Monday 22 April 2019

Resurrection Hare Melts Winter to Spring


Medieval Illumination.

An Easter poem. Christ symbolised by the Hare,
the Virgin Mary by the White Rabbit, and St. Joseph by the Stag.


Dark the winter long,
Begun when Adam fell;
The frosted globe shivered without a robe,
The naked shame bit blue by polar prince—
For Pluto held with chains, enslaved the lands:
Cold and brutal steel, slippery icy sin,
A sepulchre the cosmos,
The cosmos couldn’t grin.

The deer, the elk, their little fawns,
No foliage for the plate;
For dry the bones, not green but white,
Antarctic earth—the snowy fields made muddy
            from the diggings vain.
And pain and pain the sombre world,
The springtime lute and laugh forgotten now,
Its echoes stilled against the ice.
The howl of wolf and hoot of owl
And mixed with hade’s tanning stench,
Made blanket of the moose’s cowl.

So long that moonless night,
            far gone the light,
But O happy night
That won for us so great, so glorious a sight:

First bright the fullest moon appeared
Mirrored ‘neath in rabbit white—
            spotless like the snow—
She burrowed through the drifts and soil,
Making up a hearth on earth.
The Stag kept guard and couched beside,
A coal within his mouth he dropped inside.
The Rabbit laid an egg, a Hare crawled out;
Thirty days on emerged, hopping through the woods,
Snow gave way to green each step;
            flowers shooting up,
                        birds gathering ‘round.
Winter knocked, Boreas blown,
And angry Pluto groaned—his shackles shook,
            for Hare thumped upon his home.

So Hades, Mighty Og, barked order at Cerberus,
Hell’s ugly bear who prowled the frosted plains;
three-headed beast nicknamed Pride:
one head, lust of flesh, lust of eyes, third, pride of life—
And calling to its pups its litter yelped,
            fierce Bashanite dogs,
Tearing through mountain pass, frightfully fast,
And set upon the Hare:
            ravaged, tore, ripped and mauled,
Slew, scarlet snow, north wind blew,
            flew the birds, dark returned,
Moon was covered over,
As Rabbit and the eagle placed lifeless Hare
Within the cold and damp, dark den.

Hades poured a glass, victory on his mind,
When drip, drip from ceiling top was felt in hellish blaze.
For enkindled was the earth,
the cold den a warm hearth;
Until the snows of sin made melted by a warmly wind
            flooded Pluto’s realm—
leaving deepest pit,
But filling the void between.
The serpents, the scorpions, the lions stayed,
            at home therein,
But long-paddling oxen, buffalo and caribou
rose as water rose
‘til out of Hade’s spot.

Since all the while the second sight, justified the night;
Moon in place with sun beside,
the dawning light at last,
As down beneath in mirrored form the burrow closed did yawn—
down the soil and up the soil,
down and up, down and up;
Breathing as it were,
Then burst the leaping Hare victoriously from the earth—
His burial plot a place of birth—
Springing from the burrow,
Spring returned with sun yellow
that gleamed on His red coat.
The fierce dogs whimpered at the sight,
            teeth falling to the ground they died
And from their fangs new pups sprang
and tamed by Hare
they chased away the bear
who slinking back lay dying in its lair.

To and fro the Hare sped round, all across the globe,
            breathing fire as He went,
Awakening the nymphs, defrosted from their lent,
And so their rivers flowed, colours rose,
and helped Him find the eggs,
Incubating first, and then the first born rabbits He had sent.
For a myriad myriad eggs the White Rabbit laid
when Hare was torn and slain—
These all cracked at Hares warm breath
And hatched, still hatching,
            Hare out of sight
but traced in scent of rose.

O what strangeness—a flock of rabbits
            hatching from their eggs;
Multiplied they filled and fill the once sombre empty earth,
And as Adam first named the first rabbit
            in the season in which he fell;
This Hare called Adam-Two named the rabbits too:
Peter Rabbit first,
Then the rest He called by name new,
Wrote down by Stag on white pebbles,
taken from spring’s water
            which was once winter’s slough.




