic types) remains the perfect image for what the Rosary is. Three sets of Mysteries (written before the institution of the Luminous) makes three garlands. As Balthasar beautifully puts it; "it is like the distillate of a long prayerful meditation during which, rose by rose, a garland is slowly woven which in the end comes wholly to repose in itself."

I couldn't possibly display all the treasures I've received from this little book, but I would like to leave you with a few insights. For Balthasar, Mary and her fiat form both an example for and a type of the Holy Church. Her obedience and complete reception model the proper response for every Christian. By acknowledging her status we admit our own incomplete union with the divine will to which she perfectly submitted. As an anonymous Middle-English poem reads "The word of God she heard and knew/ Acknowledging it with mildness due".  The call of the divine Logos meets the response of human participation. And the practice of human participation in the will of God is nothing other than the Church. We are to be, as Our Lady is, "a pure answer to whatever the Father disposes." Her perfect faith is the center of the Ecclesia immaculata as we plead with God to look not on our sins, but on the faith of His Holy Church.

The preface contains some truly stunning formulations of the Incarnation by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis, of which I would offer you merely two. The Council of Ephesus proudly proclaims that Mary is worthy of both the title Mother of Christ but even Mother of God. The Creator humbles himself to be bound by his own creation. The Eastern Liturgy sings "You are wider than the heavens for within yourself you have confined the unconfinable God." The West does not lack for its own expressions at this unheard of grace. "We are Your image, and You are our image" comes from St. Catherine of Siena's Dialogue on Divine Providence. Circles within circles, of Creator and created, ever distinct but in perfect union. The mother of this Child becomes the daughter of her Son?

         "She is a vessel, a monstrance of the Word and Will of God become flesh."