3rd Hour Tuesday uploaded

So the 3rd Hour of Tuesday has been uploaded, appropriately in time for Tuesday morning. Anyway, I think a reflection on Marian typology is in order.

[Note: if any of the following italicized liturgical terms are foreign to you, please see this post for explanations]

Often, in the short offices that use Psalm 117 for the qolo, (just like the four watches of the office of Lilyo) there will be a verse solely about God (usually pertaining to the preceding hoosoyo), a verse about Mary, a verse about the saints and a verse about the departed. I'm focusing on the Marian verse. Often it will not mention Mary, but one is supposed to infer (or at least one can infer from gendered grammar in Syriac) that a woman is being addressed. Even though we do not use gendered possessive suffixes and the like in English, one can still tell the Marian relation of the verses. I would like to specifically direct attention to the second verse of the qolo of this office:

• You were prefigured to Moses by the bush, to David you were called “ark,” the fleece and dew to Gideon, and to just Jacob as the ladder by which the weak race of terrestrial Adam rose to heaven.

Here is evident the very Syriac device of drawing Marian typologies from the Old Testament. The burning bush that was a pure and holy conduit to communication with the unknown God to Moses is the first (Exodus 3: 1-12). Often Syriac liturgy will evoke the image of the blazing glory of Jesus from which even the seraphim, beings of fire, hide their faces - but Mary was able to carry Jesus for 9 months and she was not consumed just as the bush was not consumed by the fire. She - a mundane woman, just like the mundane bush - had become a holy conduit so God may present Himself to man. 

The second typology is David and the ark. In 2 Samuel 6, there is an episode in which King David is retrieving the ark (i.e. the holy vessel that holds the two tablets which are a covenant of God to His people). Just like the ark, which she is commonly referred to, Mary is a holy vessel that God will not permit to undergo harm and she is filled with the promised covenant, Jesus. At first David is suspicious of bringing the ark into his city because of what happens to his clansman, Uzzah. However, when he saw that God blessed the city the ark resided in, David brought it joyously into his city. In the same way, Joseph feared that Mary had conceived through adultery but ends up following the will of God by bringing her into his house (Matthew 1: 18-25), which brings him unimaginable blessings (like the fact that he becomes the foster father of God).

The third typology is the fleece of Gideon (Judges 6:36-40). In a sort of improbable sign, Gideon asks God to grant that his fleece be filled with dew at night but the ground around it remain dry. When he wakes up, he rings out the fleece and enough water to fill a bowl was in it but the ground around it was completely dry. This is indicative of a couple of divine qualities. The first is that God can do great things even though they are unexpected - just as God can disallow dew from collecting on everything but the fleece, so too He can allow a Virgin to conceive a child. The second is dew is commonly used to evoke an image of mercy (i.e. the quenching dew in a desert of sin, dew to quell the flames, etc.). God not only makes the fleece damp but He fills it with dew - He wills the same in the Incarnation, He fills the earth with His redemptive mercy and the dew of salvation to quench the thirst that Adam incurred. 

The last typology is the ladder of Jacob (Genesis 28: 10-17). In the same way that God permits Jacob access to the graces of heaven and promises of His mercy, so too does He through Mary. Through her acceptance of the Incarnation, she acts as a bridge between heaven and earth. If she did not accept to be the handmaiden of God, the Incarnation would have not been coercively forced upon her; if the Incarnation had not occurred, we would still be barred in Sheol upon death and the promises of heaven would not be given to us. But, alas, God is good and His servants are faithful. Glory to God and good remembrance be to His Birth-Giver.

To view the 3rd Hour of Tuesday, click here.

Our Lord, accept our service, our prayers, come to our aid and have mercy on us!