Behind the Scenes: August 2022 Update
This monthly video is PART 2 explanation of the Marian symbols contained within the Immaculata explaining the typologies depicted in the coffered ceiling medallions.
Transcript of the Video
Welcome back to the Immaculata Church Project here in St. Marys, KS. Today we are going to give you an update on construction progress. We're here today in the job trailer with Kris Koenig, our project superintendent.
[Bill] So, Kris, where are we at and what are we looking at over the next month or so?
[Kris] So if you have been watching a little bit on the outside of the project, we really have ramped up our work outside. The exterior is starting to kick off again; the biggest difference everyone's going to see is the roofers in high gear now with a little lower winds and less rains. He really has been able to make some good progress: he’s come around almost all of the north transept, he’s headed across the north nave, and is getting ready to jump over to the southside. I believe last month the cupola was kind of being detailed out as far as the stucco goes and the north side was getting close to color; those areas are done now, and the stucco guys are within a week or two of really kind of buttoning up their upper level stucco. They've got some things to do lower but it's smaller tasks, things like the underside of the soffit at the west entry. We've got a big rain leader system that ties in our downspouts; the main trunks for those have all come in the last month. Ironically we got a little bit of supply chain issues with some connectors but the rest of that downspout work is in the near future.
And you’ve seen some concrete work. So our west plaza concrete as far as the steps and the upper level plaza concrete is all in place now, and we're going to continue on that. The earthwork contractor, MCM, have come and dressed some of the topsoil on the back of curbs. Largely some of this is getting ready for the bell ceremony coming up next month (ed: on September 10th) and that's going to continue. They will begin doing fine grade around the future paving. Here within a few weeks we're going to have more curb and gutter come in and we are going to focus a lot on the west face – it's a milestone largely to make sure we're in a position that you guys can go through the bell ceremony and the blessing of the bells and accommodate some people doing that.
Next month it'll be a continuation of that. We are going to stay active on the outside, continue buttoning up the roofing, continue buttoning up the outsides. Right now we are in a big finish spot, but we fight mud when it gets rainy; we will get better and better over the next bit, but that's the progress going (exteriorly).
On the inside of the building there's work just about everywhere, but we are starting to see some things turn hands. So the very top of the cupola has most of its artwork in place, the sanctuary has most of its artwork in place, and those upper elevations were we’ve got that big massive “dance floor” scaffold system we're starting to see that that can transition away. So in the middle of next month, unless something crazy happens, we should see the cupola scaffold come down and sanctuary scaffold come down and then it's just kind of picking away at it and moving it east to west across. We've got finishers working in the back of the sacristy space, we’ve got framers working in the narthex space, we've got bell towers buttoning up, so we are active in multiple areas right now.
[Bill] I saw some of the marble columns in the sanctuary getting installed today.
[Kris] Yes, it’s fantastic work: beautiful! It’s fun to see the final product come into place.
[Bill] Well, thank you, Kris for that update on the building progress. We’re now going to turn it over to Father Rutledge and continue to talk about the meaning behind the artwork.
[Fr. Rutledge] Last month we talked about the idea of Marian typology. In other words, how God used symbols in the Old Testament to foreshadow Our Lady and therefore Our Lord’s coming. And we also talked about the first six symbols that are going up in the coffered ceiling. So refer back to the July video, if you want to hear our discussion on that. This month we are going to talk about the last six symbols.
So the first of the six Marian symbols we’ll talk about this time is the dove. You’ll see in the text underneath this beautiful image Columba Ramum Ferens which means the dove bearing the olive branch. But firstly, the idea of a dove, itself comes from the Canticle of Canticles, which again, we described last month. We hear this quote from the Canticles: “My dove is in the clefts of the rocks, in the hollow places of the wall”. So doves, they delight in retirement and solitude, resorting to the highest places of buildings and other sequestered spots. So we see in this an image of Our Lady who at the age of three, entered the solitude of the temple, and as we know in her married life, she lived in a retired life in Nazareth. These are the hidden places where she contemplated divine things. We also see the idea of chastity in a dove. “My dove, my undefiled” again as we hear from the Canticles. Doves are fond of cleanliness, they dislike dirt: as Our Lady is without sin. Further, doves are said to be faithful in their affections to one other mate. So a further semblance of Our Lady’s spiritual fidelity to the Holy Ghost, as His spouse in her chastity.
