Rembrandt muses on "The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary" & Fra Angelico's depiction of The First Joyful Mystery, "The Annunciation of Cortona" (Detail, c. 1433-1434)
Tomorrow on the Camino to Santiago: EXPOSIÇÃO "TESOUROS DA CONFRARIA DO SANTÍSSIMO SACRAMENTO", A partir de 23 de março, às 21H00 @ Paróquia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Matriz (Portugal)
THE ROSARY HOUR PODCAST NEWSLETTER [2nd EDITION]
IN THIS POST:
1) MUSINGS ON THE FIRST JOYFUL MYSTERY by REMBRANDT2)
EXPOSIÇÃO "TESOUROS DA CONFRARIA DO SANTÍSSIMO SACRAMENTO"(Poster from the Municipal Museum, PdV)3) QUICK LINK TO INTERACTIVE DECADE ROSARY4) QUICK FOOTNOTES with INFO ON "The Annunciation of Cortona"
22 MARCH 2023
An Original Meditation on the First Joyful Mystery
"The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary": Fra Angelico's depiction of The First Joyful Mystery, "The Annunciation of Cortona" (Detail, c. 1433-1434)1
by Rembrandt, Guest Author & Senior Advisor
The Rosary Hour Podcast Newsletter & Travessa da Senra House Press
The First Joyful Mystery: The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary
...[T]he angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David: and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel being come in, said unto her: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women". (Luke 1:26-28)
"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women" (Luke 1:28).
With this salutation the Angel Gabriel greets the Virgin Mary before revealing to her that she is to be the mother of God. These words were to become central to the Rosary and every Catholic recites them whenever they begin the The Hail Mary in their Marian devotion.
The Fra Angelico's altarpiece (c. 1425-6) shows Mary with her traditional Book of Hours. In the left panel God uses an angel to expel the now fully clothed first parents from the Garden of Eden. Some commentators have interpreted the roses at their feet as a reference to the Rosary (cf. Fascinating Spain: The Annunciation by Fra Angelico). The rose is a well known symbol of Mary. One of her epithets from the Litany of Loreto, which goes back to the middle of the 16th century, is Rosa Mystica. Many Catholics place roses before the Virgin Mary on Mother's Day. Hence we can say that even in this tragic scene, the roses point to the promise of Mary, the Second Eve, whose story begins in the right panel, not with a refusal, but with an assent.
Thus Mary consents to our restoration. The angel Gabriel, as a messenger, represents God the Father: "...the angel Gabriel was sent from God ... to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph..." (1:26-27).
Through Gabriel, God invites Mary to be God-bearer, or Theotokos - to use a very old term; that is, to give birth to Jesus Christ who is both God and man. The moment she gives her consent, the Holy Ghost, the fecundating principle of divine love working in perfect, living harmony with the Father, conceives Jesus who is the predicate of the entire mystery. Hence the Annunciation is an expression of the action of the Holy Trinity in unity: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (1:35).
Although Mary does not share in the divine nature of the Trinity, her fiat or consent is necessary on earth and in time: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done to me according to thy word" (1:38). Fra Angelico dramatically highlights Mary's earthly, receptive femininity in the concavity of her posture and the womb-like contour of her open garments bordered with the green of her earthliness.
But it is precisely her humanity which brings about a paradox, for an earthly woman cannot bear a child without knowing a mortal man. As if to address this aspect of the mystery, Fra Angelico places Mary in her own minimalist room and renders her gown with the same lapis-lazuli as the starry night in the vaults above her. We might interpret this cosmic quality as consistent with her virginity, for what is cosmic is infinite and transcends laws which are earthly. The angel Gabriel is shown easily making the transition.
The Gospel reading for the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the 1962 Missal is from Luke and contains that short passage where the Angel Gabriel receives his commission from God and ends with his greeting to Mary as "full of grace" (1:26-28). The Epistle is from The Book of Proverbs. It presents a monologue in which Wisdom personified speaks of how she was with the Lord before anything was made. The presence of this wisdom text beside the Gospel preamble to Mary's fiat for the feast of the Immaculate Conception links the personification of eternal Wisdom with Mary:
The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he made any thing from the beginning. I was set up from eternity, and of old, before the earth was made. The depths were not as yet, and I was already conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet sprung out. The mountains, with their huge bulk, had not as yet been established: before the hills, I was brought forth: He had not yet made the earth, nor the rivers, nor the poles of the world.