 22nd April, 2019.

Sunday 21 April 2019

Paganism and the Christian Easter


Medieval illuminated manuscript. Slightly irrelevant image, but amusing.

It is worth commenting on the pagan relationship with the Christian Easter.

Before reading on you may want to watch the following Youtube video [linked here]. It is not a Christian video and doesn't capture the Easter reality, still it is insightful, it is titled: "EASTER REBIRTH: How Rabbits and Eggs Came to Symbolize New Life".

Some may invoke the alleged pagan origins of Easter as undermining the truth of the Christian Easter which is about Jesus' resurrection. However, the pagan concepts, images, and symbols appropriated by Christians to refer to Christ's resurrection do not undermine what is believed by Christians to be a historical event and true spiritual mystery: that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, rose from the dead after been crucified. Christians, once converted from pagan religions, were happy to adopt pagan symbols and transfer their meaning to a Christian meaning. This process, called inculturation, is not seen to undermine the Christian faith-claim, but to support it.

Since if God is Creator and He made the universe, setting in motion the chain of causes that brought about all people; choosing the Jewish nation and preparing them through covenants and teachings to receive Himself in human form in Jesus as the Christ - the Messiah - who was promised to them; this same Creator would prepare the pagan peoples to receive His Son Jesus Christ, by sowing what St. Justin Martyr called, "seeds of truth" among the pagan faiths, cultures and philosophies. Hence the theme of resurrection, rebirth, divine fecundity, rising from the underworld - all such concepts were sown, as it were, among all peoples as myths, preparing them for their fulfillment in truth and reality in Jesus the Risen One.

Had this not occurred, that all such ideas were not common to all peoples and religions, one should in fact doubt the truth of the Christian message. Yet the universality of the Easter mystery, foreshadowed in fragmented myths throughout the ages and across the world, shared by all human cultures no matter how geographically divided, points to something intrinsic to the human spirit and the experience of life in the world.

The resurrection of Jesus was meant to be, it was ordained by the Creator from the beginning, knowing the path the world of men would take, so that the longing for new life, a resurrection from death and darkness, a deliverance from an existential winter into an eternal spring, and the intuitive awareness of this mystery as a possibility and truth, was woven as it were, into nature itself, especially into the soul and mind of humankind, so that even pagans, unaware of the One God, longed unknowingly for the true resurrection of Jesus in whom Easter is no myth, but reality.

Happy are we who cling not to myth but reality. Who steal images and symbols of myth and apply them to what they were always meant to, and indeed, truly do signify: Jesus the Risen Lord, God and Man, Jewish Messiah sent to save all humanity and to open the way to new life in union with the Creator.

Saturday 20 April 2019

St. Joseph in the Limbo of the Fathers


'Jesus in Limbo,' Domenico di Pace Beccafumi, 1530-1535.

Holy Saturday—the liminal day after Good Friday and before Easter Sunday. It’s a day of waiting, of anticipation, joy and sorrow, and hesitatory excitement as we are torn between re-experiencing the loss of Jesus’ humanity yet possessing the knowledge that He will rise and has risen. Jesus’ body lies wrapped in the sepulchre, and His soul is in the underworld.

The two holiest creatures and the closest confidants of Jesus occupy their respective stations as ordained by God the Father. Mary the Mother of Jesus waits with the living on earth, while Joseph appointed Father of Jesus waits with the ‘dead’ in the limbo of the fathers. Both wait for the coming of their Son Jesus Christ. The hidden role of Joseph in this mystery is not often explored and so this will be the focus of our reflection.

