The May Magnificat (I)

Isaiah's prophecy of the virgin birth of the Redeemer as the blossoming Rod of Jesse was understood as miraculous by the people of his time in that the grape vine normally blossoms not from a rod or a shoot growing up from the ground, but from new shoots emerging from upper points of further growth or pruning. From the Rod of Jesse the Church Fathers came to see all plants and their burgeoning as signatures and symbols of Mary - applying to her the scriptural titles of Rose of Sharon, Lily of the Valley and Lily Among the Thorns. The Medieval Church saw her as "the Rose wherein the Divine Word was made incarnate" (Dante); erected cathedral Rose Windows in her honor; in her Litany gave her the title of Mystical Rose; and honored her with the Christmas carol, "Lo a Rose 'ere Blooming". An old capitol in the ancient Abbey of Cluny bears in the middle of its aureole, the figure of the Blessed Virgin, around which one reads this gracious hexameter, 'Ver primos flores adducit honores' (Springtime's first flowers give thee honors). Then, with the 18th century re-burgeoning of devotion to Mary, the Church dedicated to her the entire springtime budding and flowering of plants of the month of May, applying to her the passage, "Arise, my love, my dove, my beautiful one and come. For the winter is past, the rains are over and done, the flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning has come and the voice of the turtle dove is heard." (Canticles)