When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law, and compass, he enclosed the depths: When he established the sky above, and poised the fountains of waters: When he compassed the sea with its bounds, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their limits: when he balanced the foundations of the earth; I was with him forming all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all times; Playing in the world: and my delights were to be with the children of men.
Now, therefore, ye children, hear me: blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, and that watcheth daily at my gates, and waiteth at the posts of my doors. He that shall find me, shall find life, and shall have salvation from the Lord. (8:22-35)
Pope Pius XII in Munificentissimus Deus (1950) declared the Assumption of the Virgin Mary into Heaven, into her heavenly "thalamus" (ad aethereum thalamum). And now there is a movement for her to be declared Co-Redemptrix.
The Second Eve and the Incarnation are inextricably linked with creation.
© COPYRIGHT. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. TRAVESSA DA SENRA HOUSE PRESS, The Rosary Hour Podcast Newsletter™. “Rembrandt Muses on "The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary" & Fra Angelico's "The Annunciation of Cortona" (Detail, c. 1433-1434). Published in the Digital Toolkit for Rosary Leaders, an original meditation on the First Joyful Mystery. [ORIGINAL FIRST EDITION SENT BY E-MAIL ON MARCH 22, 2023]
EXPOSIÇÃO: EVENT IN THE ARCHDIOCESE OF BRAGA, PORTUGAL
TESOUROS DA CONFRARIA DO SANTÍSSIMO SACRAMENTO
A partir de 23 de março, às 21h00 @ Paróquia de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, Matriz ~ Póvoa de Varzim, Archdiocese of Braga, Portugal
Exhibit continues at the “Museu Municipal” during the following hours:
Terça a Domingo: 9h30 às 12h30 | 13h30 às 17h00
THE DAILY DECADE ROSARY: VIDEO PREMIERES 25 MARCH 00H00
"The Rosary is a great contemplative prayer" (St. John Paul II, April 25, 1987 Speech)
This abbreviated video offers listeners the opportunity to
Pray the Holy Rosary Every Daywith the assistance of Reverend Father Peter Turrone Pastor of Holy Rosary Church The Archdiocese of Toronto (CANADA) & responses by Amelia, Member of Children's Rosary ® (USA).2This new video can be used by children / parents for regular daily prayer of "ONE DECADE" of the Holy Rosary, i.e. every morning / afternoon / or evening.
We invite you to click on the “Watch on YouTube” button, and the “notification button” for access to the the Interactive Rosary (One Decade) that shall be released 00h00 on March 25: the vigil of the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Also, on March 25, the handout we’ve created which complements this video will be posted to this Newsletter.
The Teaching video is now available to subscribers of this Newsletter, The Rosary: A Mini Series & The Digital Café via this link — our team will post more information on March 25, 2023.
For now, we invite readers of the Rosary Hour Podcast Newsletter to share this link and spread the word about it with friends / family and loved ones as we journey through Lent.
Help our mission to spread the Rosary around the world.
If you know someone who is sick, homebound, hospitalized, isolated, or without anyone to pray with them regularly, invite them to pray with Fr. Peter and Amelia. You never know how God might intend for this presentation to change someone’s prayer life.
We’re renovating both channels and our Digital Toolkit for Rosary Leaders for May 2023.
Below is a glance of the design of our first page of our “Decade Rosary” handout, meant to assist those using our new Rosary videos.
ABOUT THIS VIDEO: ARTISTIC & HISTORICAL NOTES OF INTEREST
The covering photo for this Decade Rosary presentation is an impression taken from Pe. Nuno Rocha’s parish on the Camino to Santiago: the Church of Our Lady of Lapa featured in Father Anthony’s 4th video presentation [Click to watch past video].
