RosaryMeds

The Luminous Mysteries

Rosary Meditation — The First Luminous Mystery

Last modified on 2009-09-22 03:23:33 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

This rosary meditation focuses on The First Luminous Mystery — Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan.  In this mystery we see Jesus transforming Baptism from being a purely symbolic act of renewal to an actual gift of the Holy Spirit that cleanses our soul of original sin.  For this mystery I’m going to focus on the central message of John the Baptist — a call to repentance.  While John is usually associated with Baptism (hence his title), his ministry really focuses on the Sacrament of Confession.  He preached that we prepare ourselves to fully receive God when we approach Him with a repentant heart.  These two sacraments really go hand-in-hand in that they both center around the Holy Spirit cleansing our soul of the effects of sin.

Think about how you take care of your teeth.  You brush and floss daily to keep them clean.  However, every six months you also need to go to a dentist to have your mouth thoroughly inspected and cleaned by a professional.  Seeing your dentist is not a sign of bad oral health.  It’s not like the only people who need to see a dentist are those who do not brush regularly.  Rather, everyone needs regular brushing and checkups or else our teeth will not be their strongest.  Skipping the daily brushing routine or the checkups might lead to premature dentures.

What does this have to do with repentance besides the fact that most people would probably consider a trip to the dentist as some sort of penance?  Like brushing your teeth, prayer must be part of your daily routine to keep your soul healthy.  Regular prayer is your time to reflect on all those ways you have lived God’s will and offer Him thanksgiving.  You also ask for strength and guidance to continue living a spiritually healthy life.  Prayer serves as a little check to prevent sin from entering and decaying your soul.  However, every so often you also need to see a professional to give your soul a thorough scrubbing away of sin.  And that scrubbing is the Sacrament of Confession.

Just like how brushing alone isn’t enough to keep your teeth healthy, individual prayer alone is not enough to keep your soul healthy.  You can’t completely fix the effects of sin with only individual prayer.  There are instances where your soul requires the help of a professional in order to fix the spiritual decay that may be attacking and spreading within you.  You may think that my analogy leads to the priest hearing your confession to be that professional who “fixes” your soul.  However, the priest is merely the assistant.  The real professional, the one who actually cleanses your soul of sin, is God.  God works through the priest to clean your soul and restore it back to a clean and healthy state.

This mystery should remind us of John the Baptist’s message that we should “prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths” (Mt 3:3).  Let us remember to be thoroughly repentant not just through our private prayers but also by receiving the sacrament of Confession.  That way we clear out souls of everything that blocks us from fully receiving God’s graces.  Instead of seeing confession as some sort of punishment, let us see it for what it really is — a gift.  It is our chance to set things right, fix what is broken in our life, and build a stronger relationship with our Lord, Jesus Christ.  May we remember that it is through confession that we return to that pure innocence that we had at our Baptism.  We return to that state of grace that God desires for all of us.  So let us make the effort to go to Confession regularly (the Church says at least once a year) and live as true disciples of Jesus Christ.  And you might want to pop in to see your dentist as well!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Archangel Gabriel (slideshare.net)
• Devotional – To Be Known By Jesus (pastorpaulvbsblog.blogspot.com)

Rosary Meditation: The Second Luminous Mystery

Last modified on 2010-01-18 18:51:25 GMT. 3 comments. Top.

Today’s rosary meditation is the second Luminous Mystery — The Miracle at the Wedding at Cana.  At a wedding party, Jesus turned water into wine in His first public miracle.  This started his ministry of healing the sick, giving site to the blind, and mobility to the paralyzed.  There are two main threads that are common to all the Gospels and they are Jesus’ miracles and parables.  Why are Jesus’ miracles so critical to his ministry?  And, if He could perform all these miraculous deeds, why did He not eliminate everyone’s problems and hardships instantly?  Why do we still have sick, blind, and paralyzed people today if it is so easy for the Lord to heal someone?

In order for Jesus’ miracles to have any meaning you must understand the reason behind them.  They are not performed for the sole purpose of making peoples’ lives easier.  We cannot reduce Jesus to a mere genie who will grant us all our wishes.  They are performed in order to increase our faith and open us up to His word.  When Jesus gives sight to the blind He does a lot more than just heal one person.  The miraculous act is a sign of His divinity and power so that many more will come to recognize him as Christ our king and follow His path.  We are like children where His miracles are a way of getting our attention so that we will be more receptive to His message.  The miracles are not only for the one who is healed, but also for those who witness them so that our doubt will be transformed into unquestioning faithfulness.