But you’ll notice in this image, too, that the dove is carrying a branch. And in this sense, we recognize the dove which Noah sent from the ark, and which came back carrying the olive branch, which signified and made clear to Noah that the waters of the flood had subsided. That’s why St. Germanus says, “Hail, O Dove, who brings us the fruit of the olive tree. Thou deliverer from spiritual deluge.” So she brought tidings of joy and peace to the whole world, by bringing the Savior into it, who saved us all, who saved us sinners. A symbol that God’s punishment for original sin, in a certain sense, was over. And thus St. Bernard says, “Oh, pure, oh, kind, oh, heavenly Dove, reconcile us with thy Son, recommend us to thy Son, present us to thy Son.”
So closely linked to this dove carrying the olive branch is our next symbol which you see in the image, Noah’s Ark. Noah’s Ark is in fact, not just shown as a boat, but in fact, the artists have shown it as the Immaculata itself because the Immaculata is, in its nature, a safe haven. We all know how the Ark saved Noah and his family from the Great Flood, which was a punishment for the incessant and widespread sins of the human race. We ourselves live in very sinful times, sins against nature, sins of abortion, hatred for God’s religion and church. And so we can look up and remember this, that Our Lady, and this church even, is a safe haven, it’s a refuge. Ever since Adam sinned, the whole human race is under sin and perishes. We have to die because of original sin. But in this universal catastrophe, there’s one creature who does not perish, who doesn’t die, and that’s Our Lady. Mary is the ark that rises above the waters. She was preserved from sin; she didn’t die. And so we see in this ark, a symbol of her immortality, a privilege derived from her Immaculate Conception. The first ark contained Noah, the second father of the human race. The second ark contained Our Lord (the second ark being Our Lady) contained Our Lord, the True Father and restorer of the human race who gives not only temporal existence, but restores to our immortal souls, the life of grace. But you see, under this image, the words Signum Foedris which actually means the sign of the covenant. That sign was the rainbow: God’s bow in the clouds. It was the sign of the agreement between man and God following the flood. After the water subsided, Noah offered sacrifice and then entered into a solemn agreement with God. For God the rainbow was a token of peace and remember, this image belongs to God, not to people who have misused it in recent years.
So this symbol of the rainbow was a symbol of Our Lady, not only because of the beauty of the rainbow, that even St. John in his Apocalypse says he saw a rainbow round about the throne of heaven. And this is Our Lady who surrounds God’s throne by her prayers and her constant intercession for us. St. Bonaventure sums it all up in a very beautiful poem:
In the clouds of the heavens so bright,
Graceful rainbow, thou oft, dost appear,
Gently spreading the beautiful light,
Of thy virtue on thy children so dear.
Fear and labor and sorrow depart,
At the sight of the beautiful bow,
Hope and joy are restored to the heart,
Of the sinner who mourns here below.
Blessed rainbow so sweet to behold,
Thou in power and in glory so high,
Mary, rainbow in beauty untold,
Shining forth in the sky!