This statue was sculpted by Affonesca Lapa (1841-1933), son of Manoel d’Affonseca Barbosa and Anna de Sam Joaquim Freire.3
“Nossa Senhora da Anunciaçao or Annunciaçao a Nossa Senhora”
Visit this Church when on Camino from Porto to Santiago — the Church just North of the signs leaving Vila do Conde as you near the Marina da Póvoa de Varzim.
According to a 2022 paper by Art Historian, Drª. Deolinda Carneiro (Curator & Director of the Museu Municipal de Etnografia e História da Póvoa de Varzim) notes that Lapa sculpted this art piece dedicated to Our Lady of the Annunciation in 1892.4
Visitors to Lapa can observe many of the other statues by Affonesca Lapa featured in our podcast and which are installed throughout various parishes in this area, Braga, and the Açores.
To more deeply explain why our podcast team chose to focus on teaching children “one decade” of the Rosary to start, Dr. Tina Bailey, our booktalk host of the Digital Café will return with her personal story about her journey in teaching her three children the Rosary, one decade at a time, last year. Dr. Bailey is reading through a number of books and will soon write about Keith Nester’s Unpacking the Mysteries of the Rosary as well as Brazos Press author, Dr. Hooten Wilson’s Reading for the Love of God.
More on this video in a future post.
FOOTNOTES:
This piece is located at the Museo Nacional del Prado (Prado Museum in Madrid). The info from the museum website is as follows:
La Anunciación
Hacia 1426. Témpera sobre tabla, 162,3 x 191,5 cm
“Aunque Guido di Piero trabajó como pintor e iluminador en Florencia con anterioridad a su ordenación como dominico hacia 1420-1422 y la adopción del nombre de Fra Giovanni de Fiesole (sólo fue llamado Fra Angelico tras su muerte), sus primeras obras documentadas se fechan entre 1423 y 1429. Dentro de este periodo se incluye la realización de esta obra, pintada para el convento de Santo Domingo en Fiésole y probablemente sufragada por Angelo di Zanobi di Taddeo Gaddi, nieto del pintor Taddeo Gaddi. Minusvalorada durante décadas por la crítica, que la tenía por versión tardía de La Anunciación de Cortona con amplia participación de taller, La Anunciación del Prado es considerada actualmente una de las primeras obras maestras de su autor, y fue realizada en un momento decisivo para el arte florentino, cuando trabajaban en la ciudad epígonos del gótico internacional como Lorenzo Monaco o Gerardo Starnina; pintores al tanto de las innovaciones nórdicas, Gentile da Fabriano; y artistas revolucionarios como Masaccio o Brunelleschi.
Iconográficamente se trata de una obra tradicional cuya tabla central muestra el ciclo de la pérdida (Adán y Eva expulsados del Paraíso) y salvación del hombre (Anunciación de María), mientras los cinco paneles de la predella ilustran otros tantos episodios de la vida de la Virgen. Sin embargo, en la plasmación visual de estos temas Fra Angelico demostró conocer las transformaciones que estaban sucediéndose en el arte toscano. Así, la minuciosidad en la representación de flores y objetos deriva de Gentile da Fabriano, responsable también de la voluntad de unificar el espacio mediante la arquitectura; mientras el intento de profundidad espacial de la camera virginis remite a cuanto habían hecho Masolino y Masaccio en la Capilla Brancacci. De igual modo, la estructura que cobija La Anunciación fue de las primeras en seguir la recomendación dada en 1425 por Brunelleschi para los retablos de San Lorenzo, que debían ser cuadrados y sin adornos.
Falomir, M, Pintura italiana del Renacimiento: guía, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 1999, p.32
Join in prayer on Radio Maria USA: Holy Hour with Dr. Blythe Kaufman's Rosary Apostolate Children’s Rosary ® every Second Saturday with Amelia & Zosia at 4 p.m. EST to pray the Chaplet to the Divine Mercy, five decades of the Holy Rosary, and the Litany of the Month. https://childrensrosary.org
Carneiro, Deolinda. “João d’Affonseca Lapa (1841-1933). Obra Escultórica”, Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal.
In a presentation given by Drª. Deolinda Carneiro last month, she described the delicate process of sculpture restoration using as an example of Our Lady of Sorrows. Travessa da Senra House Press will discuss this process in a future article for O’Terço Magazine.