Edward Healy Thompson succinctly relates the role Joseph played between the years of his death sometime before Jesus’ public ministry started at the age of thirty, until this day, Holy Saturday, when the soul of the crucified Lord visited Sheol:

The Blessed Trinity appointed Joseph to be their ambassador to the Fathers in Limbo, to announce to them the Incarnation and coming of the Son of God, of which he had been the ocular witness and in which he had taken so large a part. If, then, John the Baptist was the Precursor of Jesus on earth, Joseph was to be His Precursor to the souls detained in Limbo and anxiously looking out for their release. Joseph, returning to himself, said to Jesus, “Now I die happy, hoping that Thou wilt soon come to deliver us.”[1]

The Limbo of the Fathers


Just a recap—the limbus patrum, the Limbo of the Fathers or the Limbo of the Patriarchs, was the ‘waiting ground’ in the underworld where the souls of the righteous awaited the redemption of Christ. The gates of heaven were closed until Christ came and opened them with the Key of His sacrifice.

Hell is an imprecise word with broader meanings in the English. In Greek we have hades and Hebrew Sheol—both are general terms that refer to the entire underworld, including the Limbo of the Fathers and hell-proper. We recite it in the Creed, Christ “descended into hell”. Almost always by hell we mean the hell of the damned, but in the Creed it refers to the Limbo of the Fathers. Aquinas calls it a relative hell, in the sense that

the souls of the saints… before Christ's coming… had rest through being exempt from punishment, but their desire was not set at rest by their attaining their end [i.e. perfect union with God in heaven]. Consequently the state of the saints before Christ's coming may be considered both as regards the rest it afforded, and thus it is called Abraham's bosom, and as regards its lack of rest, and thus it is called the limbo of hell.[2]

The Limbo of the Fathers was thus a quasi-place and state of natural happiness which lacked the supernatural bliss of beatitude. It was a place of longing and waiting. Our own experience of Holy Saturday is a simile of the limbus patrum experience.

At tonight’s Easter Vigil Mass, in reference to the Limbo of the Fathers we will hear the Exultet and the following stanza:

This is the night
when Christ broke the prison-bars of death
and rose victorious from the underworld.

Hæc nox est,
in qua, destrúctis vínculis mortis,
Christus ab ínferis victor ascéndit
This language is typical. The Abode of the Fathers is frequently called a prison. A state of imprisonment because they cannot escape to experience the freedom of eternal life in heaven. They have to wait for their Liberator and Redeemer to unlock its gates, to break its bars, and to carry them to the Father’s Bosom Above. In the meantime, waiting and longing, it is a veritable prison sentence when one considers the freedom shut-off from them because of Adam’s sin.

Joseph the Patriarch—Prisoner of the Lord


We are all likely aware of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. He was the favourite son of Jacob his father. His brothers were envious and resented him, sold him into slavery, and he wound up in Egypt as the servant of Potiphar. One day Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce Joseph, he resists her advances and she falsely accuses him of attempted rape. Joseph is thrown into prison and there in prison, just as in Jacob’s household and Potiphar’s house, God’s favour is with him and all revere and respect him as an honest and just man. Eventually two servants of Pharaoh, a cup bearer and baker, are thrown into prison. There they have a dream, Joseph interprets it, and it comes to pass: the baker is hanged and the cup bearer is restored to his office.

“Two whole years” pass (Gen 41:1) and Pharaoh dreams a dream. No one is able to interpret it. The cup bearer then remembers Joseph and mentions him to Pharaoh. We read of Joseph’s long-awaited liberation: “Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon; and when he had shaved himself and changed his clothes, he came in before Pharaoh.” (Gen 41:14).

The Ancient Joseph as a Type of Jesus


On one level we can see the ancient Joseph as a type of Jesus. This is the dominant reading of the Early Fathers. It’s not hard to miss the parallels. Joseph was the beloved son of his father Jacob; Jesus iss the well-beloved Son of God the Father. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold-off for twenty silver pieces at the suggestion of Judah; Jesus was betrayed by one of his Apostles, Judas (Judah in Hebrew), and was sold-off for thirty silver pieces. Joseph was innocent yet condemned for a crime he never did; Jesus was innocent yet condemned as a blasphemer. Joseph forgave his brothers and was filled with mercy; Jesus forgave His executioners and all who took part in His crucifixion.

