Eastertide | The Arithmetic of the Rose
It is Eastertide. All is Light. Christ has Risen.
This is the concluding entry in a series I wrote to irl frens amidst Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. It is lightly edited to better flow without the context of the other entries. This was first written and published on the morning of Easter AD 2023.
Let us begin with a reiteration, a retreading, from Advent. For I am not through with the geometry of that season.
Here, if you will permit me such playfulness with theology, we might see Time as the x-axis, proceeding right-wise indefinitely, until it is pierced through by the perpendicularity of Christ’s Advent [the y-axis], cleaving the Tapestry of Time, precipitating a Cross, Crux. And then, what’s more, by means of the Second Advent [the z-axis], As Above, So Below—we shall be brought from the low places to the High Place, by means of the indescribable Love, Mercy, Largesse, Condescension, Oblation, of Christ’s sacrifice—with everything centered about a single point in Time and Space and Eternity: the Incarnation of Our Lord.
You know all of this, already—just by different symbols, different metaphors, different language. I proffer nothing you’ve not already in your possession. But my hope, my prayer, is that my peculiar wordings spark in your imagination some new vein of golden thinking.
For our purposes here, note that the axes flow in every direction, and that they have arrows pointing outward. They have beginnings and ends; they point somewhere. They are neither shapeless nor formless. They have beginnings and ends.
Let us consider the double Crux formed by the x-, y-, and z-axes. Let us glimpse these axes as double metaphor: first, in the fashion I described already; second, as members, organs, fractions, of the Church. From the Center, from the Incarnation of Our Lord, radiates all the Church in her variegated glory. It is as though all is pouring outwards, unfolding outwards, unto some infinitude. It is as though all is the petals of a Rose, unfurling at the sight of dew-kissed Dawn, the dew of Baptism, stretching out in perfect union, yet each petal distinct, discrete, and named, although all yet working in unison.
And at the end, The End, when the z-axis shall pierce the Crux, rendering the double Crux, all shall be brought back inwards. He, the King, Jesus Christ, shall draw all things unto Himself. And all shall be made New; and the rose shall contract, and contract, and contract, tightening, hugging its members closer and closer and closer, until all is but Light—a concentrated, singular point of Light, so dense as to be immeasurable, yet so vast and capacious as to be wide and expansive as all the Heavens. And the arrows of the axes, every arrow in Creation, shall be turned point to fletching; for the last shall be first; for all must flow towards the Center; for there shall be no more use of arrowheads, for the swords shall be beaten to plowshares in that time, in that moment when Time is sublimed, melted away with the dross of sin, leaving only Pax et Gaudium.
And then, what shall commence shall be but a realization, a recapitulation, the Consummation, of what came about this very morning, so many years ago. Out of the Light, out of the density of Immovable Love, the Rose opens again, bursting forth in pure White, in the purest Light. Theophanic Eclipse shall not be terrible then, for it shall be all: for the Sun and Moon shall no longer be our lights, but only I AM.
Yea, indeed, it is Easter which fashions the Rose at first. The Crux, with Christ upon the center of it, the Crux which is the intersection of two lines stretching out forever, but forever pointing inwards, pulling all inwards; it is that bloodied Rose, that Rose bruised but not broken, which draws all towards the Center. In our days of blood and water, of Baptism and Wine, the Rose must be scarlet, for it is by His Stripes that we are healed; it is by the water poured from His Side that we are baptized. But He was not content for a lesser bride, for a smaller Church; and so, having been drawn inwards, we are turned, last-to-first, fletching to point, turned outwards again, notched upon the bow of His Mercy, that bow which stretches across the Heavens every time the Earth is baptized by rain; and we are loosed from that Red Rose unto the world, to love the world, to set the world’s eyes towards the Center: to love God, to serve God. And each has his own particular part to play, just as the bow from which we are loosed is itself composed of every possible color; and each is irreplaceable, each is unique, each is named.
For as the first Adam once named everything under his domain, so too has the Second Adam named everyone under His domain. Our eyes, too weak now to read the names, blinded even by the softer Light of the Red Rose of this time; but: amidst the Light of that Pure White Rose, that Light which is to come when time is to come undone: O, we shall, each of us, then read that name etched upon our souls. We shall then pass from Mirrors Dimly—to Faces with bright eyes and untiring hearts. We shall, only then, know ourselves truly. For how can one be known if not by one’s True Name?
In this Rose, in the grandeur of its Totality, as all things flow inwards towards the Center, unto the Center: the Center becomes All. The Center is the Sum of All. How could it be otherwise? For in Latin, is not our LORD’s name—I AM—rendered as: SUM?
We mayn’t yet know our own Names, but we know His. And that is enough.
Be still then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth.
Photo courtesy of birdworld compatriot and Christian brother-in-arms Edward Badgette; see here for the beautiful story behind the rose in the photo: