Rosa Mystica

During the month of May, I plan to publish a series of posts based on notes made by John Henry Newman (1801-1890)  for his May meditations on Mary in the Litany of Loreto. For the Latin and English texts of this Litany, please follow the link to Thesaurus Precum Latinarum.

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt.

Tecum tutus semper sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam

[  ] References in the text to numbered footnotes are not hyperlinked but may be found at the end of the relevant extract.

Mary is the "Rosa Mystica," the Mystical Rose

 PB 2019

How did Mary become the Rosa Mystica, the choice, delicate, perfect flower of God's spiritual creation?

It was by being born, nurtured and sheltered in the mystical garden or Paradise of God.

Scripture makes use of the figure of a garden, when it would speak of heaven and its blessed inhabitants.

RIP. Please pray for the soul Fr CH who gave this statue to my family in the 1980s.



A garden is a spot of ground set apart for trees and plants, all good, all various, for things that are sweet to the taste or fragrant in scent, or beautiful to look upon, or useful for nourishment; and accordingly in its spiritual sense it means the home of blessed spirits and holy souls dwelling there together, souls with both the flowers and the fruits upon them, which by the careful husbandry of God they have come to bear, flowers and fruits of grace, flowers more beautiful and more fragrant than those of any garden, fruits more delicious and exquisite than can be matured by earthly husbandman.

All that God has made speaks of its Maker; the mountains speak of His eternity; the sun of His immensity, and the winds of His Almightiness. In like manner flowers and fruits speak of His sanctity, His love, and His providence; and such as are flowers and fruits, such must be the place where they are found. That is to say, since they are found in a garden, therefore a garden has also excellences which speak of God, because it is their home. For instance, it would be out of place if we found beautiful flowers on the mountain-crag, or rich fruit in the sandy desert. As then by flowers and fruits are meant, in a mystical sense, the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, so by a garden is meant mystically a place of spiritual repose, stillness, peace, refreshment, and delight.

The penitent robber. JJ Tissot

Thus our first parents were placed in "a garden of pleasure" shaded by trees, "fair to behold and pleasant to eat of," with the Tree of Life in the midst, and a river to water the ground.[1]

Thus our Lord, speaking from the cross to the penitent robber, calls the blessed place, the heaven to which He was taking him, "paradise," or a garden of pleasure.[2]

Therefore St. John, in the Apocalypse, speaks of heaven, the palace of God, as a garden or paradise, in which was the Tree of Life giving forth its fruits every month.[Apoc 22]

Such was the garden in which the Mystical Rose, the Immaculate Mary, was sheltered and nursed to be the Mother of the All Holy God, from her birth to her espousals to St. Joseph, a term of thirteen years.

A young Mary. JJ Tissot

For three years of it she was in the arms of her holy mother, St. Anne, and then for ten years she lived in the temple of God. In those blessed gardens, as they may be called, she lived by herself, continually visited by the dew of God's grace, and growing up a more and more heavenly flower, till at the end of that period she was meet for the inhabitation in her of the Most Holy. This was the outcome of the Immaculate Conception.

Excepting her, the fairest rose in the paradise of God has had upon it blight, and has had the risk of canker-worm and locust. All but Mary; she from the first was perfect in her sweetness and her beautifulness, and at length when the angel Gabriel had to come to her, he found her "full of grace," which had, from her good use of it, accumulated in her from the first moment of her being.








[1] [8] And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein he placed man whom he had formed.
Plantaverat autem Dominus Deus paradisum voluptatis a principio, in quo posuit hominem quem formaverat.
[9] And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of: the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Produxitque Dominus Deus de humo omne lignum pulchrum visu, et ad vescendum suave lignum etiam vitae in medio paradisi, lignumque scientiae boni et mali.
[10] And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads.
Et fluvius egrediebatur de loco voluptatis ad irrigandum paradisum, qui inde dividitur in quatuor capita. [Gen 2]

[2] [42] And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom.
Et dicebat ad Jesum : Domine, memento mei cum veneris in regnum tuum.
[43] And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.
Et dixit illi Jesus : Amen dico tibi : Hodie mecum eris in paradiso. [Luke 23]

Totus tuus ego sum et omnia mea tua sunt.

Tecum tutus semper sum.

Ad Jesum per Mariam