Our focus is on the Limbo of the Fathers. In this regard we can see that the patriarch’s time in prison is an allegory of Jesus’ descent into the underworld. Quodvultdeus (d. ~450 AD.) paves the way for this interpretation:

Joseph was imprisoned. Our Joseph, that is, Christ, as Isaiah says, “was numbered with the transgressors.” [Is 53:12]. The innocent man is led among the guilty by the wisdom of God, who “went down with him”—as was written— “into the pit, and did not leave him in bonds.” [Wis 10:13-14]. This Joseph of ours, Christ, claims, “I became as a man without help, free among the dead.” [Ps 88:4-5]. What followed had to happen, that is, the fact that Joseph found in the commander of the prison the grace of which he was full and that all the keys and the entire surveillance were given to him. This occurred in order that to the one before whom heaven prostrated in the figure of the sun, the moon and the stars, and the earth in that of its crops, also the subterranean creatures of the prison might submit. And therefore, before our Joseph, that is Christ, “every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth.” [Phil 2:10].[3]

Quodvultdeus is not explicit as to whether “the subterranean creatures of the prison” are the demons and the damned in hell who against their will must submit in worship to Christ or are the righteous in the Limbo of the Fathers who knelt in worship before Christ when he visited them in their prison. We can take it to refer to both however, since we know that both are truths taught by Scripture and affirmed by Church teaching.

We read in Genesis that

the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's care all the prisoners who were in the prison (Gen 39:21-22).

The keeper of the prisons of Egypt was ultimately Pharaoh, the ruler of the land, and likewise the Keeper of the Prison of the Limbo of the Fathers was ultimately God the Father, in whose sight the slain Lamb of God found favour. The Father entrusted to the Son all the souls who abided therein, from Adam and Eve to Abraham and Sarah, all the prophets and holy ones who died in God’s mercy. “All the prisoners who were” in this prison were “committed to” Jesus’ care. On the day Pharaoh brought Joseph out of the prison, he was freed from thereon. Yet when the Father brought Jesus out of the prison of the underworld, Jesus exited its regions with a mighty host of souls whom He conducted to the courts of heaven.

Yet in Pharaoh’s prison there was also an appointed keeper of the prison—a keeper distinct from Joseph, even though the keeper passed his own office into Joseph’s hands. So too, God the Father the Supreme Keeper of the Prison of the Limbo of the Just appointed a keeper distinct from Jesus. This keeper was St. Joseph—to this Joseph was entrusted the entire cohort of the souls of the righteous until Christ came. All the holy ones, great and small, submitted to St. Joseph’s authority, an authority given into his hands. He instructed them in the mysteries of salvation, pointing to Jesus their Redeemer. He announced His coming and when He finally came, Joseph, Appointed Keeper of the Prison, handed over into Jesus’ care all those whom he had been taking care of and instructing.

Joseph the Patriarch as a Type of St. Joseph


There is also another way we can interpret the ancient Joseph and his imprisonment, not only as a type of Christ and His descent into the underworld, but as a type of St. Joseph and his time in the Limbo of the Fathers. This is corroborated by Tradition, because while seeing Joseph as a type of Jesus was the dominant motif of the Church Fathers, seeing the first Joseph as a type of St. Joseph was a dominant interpretation present in various Doctors of the Church and venerable theologians. Both streams of interpretation are valid.

This multiple way of reading Scripture should not concern us. There are multiple layers of meaning to the sacred text, and each within their sphere neither contradict nor undermine other valid meanings. All meaning in Scripture is Christocentric—pointing to Christ, but in Christ abides all the faithful as members of His Body. Mary and Joseph are the preeminent members of Christ’s Body, and so while all the faithful can read-themselves into the sacred text, Mary and Joseph are principal referents of Scripture and are especially foreshadowed in the events of salvation, because God the Word ordained it thus—He wanted to honour in the written word, they who were vital to bringing about the incarnation of Himself as Word.

