“The Rose is the Cup of Blessing.”
So teaches the Zohar.
And the Rose, says the saints, is Mary.
She is the Shoshannah among the thorns (Song of Songs 2:2)—the mystical flower, opening in purity upon the turbulent sea of human sorrow. She is Stella Maris, the Star of the Sea, who guides lost ships into safe harbour. She is the Lady of the Cup, the Vessel of the Eucharist, the Living Chalice who bore the Word made Flesh.
St. Lawrence of Brindisi calls her God’s Eternal Thought—the Daughter beloved before all creation, the Bride chosen from eternity, and the Mother prepared before time for the Incarnation of the Son. In her, the whole divine plan is prefigured and fulfilled.
And if the Rose is the Cup of Blessing, then Miriam of Nazareth is the stem and the chalice—the one who receives, contains, and offers the Blood of the New Covenant. Her Fiat is the opening of the flower to the dew of the Spirit.
The rabbis taught that the Prince of the Presence, Metatron, revealed himself at the Sea—he whose name is in God, who bears the likeness of the Holy One. And in this mystic figure, some discern the Child, the Na’ar, who walks with Israel through the waters, a foreshadowing of the Messiah to come.
Yet who bore this Prince into the world of men?
Who prepared the vessel?
Who formed the Humanity in which the Divinity would dwell?
Mary.
She is the Kavoda—the created Glory, the one who is all-radiant because she is all-empty of self. In her the Divine Light takes root. She is the Goddess of the Sea,
not in pagan error, but as the true Queen of the Waters, the Woman of
Revelation clothed with the sun, crowned with twelve stars, and standing
upon the moon.
St. Lawrence says that she was chosen before the foundation of the world—a member of the Eternal Incarnational Circle of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. She is not a peripheral figure in salvation’s unfolding; she is central. She is the key to the mystery of divine condescension—the descent of God into the womb of the lowly.
In Mary, the divine Name is glorified. In her, the Blood is formed.
She is the Cup of Salvation from which the Redeemer drinks our humanity.
She is also the one who, at the foot of the Cross, offers the Cup.
She offers Him—her Son, her flesh and blood—to the Father.
The
five petals of the Mystical Rose, surrounding the Cup, are the five
Wounds of her Son. And she, too, is wounded in her heart, as Simeon
foretold:
“A sword shall pierce your own soul also.”
That wound is the sixth, hidden wound, the wound of the Mother’s heart.
The one who suffered in silence, who stood when others fled, who bore in herself the pain of the whole Body.
The Cup is lifted high in the hands of the Child-Messiah, Metatron-Mashiach, the Beautiful Youth, radiant with the spirit of Enoch. And the Cup is also lifted by the Mother—the Woman clothed in light. The Cup of Blessing is a Marian mystery, just as it is a Eucharistic one.
So we say with the mystics:
Blessed are you, Miriam, Rose of the Sea,
Cup of the Word, Chalice of Glory,
Mother of the Eternal High Priest.
You are the Rose that opens on the waters,
the stem that bears the fruit of life,
the Glory of Israel, and the Ark of the Covenant made flesh.
And with St. Lawrence of Brindisi, we proclaim:
“She
is the glory of Jerusalem, the joy of Israel, the honour of our people.
She is the very heaven of the Church, the paradise of God, the throne
of grace, the temple of the Holy Spirit.”
Amen.