J.M.J.
The following are some Meditations on the Glorious Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They were read on Friday, April 24, 2015 during the Family Hour of Prayer at the 111th State Convention of the Knights of Columbus in Watertown, South Dakota, thanks to the State Chaplain, the Reverend Joseph T. Forcelle.
1. Jesus Rises from the Dead
From the Holy Gospel
according to
Saint Matthew (28:1-10)
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Now after the sabbath, toward the
dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Mag'dalene and the other Mary went to
see the sepulchre.
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And behold, there was a great
earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and
rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.
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His appearance was like lightning,
and his raiment white as snow.
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And for fear of him the guards
trembled and became like dead men.
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But the angel said to the women,
"Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus Who was crucified.
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He is not here; for He has risen,
as He said. Come, see the place where He lay.
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Then go quickly and tell His
disciples that He has risen from the dead, and behold, He is going before you
to Galilee; there you will see Him. Lo, I have told you."
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So they departed quickly from the
tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.
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And behold, Jesus met them and
said, "Hail!" And they came up and took hold of His feet and
worshiped Him.
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Then Jesus said to them, "Do
not be afraid; go and tell My brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will
see Me."
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Several early Fathers of the Church
wrote that Our Blessed Mother was the first to see her Son after His glorious
Resurrection. These spiritual authors argued that, given the unique
relationship between Jesus and Mary, it seemed reasonable that Our Lady was
granted the privilege of seeing Our Risen Lord first.
Many centuries—almost twenty—have
passed since Christ rose from the dead. You and I also behold the Risen Lord.
During every Mass, we encounter Jesus in four ways: 1. in the Sacred Scriptures
proclaimed; 2. in the person of the priest; 3. in the assembled body of
believers present; 4. in a most exalted way in the Body, Blood, Soul and
Divinity of Jesus Christ present under the appearances of bread and wine.
Imagine if we imitated Mary by
living each day conscious of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ next to us. Truly, He
is! But sometimes—perhaps even often—we seem painfully unaware of His
closeness.
The recitation of the Most Holy
Rosary, by way of the meditations on its mysteries, helps us to focus on the
nearness of Christ and His Mother. The Son and His Virgin-Mother are not
light-years from us. Instead, They are tantalizingly close. How They love us!
How They care for us!
Our Lady appreciated her Son risen
from the dead. So do we. He is Our Lord, Our Master, Our Friend, Our Brother,
Our King.
May each of us, our families, our
parishes and our dioceses be more like Mary and acknowledge that Jesus is with
us and wants us never to leave Him.
He is risen as He said. Alleluia.
2. Jesus Ascends into Heaven
From the Acts of the Apostles
(1:1-12)
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In the first book, O The-oph'ilus,
I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,
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until the day when He was taken
up, after He had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles
whom He had chosen.
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To them He presented Himself alive
after His Passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and
speaking of the kingdom of God.
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And while staying with them He
charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the
Father, which, He said, "you heard from Me,
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for John baptized with water, but
before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
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So when they had come together,
they asked Him, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to
Israel?"
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He said to them, "It is not
for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by His own
authority.
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But you shall receive power when
the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem
and in all Judea and Sama'ria and to the end of the earth."
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And when He had said this, as they
were looking on, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight.
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And while they were gazing into
Heaven as He went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
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and said, "Men of Galilee,
why do you stand looking into Heaven? This Jesus, Who was taken up from you
into Heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into Heaven."
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Then they returned to Jerusalem
from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day's journey
away;
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About 1,600 years ago, Saint Augustine of Hippo captured
well the essence of the Solemnity of the Ascension by asserting: “Today our
Lord Jesus Christ ascended into Heaven; let our hearts ascend with Him.”
Saint Augustine also wrote: “For just as He remained
with us even after His Ascension, so we too are already in Heaven with Him,
even though what is promised us has not yet been fulfilled in our bodies.”
How do we remain with Christ while we are here on
earth? Again, Saint Augustine: “He is here with us by His divinity, His power
and His love. We cannot be in Heaven, as He is on earth, by divinity, but in
Him, we can be there by love.”
Love, which is often called charity, which according
to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
“upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the
supernatural perfection of divine love” (#1827), empowers us to remain always
with Jesus, the Source of charity. Although we do not see Him with physical
sight as did Our Lady and the Twelve Apostles, we do see Him with the eyes of
faith.
The Mother of God may well have been on Mount Olivet
when Our Lord ascended to His Father on that first Ascension Thursday. Like
Mary, may we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and always look forward to our
reunion with Him in Paradise.
3. The Holy Spirit Descends Upon
Mary and the Apostles
From the Acts of the Apostles
(2:1-12)
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When the day of Pentecost had
come, they were all together in one place.
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And suddenly a sound came from
heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they
were sitting.
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And there appeared to them tongues
as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them.
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And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance.
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Now there were dwelling in
Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under Heaven.
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And at this sound the multitude
came together, and they were bewildered, because each one heard them speaking
in his own language.
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And they were amazed and wondered,
saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
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And how is it that we hear, each
of us in his own native language?
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Par'thians and Medes and E'lamites
and residents of Mesopota'mia, Judea and Cappado'cia, Pontus and Asia,
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Phryg'ia and Pamphyl'ia, Egypt and
the parts of Libya belonging to Cyre'ne, and visitors from Rome, both Jews
and proselytes,
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Cretans and Arabians, we hear them
telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God."