So our next symbol is one that’s a little bit more unique, a little more, maybe you can say esoteric. It’s Gideon’s Fleece, the Lana Gedeonis as the words will say underneath this image. We remember that the people of Israel were oppressed by the Madianites due to their sins, and so they cried to God for help. And Gideon was God’s chosen servant to save his people. So Gideon prayed to God for a sign of victory. And asked God: ‘Please, if I put a fleece on the ground and in the morning, I wake up, and the dew is only gathered in the fleece but nowhere on the ground around, that’s a sign that you’ll give me victory’. And so God answered his prayer. Gideon asked God yet again, ‘Lord, please forgive me for asking for yet another sign. If I wake up tomorrow, and the dew is not on the fleece, but only on the ground around the fleece, then that’s a sign that you’ll give us victory.’ And God again answered his prayer. And so St. Ildefonse says that the fleece represents Our Lady’s virginity. He says: “As the fleece belongs to the body, but it’s not subject to the passions of the body so virginity existing in the flesh ignores the vices of the flesh.”
We know one of Our Lady’s greatest titles is she is a perpetual virgin, something that was meritorious, more so than an angel who was created without a body, that she lived on this earth, in a human body, but in perpetual virginity. And so the dew in the fleece is Christ in the Blessed Virgin Mary. The dew being the incarnation of the Word of God in the Blessed Virgin Mary, though in a very secret, tranquil, chaste, and spiritual way. This is why so many of the Fathers refer to Our Lady as Gideon’s Fleece.
St. Jerome has a beautiful quote, he says, “The shepherds who are watching at the night of Christmas heard the words ‘Glory to God in the highest.’ And as they were guarding their sheep, they found the Lamb of God on a clean and spotless fleece, moist with the heavenly dew in the midst of the bareness and dryness of the whole earth.”
And St. Bernard himself sums up this whole allegory of Gideon’s fleece very beautifully. He says, “What is meant by the fleece of Gideon, which coming from the body, free from the ills of the body is put on the floor and first filled with dew, which afterwards covers the ground, but the human nature which our Savior took from the Blessed Virgin Mary without the loss of her virginity? Mary in whom the fullness of the Divinity descended, when the heavens sent down their dew in order that we who are dry and sterile, might receive from her fullness.”
And we hear the similar themes in Advent, for example on the fourth Sunday, we hear in the Introit the liturgy praying, “God, sent forth down your dew.” And so this dew comes first into the fleece, into Mary, then it comes all over the ground to all of us. Thus St. Peter Chrysologus: “The heavenly rain fell gently on the fleece, that is, on Mary; the whole wave of the divinity was absorbed and hidden in the fleece of humanity, until, wrung out in the press of the Cross, it was diffused all over the earth as a rain of salvation.”
And so the fleece was full of dew, Mary full of grace and Gideon’s prayers were answered before a great battle. And the obvious connections there are not unintentional on the part of God.
So for the last three symbols that we have, we return to, again, the Canticle of Canticles. And we see the lily. In this image, it’s the lily amongst thorns. And we hear the quote from the second chapter of Canticles: “As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” So the lily we know is one of the most beautiful flowers. It perfumes, a garden with its sweet odors, contains a whiteness that is almost unequaled, and it rests nobly atop a stem which keeps it elevated from the ground as though not wishing to have its purity stained. It has six leaves, which are all united in the form of a chalice and in this chalice are six golden grains. So it’s a universally accepted symbol of purity and of virginity. Mary is the lily amidst thorns, amidst the children of Adam. After Adam’s fall, remember God said: “Cursed be the Earth. Thorns and thistles, shall it bring forth to thee.” So in the midst of the world’s sin, there is again one immaculate, one without stain. The thorns may also be seen as symbols of passions, of concupiscence or the allurements of the world. The prick which we feel, as St. Paul says, “There was given me a sting in my flesh” and yet Mary never was pricked. She lived on this earth, like the angels live in heaven.
But we said that this lily chalice contains golden grains, and these are the inestimable treasures found in Our Lady. Our Lady is both pure in her body, in the petals, and in her heart, symbolized by the golden grains. Some even say that the six leaves of the lily represent the six things necessary to preserve chastity, that is sobriety, asperity of dress, indefatigable labor, custody of the senses, bridling the tongue and avoiding dangerous occasions of sin.