However, Jesus’ asks a lot of those whom He heals.  They must make a firm commitment to transform their lives, follow Him, live according to His will, and have faith that He will guide them to His heavenly kingdom.  Luke’s Gospel talks of Jesus healing ten leapers.  Of that ten only one came back to thank and praise Him at which point Jesus said that his faith made him well.  The other nine eventually died, as we all do, so their physical healing was only temporary.  But the one who returned to the Lord received more than temporary, physical healing.  He received the gift of faith which is the true purpose of the miracle and more important than any physical healing we receive in this life.  Ask yourself, would you return and thank Him for His wonderful works?  If yes, then ask yourself how many times you have thanked our Lord for the great miracle of a new day?  For the miracle of friends?  For the miracle of family?  Many times we are the nine healed leapers who are given so much and yet we never return to thank the one who provides it all.

Do we pray for miracles for the right reasons?  Do we ask for them in order to grow in our relationship with our Lord or do we ask for them just so that our lives will be made easier?  We must remember that a miracle that only makes our lives easier is worldly and temporary and will eventually fade away and be replaced by different challenges.  Let us remember that God always hears us even when our request for a miracle goes unanswered.  God, in His infinite wisdom, knows that many of our requests only serve to make our present lives easier and would not bring us any closer to Him.  Like a good parent, He knows when to tell us “no.”  Jesus did not come to us to make our lives easier in this world, but rather He came so that we may be with Him for all eternity in our next life.  Let us pray this decade that Jesus’ miracles heal our soul, increase our faith, and lead us closer to His love.

Rosary Meditation: The Third Luminous Mystery

Last modified on 2009-05-18 00:48:07 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

Today’s rosary meditation focuses on the Third Luminous Mystery — Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God with a call to conversion. We should remember that Jesus is the Word made Flesh who brought the power and glory of Heaven into this world.  However, in order to celebrate in God’s graces we must first approach Jesus with a humble heart open to conversion.   By conversion, Jesus asks us to put away our worldly and sinful ways and truly embrace His teachings of goodness and mercy.

Early in His ministry, Jesus proclaimed the Word had been fulfilled through Him.  In a synagogue, Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah how “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me.”  He followed up the reading saying how that passage was now fulfilled.  As Christians who already believe in the Jesus’ divinity, this passage reads more as a statement of fact rather than a radical proclamation.  However, this would have been difficult to hear for those gathered in the synagogue at that time.  Instead of accepting Jesus as the Word made Flesh, they chased Him out of town.  This reminds me of the times when God calls me to follow His ways, but instead of accepting God’s call, I reject it.  Often we tell ourselves that what God asks of us doesn’t make any sense, is difficult, or impossible. It is always easier to find excuses and justifications rather than accept God’s Word. After all, the people who chased Jesus out of the temple reasoned that He was just the son of Joseph the carpenter and couldn’t possibly be the Messiah.  We must ask ourselves, how often do we try to reason away God’s Word, transform it, or revise it in order to suit our notions of how to live?

Jesus’ ministry of healing and miracles showed the power and glory of God’s kingdom.  He gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, and restored movement to the paralyzed.  Through his acts people came to believe and follow Him.  Jesus did indeed bring the kingdom of Heaven to the world for wherever He traveled people felt the true presence of God.  But I find it amazing how quickly the people who followed Jesus abandoned Him.  They praised Him one day only to call for His crucifixion the next.  For many, Jesus was just a man who made their lives easier through physical healing.  But when confronted with the difficult reality of following a man who was condemned by the ruling Roman authorities and Jewish leaders, people quickly, as they say in politics, “threw Him under the bus.”  Unfortunately, today we carry on that legacy of human weakness of praising God when life is good and abandoning Him when life becomes difficult.  How often have we become angry with God because something bad happened to us or we didn’t receive an outcome that we expected?  Life is not always easy or fair but those with strong faith know that God is present when we need Him the most.  Those other moments when we abandon God amongst hardship should serve as a reminder on just how much more work we need to do in order to prepare our souls to receive God’s kingdom in our lives.

