The following excerpt is adapted from Michael Peppard鈥檚 book 鈥溾�� (Oxford University Press, 2024). Peppard, a professor of theology at Fordham University, discussed the book with host Mike Jordan Laskey on a .
Like many Catholics, the first time I heard a rosary was at a funeral. We were whispering and eating mints in a mortuary viewing room, everyone seemingly waiting for something to happen, though I didn鈥檛 know what. One of my elderly relatives rested in peace before us, the first dead body I鈥檇 ever seen. As for the rosary, I had seen one of those before, and people around me were holding them. Suddenly a group of about 10 women walked in, knelt before the casket, pulled out their rosaries and began to pray. This, I later learned, was the Slovenian Women鈥檚 Union, and they were there to lead us in prayer, like some band of wailing women of old, who must have filled their calendars with the funeral wakes of deceased Slovenian Americans.
Most people joined in, including my dad, whom I had never seen pray the rosary. Yet somehow his personal rosary materialized out of thin air, and he knew exactly what to do. No one had taught me, so I tried to follow along. Hearing its repetitions for the first time 鈥� seemingly endless to a fidgety child at his first funeral 鈥� was strangely affecting and comforting. But just when I鈥檇 feel confident to join in a 鈥淗ail Mary,鈥� then the script would change, and some other prayer briefly intervened. During that half hour, I never quite got the verbal rhythm or the overarching picture. What should my mind have been doing while my lips were moving? One of the women must have announced which biblical visualizations (鈥渕ysteries鈥�) we were supposed to have in our minds while we prayed, but I didn鈥檛 catch on. I鈥檓 guessing, considering the context, that it was the 鈥渟orrowful mysteries.鈥�
The basics of the rosary as it exists today are easy enough to understand, but the medieval origins and development of the tradition are not widely discussed. Prior to the rosary, there were many medieval Catholic visionaries who became household names by meditating on and visualizing portions of the Bible. St. Bonaventure was a 13th-century mystical theologian in the Franciscan tradition (founded by St. Francis of Assisi) whose visions sprouted from biblical roots. Bonaventure laid out a spiritual path for others to follow, and he emphasizes that meditation on Scripture is always the first step. His devotional writings, 鈥淭he Tree of Life鈥� and 鈥淭he Mystical Vine,鈥� adapt imagery from the Gospels to encourage identification with the suffering of Christ. 鈥淭he Tree of Life鈥� opens with a quotation from the Song of Songs, showing that the mystical inhabiting of the feminine figure of God鈥檚 beloved was not a meditation only for women mystics. The purpose of the treatise is so that the reader will contemplate 鈥渢he love of Jesus crucified, so that [the reader] can truthfully repeat with the bride, 鈥楢 bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me: He shall abide between my breasts鈥� (Song 1:12). Now, in order to enkindle an affection of this sort, to assist the mind and stamp the memory, I have attempted to gather this 鈥榖undle of myrrh鈥� from the groves of the Gospels.鈥�
Spanish Catholicism in the 1500s witnessed a burst of mystical reflection on the Scriptures. Like Bonaventure, St. Teresa of Avila was especially inspired by the Song of Songs, the Gospels and the Psalms, as she created a 鈥渓iving book鈥� of visions from her years of listening to the Scriptures. St. John of the Cross, most famous for his poem 鈥淭he Dark Night,鈥� drew more widely from the Old Testament. His own commentary on the poem鈥檚 meaning demonstrates how it was catalyzed by lines from not only the Psalms and Song of Songs, but also Job, Wisdom of Solomon and most of the biblical prophets. St. Ignatius Loyola, on the other hand, resembled Bonaventure in his focus on the Gospels. His method of biblical contemplation focuses almost all of its attention on the life of Jesus. His most influential work, The Spiritual Exercises, is not meant to be read on its own; rather, it is a manual for a four-week guided prayer retreat with a spiritual director. It constitutes the foundation of Ignatian spirituality, an exercise of the imagination to conform oneself to the life of Jesus and his disciples.
The first contemplation of the third week offers a good example of the method. The biblical scene under consideration is when Jesus sent two disciples to prepare for a communal meal in Jerusalem 鈥� what would become his Last Supper. After setting the stage, Ignatius directs the reader: 鈥淎 composition, by imagining the place. Here it will be to see in imagination the road from Bethany to Jerusalem, whether it is broad, or narrow, or level, and so on. In similar manner, imagine the room of the supper, whether it is large, or small, or arranged in one way or another.鈥�
When I first read the Exercises years ago, I breezed past such directives and wondered what the point was. What biblical interpretation could be performed by imagining the width of a road or the arrangement of seating around a table? It wasn鈥檛 until years later, when I was formally led through examples of Ignatian contemplation by 蜜桃视频, that I realized the value. There is not one 鈥減oint鈥� of biblical visualization, nor is there one method. The process is individualized, expansive and unpredictable 鈥� powerful not by its exegetical objectivity but through its inevitable subjectivity.
Once I was present when Fr. James Martin, SJ, led a large group of Catholic parish leaders and religious educators through a guided meditation. There were about 300 of us in a school gymnasium, and he slowly read the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. He interlaced the recitation with questions that helped us to imagine the composition of place.
Initially not paying close attention, I was eventually drawn in to participate, and I let my mind explore anew this story I had heard a thousand times. Minutes expanded. The sounds of the gymnasium faded away, the shifting bodies of those around me fell silent, and I found myself on a Galilean hillside. I have no idea how long the meditation lasted. When I debriefed with Fr. Martin later that day, he asked me whether I participated and how it went. 鈥淎ctually I saw and heard something I had always missed in the story,鈥� I said. 鈥淥n that hillside, there were thousands and thousands of children. Playing, laughing, running.鈥� He smiled, because of course there were! The text describes 鈥渁bout five thousand men, not counting women and children鈥� (Matt 14:21). From just one word, Ignatian biblical visualization opens up worlds.
Despite the saintly names of the previous paragraphs, let us be clear that biblical visualization is not only for Catholic mystics, but for any Catholic in prayer. In the present day, Fr. Martin emphasizes this during his guidance in Ignatian contemplation. And already during the flowering of medieval Catholicism, regular devout people were encouraged to visualize in their prayer, especially
to imagine the feelings Mary and Jesus experienced during the major events of their lives. One of the principal texts to promulgate this practice is Meditationes vitae Christi (Meditations on the Life of Christ). It was written in the 14th century by a Franciscan monk as instruction to a nun in the sister monastic order of Poor Clares. The text advises the reader to meditate and envisage herself in the story, for example, visiting Jesus in his crib and kissing him. This late medieval guide was so popular that more than two hundred manuscript copies still exist (Wendy A. Stein, 鈥淗ow to Read Medieval Art鈥�).
To 鈥渋magine the feelings that Mary and Jesus experienced during the major events of their lives鈥� 鈥� that sounds really familiar to Catholic ears. Indeed, it鈥檚 a good summary of the most popular Catholic biblical devotion of all: the rosary.
