Mary: Ladder of God

Mary: Ladder of God

Mary Ladder of God

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have recently released a collection of hymns for use during the Liturgy of the Hours. Entitled Divine Office Hymnal, it is a collection of new English translations of the hymn texts that appear in in the Latin edition of the Liturgy of the Hours, as revised after the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Writing hymns for the Hours has been a creative outlet for poetically-minded monastics for centuries, especially in times and places where the texts to be sung at Mass were much more tightly restricted than they are today.

Of the three hymns in this collection for the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15), two are by the Benedictine Saint Peter Damian, who lived in Italy in the 11th century. In his hymn for Evening Prayer, “New star of heaven, joy of all creation,” he uses an image for Mary I had not previously encountered, which I imagine must have been partly inspired by reflection on the “ladder of humility” in Chapter 7 of the Rule:

Surely, God made you as his holy ladder:
he holds the summit, Highest seeking lowest;
grant us, the lowly, to return ascending
heights of high heaven.

For Benedict, we ascend to God by humility: “the ladder is our life in the present world which, if we humble our hearts, God raises up to heaven.” Here, St. Peter Damian imagines Mary herself, the lowly one who was raised up by God, to be a ladder for us. God holds this ladder from the top to which we are climbing, but also seeks us out. As we celebrate this joyous feast, let us pray that we may share the delights of company with God in heaven that Mary now enjoys.

 

Stephen Kasperick-Postellon is the Director of Liturgy and Music for St. Paul’s Monastery since 2022. He is an oblate of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie (PA).