How do we prepare ourselves to fully receive God’s graces?  Jesus asks us to convert.  There are two aspects to conversion.  First, we need to have a humble spirit.  Too often, we let our pride get in the way of really living as God asks us.  We naively say that God needs to change since we cannot possibly change our lives.  We proclaim that the Church and Her rules need to “get with the times” and be more progressive.  Our pride leads us to believe that our ways are perfect and God’s ways need reformation.  However, it is not God who needs conversion, but us.  As I wrote previously, God’s laws are not subject to a straw poll.  We are the ones who needs to show humility, take a hard look at ourselves, and find those aspects of our lives that need to change.

The other aspect of conversion is reconciliation.  If we really want to receive God’s kingdom we need to wash away our sins through the Sacrament of Confession.  I like the term “washing away” because it implies cleaning something that is dirty.  That “dirt” is sin and by the power of the Holy Spirit we cleanse our souls of all those things that prevent us from fully embracing God.  Very few of us like to live in dirtiness.  We spend huge amounts of time, money, and energy cleaning our clothes, homes, cars, and bodies.  And yet, we do not take the time to clean what is most important — our eternal souls.  The Sacrament of Confession is free and requires very little time and energy.  All it takes is an open heart to truly examine our conscience to make a good confession.  After all, we want to make sure we clean every nook and cranny.

I want to end with a challenge.  Every day ask yourself, “How can I be a better person today than I was yesterday?”  Find those aspects of your life that prevent you from truly embracing God’s kingdom and change them.  Conversion is not a one-shot deal.  It takes time and patience through small steps.  The road of conversion is one of triumphs as well as defeats.  But we’ll never make any progress if our pride prevents us from admitting that we can do better.  The kingdom of God is here with us now and the doors are wide open.  God invites all of us to celebrate in His grace.  The obligation is on us to prepare ourselves in order to fully embrace the power and glory that can only come through God.

Rosary Meditation: The Fourth Luminous Mystery

Last modified on 2009-08-25 03:29:52 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

This rosary meditation is on the Fourth Luminous Mystery — The Transfiguration.  In this mystery, Jesus took his apostles, Peter, John, and James up to a mountain to pray.  There His clothes turned dazzling white and Moses and Elijah appeared with Him.  Then a voice came from the clouds saying, “This is my chosen Son; listen to Him.”

In this mystery, Jesus reveals himself as being God made man.  This instance separates Jesus from the prophets of the Old Testament.  Yes, He performed miracles and preached God’s word, but so did the prophets.  The Old Testament is full of stories of people using the grace of God to perform miracles such as Moses parting the Red Sea.  But in the Transfiguration, Jesus shows that He is no mere prophet following God’s will, but He IS God’s will, God’s word, and God’s truth in human form.  I think this is why Moses and Elijah appeared next to Jesus; as if God was contrasting Himself with the prophets that came before Him.

God, Creator of all that exists and ever will exist, the ultimate truth, our final judge, the alpha and the omega, humbled Himself and came down to earth in a human form so that we may know Him personally.  God desires all of us to live in His grace and love and so He became man through Jesus Christ so that we may better understand His ways.  Our human minds cannot possibly understand God’s infinite complexity and He knows that.  So like an adult trying to explain a complex idea to a child, God revealed Himself in a very simple and direct way — by taking a form which people could see, hear, and touch.

God gave the apostles a very direct command to listen to Jesus.  And yet, after all they had seen and heard, they abandoned Jesus at His crucifixion.  Unfortunately, we continue to imitate the apostles’ behavior whenever we disobey God’s will and sin.  Imagine our arrogance to have received the word of God directly from Jesus and then deliberately disregard it because it conflicts with how we want to live or it seem too difficult.  We say we are followers of Christ, but when it comes time to humble ourselves to God’s will and accept Jesus’ teachings we often tell Him, “thanks, but no thanks.”  In the Transfiguration, God gave us very simple and direct order on how we are to obtain grace and that is to listen to His son, Jesus Christ.  And yet, each one of us can probably think of an instance where we refuse God’s grace through our words, thoughts, or actions.

