The following is a cut down version of the introductory speech I gave at IHM School’s graduation last Saturday. Readers should know that our school in rural southern New Hampshire is very small. We had three graduates this year — and I had a bit of fun playing with their names in this speech.
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IN 2012, I was invited to an event in Virginia in honor of our old friend, Dr. Robert Hickson. The sumptuous dinner party that concluded the day’s proceedings observed the formal protocol of assigned seating. To my surprise, when I found my place card at one of the tables, I discovered that I was seated between Robert’s twin daughters, who are — if you will pardon me for noticing — very pretty ladies with flaming red hair. I thought that surely someone had a sense of humor to put the monkish celibate between such lovely specimens of femininity. To diffuse the slight awkwardness of the situation, I inverted an old expression for my purposes: “I guess I’m the thorn between two roses,” I said. To which one of them charmingly responded with a very sweet, “Aww! Thank you!”
That little anecdote is my effort at showing sympathy for, and solidarity with, Mark, who now finds himself in a similar situation on this stage today as the thorn among roses. And if he’s not between two redheads, that is largely compensated for by the fact that one of the two lovely ladies he graduates with today conveniently bears the name, Rose, while her sister, Regina Caeli, recalls the greatest rose of them all: the Queen of Heaven! You have my sympathy, Mark — even my empathy.
As the word graduate suggests, coming as it does from the Latin word for “step,” these three are about to take the next step of their promising young lives, and I, for one, feel pretty good about that. I’m genuinely looking forward to what they will, with God’s grace and Mary’s maternal mediation, make of themselves in the years to come.
Speaking of which, this may be my last chance to help them make something good of themselves. So now comes the part where I attempt to infuse some sage advice into their still impressionable young minds.
It turns out that the expression, “a rose among thorns,” was coined by the fourth-century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus [330-395] in book XVI, chapter 7 of his work on Roman history, the Rerum Gestarum. His original Latin reads, Sed inter vepres rosae nascuntur et inter feras non nullae mitescunt — “But roses grow up among thorns, and among wild beasts some are of gentle disposition.” In the context, he is speaking of the virtues of a eunuch named Eutherius, and eunuchs were generally a marginalized class of people, so, to Marcellinus, the good and virtuous Eutherius stood out as a rose among thorns or a gently disposed animal among wild beasts. The simple point of the expression is to hold something up as good, even though it belongs in a class of generally bad things.
While he was apparently more than just tolerant of Christians, Ammianus Marcellinus was a pagan. But the expression he coined bears an odd resemblance to a well-known passage in the Hebrew Scriptures, written some fourteen hundred years earlier. It comes from that book of mysterious love poetry known variously as the Canticle of Canticles, the Song of Solomon, or the Song of Songs. Here is the passage — from chapter two, verses one and two — and I cite both an older and a newer translation:
“I am the flower of the field, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” [Douay-Rheims]
“I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles, so is my love among maidens.” [RSV-CE]
According to the Ignatius Study Bible, the Canticle was interpreted by the Fathers of the Church and Medieval theologians in three different but not mutually exclusive ways. These are, and I quote,
[A]n ecclesial interpretation, in which the Song speaks of Christ lovingly wedded to the Church (St. Hippolytus, Orgien of Alexandria, St. Bede), a mystical interpretation, in which Christ is the husband who pursues a bridal union with the individual soul (St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. John of the Cross), and a mariological interpretation, in which the bride of the Song is the Virgin Mother of God, who is the perfect realization of what the Lord desires for the Church as a whole and for each of her members (St. Ambrose, St. Peter Chrysologus, St. Francis de Sales). Many commentators developed two or even all three [of these] levels of the Song’s allegorical meaning.
So what does this seemingly arcane question of how to interpret a wisdom book of the Old Testament have to do with our graduates? Let me explain that by giving my own simple exegesis of the verses I quoted: “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among brambles [thorns], so is my love among maidens.”
Sharon is “the verdant coastal plain of central Palestine, stretching north to south from Mt. Carmel to Joppa” (Ignatius Study Bible). It’s known for its lovely crocus or lotus flowers, which are apparently what are really meant here by the word translated as “rose.” The Rose of Sharon mentioned in verse one is Jesus Christ, who is “beautiful above the sons of men” (Ps. 44:3). He is also called the “lily of the valleys” as the lily is an ancient symbol of purity and chastity. With an intense and chaste love, He is in pursuit of his Bride, the “lily among thorns” of verse two; this bride is His love, His Church — whom he praises, saying that, compared to the other maidens, she is as the beautiful lily among those nasty thorns. But this second lily is also each one of the members of the Church: each baptized soul, whom Jesus Christ pursues singly with an intense love of charity. Now here’s the advice: Let Jesus Christ lovingly pursue you, graduates, and reciprocate His love by heeding those words of His recorded in Saint John’s Gospel (14:15), “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
Among the saddest of songs are those about unrequited love. Don’t leave the love of Jesus Christ unrequited.
Morally, the lily among thorns has another interpretation given by various authors: It is the life of virtue — especially, but not exclusively, the virtue of chastity. This virtue is guarded by the thorny pricks and pains of penance, mortification, and those moral safeguards we call generally, hedges. You know that hedges were very important to the vineyards and olive groves of the Holy Land in Biblical times. They provided a natural kind of razor wire fence to keep foxes and other vermin from stealing the produce — and hedges were, incidentally, great hiding places for serpents, too. These agricultural hedges are also a wonderful allegory for moral safeguards that protect the precious fruits of grace in our souls. So the book of Ecclesiastes says, “He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and he that breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” Graduates, keep the lily of your virtue protected by the thorny hedges of good manners, the cardinal virtue of prudence, and practices of penance. And don’t forget frequent sacramental confession. In sanctifying grace, you bear a treasure inside you more valuable than all that this world has to offer. But that treasure is very delicate — as delicate as a rose — so, protect it!
Now that the sage advice has been imparted, I’ll try your patience with one last point. You’ve heard me comment on the names of our young ladies graduating today — Rose and Regina. But I’ve said nothing of Mark’s noble name till now. Of course, he’s named after the Christian Evangelist, as are his brothers, Matthew and John — and his cousin, Lucas. But before the Evangelist-Saint bore it, Mark was an old Latin name that honored the Roman god of war, Mars, so it has martial or military connotations, and it is associated therefore with strength, courage, determination, and valor — all qualities we can easily baptize and make Christian virtues.
So I end with one last piece of advice for all of us: With the graduates today — and for all our days — let’s safeguard the Rose of God’s love with the thorns of Mark’s courage, while honoring Regina Caeli, the Queen of Heaven, whom we love, and for whom we gladly fight.
