The Rosette – God’s Kaleidoscope

Next time you visit a Roman Catholic Church, especially an older cathedral, turn around…and this time, do look up! Chances are you’ll be looking at a large, circular, stained glass window, often referred to as a ‘Rosette’. If you’ve timed your visit right, light may be streaming through, filling the interior with an eponymous rosy glow. 

Elsewhere in the church you may find other stained glass windows, usually depicting scenes from the Bible, or from the life of a particular saint. Unlike these, the Rosette is most often purely a design. It has no thematic content; its sole function is to convey Beauty, one of the primary manifestations of Divinity in our World.

After the riot of color, the most striking feature of a Rosette is the symmetry of its design…usually at least hexagonal but often dodecagonal. 

Why did Christianity settle on the Rosette as one of its defining symbols? First, the circular form symbolizes the unity, wholeness, and perfection of God. It suggests God as the source of light, symbolizing the act of creation and the illumination of revelation. The symmetrical design reflects the order of the cosmos created by God.

The number 12 is important in Christian theology, so it is no surprise that larger Rosettes often display dodecagonal symmetry. 12 apostles, for example. The 12 baskets of scraps collected after Jesus fed the 5,000. Of course, 12 is also the number of signs in the Zodiac and, as every third grader used to know, it is the product of 3 x 4: the three persons of the Trinity and the four corners of the Earth (i.e. the material world).

Finally, in Roman Catholic spirituality, the Virgin Mary is often portrayed as the Mystic Rose (Rosa Mystica).

The lack of a thetic image allows the Rosette to sample, and be sampled by, other spiritual traditions. For example, some observers have detected a similarity to the Great Mandala of Tibetan Buddhism. As such, the Rosette recalls the cyclical nature of birth, death and eschatological rebirth, contrasting the simple eternal unity of God (circle) with the variety and variability of life on Earth (colors).

Roman Catholics do not shy away from spiritual aids. Unlike some other faiths, Catholicism makes generous use of statues and images to focus the worshiper’s mind on given spiritual themes. Thank goodness! The result is some of the world's greatest artistic achievements.

And it’s not always necessary to travel to a museum or cathedral to have such an experience. Many Catholics carry rosary beads in their pockets, wear medals, place icons in their homes. On the other hand, carrying around a huge architectural feature like a Rosette is hardly practical, is it…or is it?

Actually, those of us born before the age of video games routinely had Rosettes in our bedrooms growing up. We called them ‘kaleidoscopes’, but unless our parents were particularly perspicacious, we were unaware of their potential as spiritual aids. They were just ‘fun’. 

In fact, however, $9.99 kaleidoscopes embody many of the same features as Rosettes. Obviously, they display light, refracted into a rainbow of colors. They do so without resort to thematic images and they also exhibit symmetry, usually hexagonal (because of the size limitations imposed by their portability).

And they are portable! Unlike some people I know, you can take them anywhere. You could even hitch one to your belt or belt loop like a 1960’s engineer’s slide rule. You could put one on your bedside table. You could carry one in your glove box (not to be used while driving). Point is, you’re never more than 3 seconds away from an experience of God’s glory. Is that worth $10?

Ok, let’s get real. Even the best kaleidoscopes fall short of the Rosettes we see in the great cathedrals of Europe. On the other hand, they have a feature that no medieval architect could have even imagined. They move!

Take a scope in one hand and look through the eyepiece located at the far end of the cylinder. What do you see? A gorgeous pattern of shapes and colors. Now slowly rotate the ‘nose cone’. The initial pattern morphs gradually, and then suddenly, a ‘phase change’! 

An entirely new pattern emerges which does not appear to relate in any way to the previous pattern, or to any prior pattern for that matter. I have the impression at least that every pattern is novel, that no pattern recurs. My kaleidoscope captures a feature of God’s glory that no Rosette could possibly match: the forever newness of his creation! 

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