So let us take a moment to remember the awesome gift God gave us through His son, Jesus Christ.  We should remember the gift of the Catholic Church starting with the first pope, St. Peter, who was there at the Transfiguration and later personally appointed by Jesus to lead His people.  God told us to listen to Jesus which means we should learn what the Church teaches so that we may know Him, follow Him, and love Him.  God gave us a tremendous gift by making Himself more accessible through Jesus.  We should pray for all of those who are wasting this precious gift by not following God’s will.  We must pray for a world that seems to have gone out of its way NOT to listen to God’s message.

God made Himself available to all of us through Jesus Christ.  The question is, do we make ourselves available to God by listening to Him?

Related articles by Zemanta

• Feast of the Transfiguration (csvfblog.org)
• With God – All Things Are Possible (theencouragementblog.com)

The Fifth Luminous Mystery — The Institution of the Eucharist

Last modified on 2009-04-23 04:12:30 GMT. 4 comments. Top.

This rosary meditation focuses on The Fifth Luminous Mystery — The Institution of the Eucharist.  This mystery goes to the core of the Catholic faith; that the bread and wine at Mass actually are TRANSFORMED into the Body and Blood of Christ.  For Catholics, the Eucharist is not just a symbol, but is actually the very real presence of Jesus.  The consecration of the bread and wine is no different than if Jesus, in human form, came walking through the doors of the church.  And yet many of us receive Jesus regularly during Communion without appreciating the enormity of this gift.

The consecration requires one of the largest acts of faith of believing Catholics.  After all, it is hard to believe that a small wafer and some wine actually is Jesus Christ.  There are many times when we receive the Eucharist on auto-pilot.  Most of us probably wait in line, look around at other people and enjoy the music as if we were waiting for food in a cafeteria.  But if Jesus, in His human form, walked through the door and spoke to us, He would have our complete attention.  We would be reverent and attentive to everything He said.  And yet, do we show that same reverence to His Body and Blood in the Eucharist?  For most of us, no matter how hard we try, the answer would probably be no.  If we really had even the faintest idea of the true nature of the Eucharist, we would not receive it so casually.

Since the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ, we physically embrace Jesus as He becomes part of us and we become part of Him every time we partake in the great, spiritual feast.  We embrace Jesus by becoming sacred vessels of His Body and Blood.  Think of the Eucharist as the fuel that empowers us to do God’s will and face life’s challenges.  Like any living creature, we need energy to survive and flourish.  Without it, we are like a car with an empty tank — unable to do anything or going anywhere.  The Eucharist is spiritual energy that we need in order to continue on the road to Heaven.

How do we become part of Jesus every time we receive Communion?  The word “communion” implies “community.”  When we receive the Eucharist we are coming together as a community of believers in Jesus Christ.  Receiving the Eucharist is an affirmation in our belief and faith in Jesus’ teachings and a public commitment that we will follow His will.  Since the Church is the Lord’s instrument on earth, following Jesus and accepting His will means following the Church and Her teachings.  As a community of believers, we each do our small part in carrying out His will and bringing His peace to the world.

When we pray this mystery, let us reflect and meditate that:

• We have the faith and belief that we really do receive Jesus Christ through the Eucharist.  Let us show the Eucharist the same reverence and respect that we would show Jesus if He came to us in human form.  May we also rejoice in the great gift of the Eucharist since through it Jesus reveals His presence in our lives.  May we take advantage of the invitation to be part of Jesus’ community.
• We treat our bodies, minds, and souls as sacred vessels that carry Jesus throughout the world.  Let us not block and mask His presence through the “dirt” of sin.  Let us pray for all of those who cannot see Jesus in their lives or let His light shine fourth due to the “dirtiness” of their souls.  May we always have the faith and courage to seek forgiveness and clean ourselves through Confession.
• We accept the obligation of being part of the Catholic community when we participate in Communion.  We are all called to be members of His one Church.  We are called to learn, accept, promote, and defend Her teachings.  Let us pray that we have the peace of mind and patience to listen to God either through the Church’s teachers or in the stillness of prayer and do whatever He asks of us.
• We pray for all those making their first Holy Communion.  My nephew is making his soon (yeah!).  May this serve as an important step in their faith journey as they are introduced to another one of God’s great sacraments.

It’s always a good time to visit and shop in the RosaryMeds Store.

February 16 2009 10:31 pm

One Response to “The Luminous Mysteries”

1. » One Year of RosaryMeds on 17 Dec 2009 at 12:33 am #

   [...] The Luminous Mysteries [...]

Trackback URI |