In Honor of Our Lady of the Rosary

Here are a few Thurday meditations (on the Luminous Mysteries) from Mary, Mother of the Son:

The Baptism of the Lord

Leonardo da Vinci did us a disservice when he painted St. John in his Last Supper. In his zeal to show St. John as especially close to the loving heart of Christ, Leonardo winds up portraying the Evangelist like a wan and wilting flower. Yet Jesus nicknamed John and his brother James “Boanerges” or the “Sons of Thunder.” Zebedee’s boys were, we should recall, rough cut from solid peasant fisherman stock. They knew all about sweating in the sun, fishing in the Sea of Galilee, and cussing out people in no uncertain terms. In fact, the Gospels actually record an incident in which these young turks, miffed at the crummy hospitality they received from the Samaritans, wanted to call down fire from Heaven in retaliation (Luke 9:52-55). Such peasant bluntness also shows itself in John’s amazing directness with his Master. For though John loved Jesus (and Jesus loved him as His Beloved Disciple) that did not mean he was bashful or afraid to ask for exactly what he wanted.

“Teacher,” say James and John in Mark 10:35-45, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you,” They say this with all the directness of a two-year-old who has neither learned to say “Please” nor to sugarcoat his settled assumption that, of course, the world revolves around Me. Yet curiously, they are not rebuked by Jesus for behavior that would give Miss Manners the vapors. For despite their unabashed selfishness and ambition, they approach the Creator of Heaven and Earth animated by the spirit that’s a thirst for life.

So Jesus, Who is Life, simply asks them what they want. “Grant,” they tell Him, “that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left.” Yet still Jesus doesn’t rebuke them. No “get behind me, Satan!” No sermons on the sin of vaulting ambition. Just a sort of chuckle from Jesus and the remark (under His breath) “You do not know what you are asking.”

Then He fixes His eyes on them and puts the question: “Can you drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”

“We can,” say the Sons of Thunder. And they mean it, though they have no idea what they’re saying.

And so, in the mystery of the divine will, their request is granted—partly. They shall indeed drink that cup and share that baptism, says our Lord. Yet He cannot grant them to sit at His right and left when He enters His glory for it is not His to give but is “for those for whom it is prepared.”

Perhaps John and James were jealous of the mysteriously unnamed Dignitaries whom God would place at the Master’s right and left. Perhaps they were mystified by this partial refusal of their request. Certainly the other disciples were irked by the partial granting of their request. For when they got wind of James’ and John’s ambition they kvetched about this grab for glory. But Jesus took the occasion of this spat to teach them that the desire for glory and greatness is not bad, only misconceived. He did not say “Do not seek greatness.” He said, “Whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Not that they got it. For Luke records that the Apostles’ competition continued right up to the Last Supper, when the disciples quarreled again about who was Top Dog (Luke 22:24-27). Perhaps there was simmering resentment over who was going to get those coveted seats at Jesus’ right and left. Whatever the case, the true meaning of his Master’s words (and of his own misconceived ambition) was made clear to John the following afternoon when, with eyes that would never forget, he beheld at last the two mysterious men for whom a place at Jesus’ right and left hand had been prepared. One screamed at Jesus, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” The other, with words so similar to John’s demand and a humility so utterly different said, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus, entering into His glory, died the death reserved for slaves and gave His life as a ransom for them, for John, and for the whole world.

The Wedding at Cana

The ancient Egyptians were on to something: they longed for eternal life. Not a bad thing to long for. But they longed for it in the wrong way. Instead of realizing eternal life could only come to us from the Eternal One, they conceived of eternal life as being more or less a permanent continuation of earthly existence. And so, instead of resurrection, they settled on mummification and the creation of an entire society whose greatest creative energies were devoted to the production of grave goods. It’s a strange fact that the great Egyptian art we are familiar with was painted for no one to see—because it was painted or chiseled on tomb walls.

Our culture, in its own way, makes similar mistakes. We want eternal life too—so we get Botox injections. We want eternal love, so we obsess over sex and try to pretend it’s the same thing as love. But impersonal sex resembles eternal love about as much as a mummified corpse resembles the Risen and Glorified Christ. Personal sex (which belongs in marriage) is not the Goal. It’s the sign pointing to the Goal. For all our earthly experience of marriage, like all of Egypt’s earthly experience of goodness, is not an end in itself, but a sign pointing us to the real Goodness of God. The true Bridegroom at the Wedding at Cana was not the guy getting married. It was Jesus, the Bridegroom Whose cosmic marriage to the Church is the pattern for all marriage.

The Proclamation of the Kingdom

Jesus’ first public proclamation is “Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 4:17). It’s significant that when God becomes man, His first word to us is not, “Keep it up!” or “What do you think?” but “Repent!” Many people are put off by that, as they would be by a total stranger walking up and saying, “Stop it!” But then, Jesus is not a total stranger. He knows us better than anybody, which is why His first word is “Repent!” Not one of us can hear that word with an ounce of reflection and not immediately recognize those things of which we need to repent. That’s why we reflect so rarely. It’s also why something like the Rosary (which places us into a regular routine of reflection instead leaving us to “get around to it” like teenagers promising to clean their rooms) is a good thing. For the good news is that Jesus didn’t come to depress us with the fact that there’s plenty wrong with us. He came to deliver us from the sins He called us to see and repent of. Today, Lord, help me hear the voice of Jesus and repent. He will surely forgive and deliver us from all sin.

The Transfiguration

As amazing as it seems, the Voice that spoke to Peter, James and John on the Mount of Transfiguration still speaks out of the cloud to you and me every single time we listen to the readings from Scripture at Mass (especially the Gospel). As I meditate on this Mystery, help me, Lord, to remember that the next time I go to Mass I will be standing in the same awesome, supernatural reality that they stood in as they beheld Elijah, Moses, and Jesus in Glory. The Glory is there at Mass just as surely as it was there that day. All the saints are worshiping God right there in the pew next to you just as surely as they were present and visible to the Apostles on that mountain. Every time I go to Mass, I am going to Heaven. For where the King of Heaven is, there is Heaven, and where the Eucharist is, there is the King.

The Institution of the Eucharist

One of the funny ironies surrounding my Evangelical worries about “Mary worship” is the discovery that my fears were so radically misplaced. Since becoming Catholic in 1987 I have never once met a living soul who worships Mary or thinks her to be a goddess. Meanwhile, one of the first things to present itself to me when I seriously began to look at the Faith was the fact that Catholics do, in fact, adore the Eucharist. They literally worship and adore the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ under the appearance of bread and wine. They accord the Eucharist all the honor due to Almighty God Himself, prostrate themselves before it, and offers prayers of praise, worship and petition to it. The Eucharist is, in very truth, God Himself according to Catholics. So it’s really rather pointless for us Evangelicals to focus our energy on the phantom Mary worshiper when droves of real live Catholics are falling down in adoration before the Body and Blood.

At the same time, it’s important to realize what this does mean. For if the Eucharist is, as the Church teaches, the “source and summit” of our Faith (in other words, God) then it is supremely the Eucharist to which Mary is referred and to which she refers us. For the Eucharist is Jesus. Mary is, very literally, the Mother of the Eucharist. It’s from her that Jesus took the flesh which was transfigured, crucified, raised from the grave, glorified—and now offered to us as food and drink.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.