Silent Rosary

A Contemplative, Exegetical, and Iconographic Tour Through the Mysteries

Addison Hodges Hart, Solrunn Nes

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781725272330
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Religious Art

The twenty mysteries of the rosary are a circular "gallery, " a matrix of theology and spirituality. They can inspire us profoundly. For those seeking a deeper encounter in faith, these mysteries have the power to move us toward contemplation. A lengthy Introduction explains in detail the meaning of the term "mystery" in Christian thought, provides a brief history of the rosary, explains the significance of Mary in the mysteries, explores the importance of "beholding" in the Scriptures and in our spirituality, and explores Christian iconography. The centerpiece of the book is the "gallery" of the mysteries as illuminated by the iconography of Solrunn Nes, each image supplemented with explanatory commentaries by Addison Hodges Hart. The latter incorporate biblical exegesis, pertinent historical details, and insights from classical spiritual writers. The aim is to provide insight into the symbolism and typology of each mystery and to lead the reader into contemplative prayer and action. Throughout, the book unites an outward "beholding" of the mysteries of the rosary with the inner practice of the work of silence.

Part One

Entering the Circular Gallery

“Mysteries”

I begin with a caveat. This is not a book about the rosary as such. That is to say, it is not about the mechanics of the devotion, nor is it a guide or manual or even an appeal to use it in one’s practice of prayer. Rather, this is a book about what are usually termed the mysteries of the rosary, those twenty (originally fifteen—see below) stories or narratives or pictures that are derived—all except the final two—from the Gospels in the New Testament.

What initially kindled our imagination for producing this book was a simple idea: my wife, iconographer Solrunn Nes, and I wished to collaborate on a project together. She would provide the art and I would write the accompanying text. What we were looking for was a single coherent, interconnected arrangement of images that would hang together naturally—a sequence that possessed diversity and yet was a unified whole. At some point in our search, we struck upon the sequence of the mysteries of the rosary, and although we considered other possible projects, this seemed ideal for the sort we conceived.

Solrunn’s artwork throughout this volume is in the Byzantine iconographic style that is her specialty.1 Iconography by intention is not a realistic form of art. It is rich in symbol and visual metaphor. To understand it for what it is, on its own terms, requires appreciation of its symbols and stylistic peculiarities, and it only opens up its secrets through the exercising of more than one sense of interpretation by the viewer (more on that in due course). It is a “spiritual” art, if one will forgive the somewhat clichéd sound of that; but what that means in this case is that its true aim is not aesthetic, though, of course, aesthetics is important. Its essential purpose is to involve the viewer—who approaches it in the right frame of mind—at a profound level, one that certainly goes deeper than “art appreciation.” An icon is, in common with all forms of sacred art worldwide, something to be read and interpreted. In that sense, it is indeed like a text, best read in receptive silence. And if it has been rightly engaged, it at length disappears to the viewer much as a windowpane “disappears” as one’s concentration passes through it to the scene on the other side of the glass.

In deciding to work with the mysteries of the rosary, we were also aware that the rosary as a devotional item is not something that everyone welcomes unreservedly. Certainly, it comes with “baggage.” It is distinctly a Roman Catholic devotion, for one thing, although many Protestants and Anglicans use it regularly. It puts an emphasis on Mary, Mother of the Lord—which, for some, is an objectionable focus. The rosary also has a checkered record of historical associations that some find off-putting. It has, for instance, a celebrated connection with war. The Catholic Church annually recalls the Battle of Lepanto every October 7, when on that date in 1571 the Holy League defeated the fleet of the Ottoman Empire in the Gulf of Patras. This victory inflicted on the Turks was piously believed to have been directly due to an intense program promoting the praying of the rosary. And it gave the Church yet another Marian feast day: “Our Lady of Victory,” subsequently renamed “Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary.” A century before that event, one of the great promoters of the rosary as a devotion, the Dominican Jacobus Springer, a disciple of Alain de la Roche (see below), had also been one of the two authors of the Malleus Maleficarum (“Hammer of Witches”), the textbook for witch-hunting not only used by zealous Dominicans in Springer’s era, but in a later age by Protestant witch-hunters as well.2 (With promoters like that, one might say, who needs gainsayers?) And, lastly, one might justifiably see in the Church’s official sanctioning of the “heaven-bestowed” rosary one more manifestation of the unfortunate “suppression of silence” which occurred under institutional Church supervision in a deliberate attempt to eradicate such contrived “heresies” as “Quietism” (considered threatening to ecclesial order). With its increasingly wordy additions (for example, the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed, Marian antiphons, and other prayers as various customs developed), its emphasis on “discursive meditation” rather than receptive silence, and its elaborate (and much too conscious) mechanics in a “proper” manipulating of crucifix, appended medal, big beads, smaller beads, and chain, it was the “safe” alternative to spiritual practices not as easily controlled. Interior prayer, personal encounter and revelation, and contemplation in silence have often been viewed as threatening in authoritarian contexts. Beginning in earnest in the fifteenth century, the Western Church’s intensifying endeavors to control individuals’ prayer lives, to inhibit and arraign (and, on occasion, execute) those exhibiting ardent “mystical” and lively contemplative tendencies, is documented well by Maggie Ross.3 The rosary as a tool, seen in this light, might well be implicated. It appeared in the form it has retained ever since within the context of what Huizinga described as “the decay of the strongly colored piety of the late medieval period [which was like] the form of a flower past its prime.”4

And yet, that cannot be the whole story. Generation after generation has found in the rosary consolation, insight, and—in those most valued moments—the undeniable presence of the holy. Who can dispute that? Despite its association with a sixteenth-century naval battle, or a fifteenth-century bloodstained fanatical proponent of the devotion, or its exploitation as an institutionally endorsed devotional instrument, despite all that (and more), the simple fact remains that countless sincere believers have used the rosary to excellent effect for a very long time. That makes it worth taking seriously by those of us inclined to be critical, and—further—we may want to consider what there is in it that fires the imaginations of its users. Arguably, at least to my mind, the aspect of the rosary most positively influential in the lives of believers has been its circular “gallery” of images known as “mysteries.”

It is with the mysteries, as I have already noted, that this book is concerned, and not with the sensible rosary as such (though I touch on that briefly below). One could, in fact, approach these mysteries without the rosary at all. One can encounter them simply, contemplatively, silently, without beads in hand, and still find in this interlocking series of images, stories, parables, and “mirrors” an undeniable power. Like the shape of the rosary itself, the twenty mysteries are a gallery circular in configuration. One makes the full rounds, so to speak, taking in each image, and then returns to the beginning and starts all over again. It is, as I suggested above, also a bit like a hall of mirrors. Each mystery on the surface depicts an event taken from the narratives, canonical and non-canonical, about Christ. With time and repetition, though, we discover that each mystery also reflects our selves, in particular those areas within us that we usually do not see or even have become adept at avoiding. In such a sustained contemplative practice of “beholding,” conducted in silence, we begin to engage our “heart”—the term the Bible uses for the deepest level of our psyche. We come to find it reflected back to us in these images. There are, of course, many modes of prayer that can put us deeply in touch with Spirit; the mysteries of the rosary can effectively be one of those ways.

The word mysteries is a confusing word, sounding r...