The first Joseph didn’t deserve to go to prison and nor did St. Joseph deserve to go to the underworld. St. Joseph died in the grace of the New Covenant and was perfectly united with the Godhead in Christ Jesus more than any other human being except Mary. He thus outstripped all the saints, all the martyrs in being a vessel of God’s holiness. We know that the greatest saints go straight to heaven. Yet St. Joseph did not enjoy this luxury. God arranged things in such a way that St. Joseph was made to reside in the prison of the Limbo of the Fathers before he could rest in bliss.

Joseph at his death, dying comforted by the presence of Jesus and Mary, was thus commissioned on his death bed for a mission—the mission of bringing the light of Christ to “those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness” in the limbus patrum. When the Egyptian prisoners saw the patriarch Joseph enter their abode, they eventually saw a man of wisdom, kindness and holiness; they were consoled in their imprisonment with the advent of this brotherly man. All the more, when the multitude of the just, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and so on, beheld Joseph’s soul descending into their prison they were filled with tremendous consolation, a foretaste of the joy of Christ, a glimpse of the luminous rays of heaven in the presence of he, St. Joseph, whose whole being was permeated with the light of Christ.

Indeed, with St. Joseph’s coming into the prison of the just in the underworld, the Scripture applies: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Is 9:2). This is one reason why St. Joseph in his Litany is called Light of the Patriarchs. He was the aurora preceding the dawn of His Son into that darkly abode. He brought them morsels of light to feast upon as he passed on the Good News, the Gospel of Christ.

How ardent would have been Joseph’s longing for His Son’s return—to deliver him from the prison of this place! Mary suffered above on earth, longing to see Her Son risen from the dead. Joseph suffered in some way too, longing to see his Son again, ‘face to face,’ soul to soul, and to finally set His people free from their exile in Sheol, and to triumphantly set about their exodus into heaven as He rose.

We read that “Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon” (Gen 41:14). This Pharaoh seems to be a decent man unlike the one in Moses’ time, and the spiritual tradition has not feared to see in this Pharaoh a type of Jesus the Divine King, since the old Joseph was appointed as his second-in-command, just as Jesus made Joseph viceregent of the Kingdom of God.

When we look at the above verse in a Christic and Josephine light, we can read it as follows, “Jesus sent and called Joseph, and they brought him hastily out of the dungeon.” We see in this an allusion to Jesus’ summoning of Joseph to come forth and leave the Limbo of the Fathers, announcing that his deliverance has finally come. “They brought him hastily out of the dungeon”—because we can believe that Joseph, foremost among that mighty host, was brought out hastily, first among the flock, first to taste beatitude among men, once Christ had at last opened heaven to His People that longed for His visitation beneath.

The Easter Joy of Joseph


What a glorious mystery to consider—the Easter joy of Joseph, ransomed from the captivity of the dead and carried into heaven, by whom...? “They brought him”—angels we might say, and directed by the Lord of Lords.

Let us share in the Easter joy of Joseph. A joy in seeing the Son of God victorious, accomplishing His task. A joy that knows that we too have been delivered from the prison sentence of an eternal limbo of sorts, or worse, even hell, and have also been delivered from the prison of our own sinfulness by the power of He who has come to set us free. This Mighty King, Christ the Risen Lord summons us to come to Him and taste beatitude. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” It’s not yet Easter yet as I write this, but that word starting with “A” is very appropriate here.


[1] The Life and Glories of Saint Joseph, originally published in 1888 by Burns & Oates, Ltd. (Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2013), Ch. XLV., 384.
[2] Summa Theologica, Supp. Q.69., 4, co.
[3] SC 101:238-40 as found in Old Testament II: Genesis 12-50, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Mark Sheridan and Thomas C. Oden, eds. (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity Press, 2002), p.257.