And then just finally, a little story: there was once a very learned Franciscan friar, who had long been tempted with doubts against Our Lady’s perpetual virginity. He fought these temptations, but one day he wanted to present himself to a very holy brother, Brother Giles. So this Franciscan friar came to him and Brother Giles knew why he was coming. So when the Franciscan came in, Brother Giles immediately struck the ground. And he says, “Oh, Friar, she was a virgin before childbirth. And immediately a lily came up out of the earth. Then he struck the ground again and said, “A virgin in childbirth,” and yet again, a lily came up. And lastly, he said, “A virgin after childbirth.” And yet, a third lily was produced from the ground. Brother Giles left, the Franciscan friar himself left as well and found himself delivered from this temptation.
And then the last two symbols we’ll do together, which are also found in the Canticles. I’ll read the quote in Latin, “Quae est ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens, pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol.” (Cant. 6:9). And those last six words are what you see written underneath these last two images. She is fair as the moon and bright as the sun.
We remember God made two lights in the firmament of heaven. A greater light to rule the day, and a lesser light to rule the night. Allegorically, again, the firmament is the Church, the sun is Christ and the moon is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Christ is often referred to as the Son of Justice who enlightens every man who comes into this world. The moon is the most like the sun and Our Lady is the most like God of all creatures shining more brightly than any of the stars in the sky. She’s the shining light in the night. She’s greater than all the saints combined. The moon gets its light, we know, directly from the sun. And as Our Lady herself recognized, she derives all her benefits from God, “My soul magnifies the Lord, because He who is mighty has done great things to me.”
But she isn’t jealous with this grace of God, she shares this light, just as the moon does. Just as the moon doesn’t absorb its light, it shares it to those on earth. So Our Lady is the mediatrix of all graces and passes God’s gifts to her children. Yet she only is that because of God, and so devotion to her, will never take us away from devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ. And the brilliance of the moon is far less intense than that of the Sun, which allows us in fact, to look up directly at the moon. And so again, Our Lady’s proportion to us men, or she was pure creature like us men, and so we can turn to her. We know that’s very much in the spirituality of St. Louis de Montfort. We go to her because she understands us perfectly. But even in this image of the moon, we can see a few other similarities to Our Lady.
Even the phases of the moon can be compared to Our Lady. One of the great saints says, “As the moon constantly increases or decreases and diminishes, after her increased, so Mary increased in grace. She decreased in humility in her own estimation, as we see in the words of Ecclesiasticus, “The greater thou art, the more Humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God.” Even the eclipse of the moon is comparable in the minds of the Fathers and the saints, because it refers to the Passion of Our Lady and her Son. Saint Albert the Great says, “This moon was entirely changed into blood when, standing by the cross, Mary beheld her son, with His head wounded by thorns and his body torn by scourges, his hands and feet pierced with nails and at last his side opened by the cruel lance.” The obvious reference to the moon shining at night can’t but also help encourage us poor sinners, passing through this veil of tears. And yet there she is, a bright moon guiding and helping us on our journey to reach the end of our pilgrimage.
So as we’ve seen with presenting to you these twelve different symbols of Our Lady going up in the ceilings of the church, hopefully you understand how much Our Lord Jesus Christ who is the central figure of history, and therefore how necessarily our Blessed Mother is the central figure of history as well, because she’s the means by which Our Lord Jesus Christ is brought into this world. God who after the fall of Adam and Eve, knew that He was going to come save the human race, knew that He was going to do it through His mother. And so we have all these beautiful images that point to her perpetual virginity, her divine maternity, her Immaculate Conception, her fullness of grace, her as an instrument of bringing grace to the human race. And so the goal really is to have in this temple dedicated to the Immaculata, we hope to have a whole scene up in the ceiling that all the souls who attend Mass and who come and worship in the sacred space can look up at, contemplate, and realize how close the Mother of God is to us, how much she helps us poor sinners, and can be put at peace through the knowledge of their mother.