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And all were amazed and perplexed,
saying to one another, "What does this mean?"
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Invoking the Holy Spirit, Who is the Third Person of
the Most Blessed Trinity, is to be a constant exercise of love and adoration on
the part of all Christians. Our genuine attention to the Holy Spirit leads us
to imitate Him and even to abandon to Him all that we are and have.
The Descent of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday
highlights our desperate need for the Paraclete—a pressing need that we have
every moment of each day.
No disciple of Christ worthy of the name would deny
that the Holy Spirit is to be our sure Refuge and Guide. No authentic friend of
Jesus would argue that presently in our world, the calming presence of the
Counselor is recognized and adhered to as it should be.
We sadly but readily admit that the Holy Spirit and
His wise wishes are not held in esteem. Obstacles have been built that stand in
the way of His renewing the earth. Yes, He can surely overcome those hurdles.
But often His approach is that He wants us to do what we can to break through
those barriers so that His gentle and persuasive influence may be felt.
Therefore, our hearts must first be converted if there
is any chance that the world will be. Our closeness and submission to the Holy
Spirit paves the way for His further work in our society.
Our prayer to the Holy
Spirit is simple: Come, Holy Spirit . . . Holy Spirit, come . . . transform our
hearts so that we may join in Your labor to renew the face of the earth.
Mary, Spouse of the Holy
Spirit, pray for us!
4. Mary is Assumed Body and Soul
into Heaven
Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus,
Venerable Pius XII, November 1, 1950
For which reason, after we have poured forth prayers of
supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the light of the Spirit
of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished His special affection
upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages
and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase of the glory of that same
august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the entire Church; by the
authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and
by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely
revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having
completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into
heavenly glory.
Although the actual dogma of Blessed Mary's Assumption
body and soul into Heaven (especially commemorated by the Church every August
15) was solemnly defined a relatively short 65 years ago, nevertheless the
belief in this fascinating mystery has been cherished and upheld by the Clergy
and the Lay Faithful for centuries.
When Pope Pius XII declared, as we just heard, “that
the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course
of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory,” he readily
acknowledged that “various testimonies, indications, and signs of this common
belief of the Church are evident from remote times down through the course of
the centuries.”
In particular, the Pope Pius hailed Saint John
Damascene as "an outstanding herald of this traditional truth."
What was so spectacular Saint John Damascene’s
teaching about Our Lady’s Assumption?
He wrote: "It was fitting that she, who had kept
her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all
corruption even after death. It was fitting that she, who had carried the
Creator as a Child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.
"It was fitting that the spouse, whom the Father
had taken to Himself, should live in the divine mansions. It was fitting that
she, who had seen her Son upon the cross and who had thereby received into her
Heart the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in the act of giving birth to
Him, should look upon Him as He sits with the Father.”
Thanks to Saint John Damascene, we understand that if
we strive for the fidelity that marked the earthly days of the Virgin, we also
will one day partake both soul and body in the Beatific Vision that she now
possesses. Where she now is, we hope to follow.
5. Mary is Crowned the Queen of
Heaven and Earth
Encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, Venerable Pius XII, October 11, 1954
35. But the Blessed Virgin Mary should be called Queen, not
only because of her Divine Motherhood, but also because God has willed her to
have an exceptional role in the work of our eternal salvation. "What more
joyful, what sweeter thought can we have" - as Our Predecessor of happy
memory, Pius XI wrote - "than that Christ is our King not only by natural
right, but also by an acquired right: that which He won by the redemption?
Would that all men, now forgetful of how much we cost Our Savior, might recall
to mind the words, 'You were redeemed, not with gold or silver which perishes,
. . . but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb spotless and
undefiled.[43] We belong not to ourselves now, since Christ has bought us 'at a
great price'."[44], [45]
The great Dominican theologian Father Reginald
Garrigou-Lagrange, in his valuable treatise entitled The Mother of The Savior and Our Interior Life, asked how is Our
Lady Queen?
Jesus Christ is King of all human persons and all
creatures, including the Angels (both good and fallen) because: A.) His Sacred
Humanity is joined to the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity; B.) He has
the fullness of grace in His soul; C.) He won victory over Satan, sin and
death.
Thanks to Jesus and Mary’s stunning cooperation with
Him here on earth, Mary possesses authority and power and, hence, is Queen.
1. As the Mother of God, Our Lady shares in the
dignity of her Divine Son. She would not be the Mother of the Lord without Him.
As Jesus is the King, Mary is the Queen who shares in Christ’s universal
Kingship.
2. Jesus is the King of the Universe “by His fullness
of grace and by the victory which He won over Satan and sin by His Humanity and
His obedience unto death . . . But Mary was associated with His victory over
Satan, sin, and death by her union with Him in His humiliations and sufferings.
She is therefore really associated with Him in His Kingship.”
Due to her Queenship, Mary has various roles: to
distribute the graces that Christ won for us by His Death on Calvary; to give
good example of the living out of the virtues.
Our Lady as Queen has a specific relationship to each
“division” of the Church—the Church Triumphant in Paradise, the Church Militant
on earth, and the Church Suffering in Purgatory.
O Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth, Possessor of the
Universal Queenship for the Eternal Glory of God and the Everlasting Salvation
of Souls, pray for us!
