Our Lady never used the Rosary herself while she was on earth, neither did the Apostles, later saints or any of the faithful for over a thousand years, because the prayer had not yet been devised. It is nevertheless the prayer that she has constantly recommended to those to whom she has appeared in recent years. Despite the fact that this new means of prayer is not a sacrament, it can be called a sacramental, because it can do today what the first mysteries did for the early Christians for whom she was a mother. That is why they are called the mysteries of the Rosary, because by saying them and meditating upon them they can generate the love in us that enables us to enter ever more deeply into God’s plan for us made flesh and blood in the glorified body of Our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
I will now turn to three of the glorious mysteries of the Rosary, as we are about to complete our celebration of Easter. I will begin with the Resurrection, then the Ascension and then the feast of Pentecost which we will celebrate next week, offering a few words to help lead a beginner into meditation. This is the meditation that Our Lady, more than any other presided over in the early Church and the Holy Spirit will then lead the believer where he will.
The Resurrection
It is ironic that the first witnesses to the Resurrection were soldiers, some of whom could have been his torturers. They were so overwhelmed by what they saw that the whole world would soon know what they had seen and heard. Even more ironic was that the second group of people to be witnesses to the Resurrection were the leading priests and the Pharisees who had ordered his death in the first place. They so believed the soldiers that they paid large sums of money to keep them quiet. They were to say they had fallen asleep and the disciples of Jesus had taken him away in the night to deceive people into believing that he had risen from the dead.
It was irrefutable evidence that did finally convince all the disciples as well as the doubters, that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. It was not just that they saw the empty tomb and his shroud, but they saw Jesus himself. They saw him eat, work miracles again, and they touched him just to make sure. Thomas actually put his hand into Jesus’ side, and his fingers into the holes made by the nails. But most of all they listened to him speak and explain something that had not been explained before. He told them that if they had known the scriptures as well as they should have, it would have been expected that he must first suffer before entering into his glory.
Later, with hindsight, they would come to realize that he was not just telling them what was expected of him, but what would be expected of those who would follow him if they tried to live and preach the same good news that he preached. Everyone who would follow him may not be asked to carry a physical cross like him. But they would have to carry a cross nevertheless, whilst daily dying to self because self-centred arrogant human beings could not be his disciples. To represent him they would have to become one with him to share in the fruits of his Resurrection.
From the very start then, Christ called everyone who would follow him to take up their daily cross. No cross, no resurrection.
The Ascension
Before he ascended into heaven forty days after the Resurrection, Jesus told the one hundred and forty disciples who came to say farewell that they were to go out baptising all peoples in his name. Further to this they would have to teach the new converts all that he had taught them. Nor were they to be surprised, for as he warned them at the Last Supper, those who lived in shadow land do not take kindly to being shown the light.
Truth is not a dainty dish to be set before the most dangerous animals on earth, especially if they have political or religious pretentions. If you persist in teaching it to those who do not want to hear it, beware. They can become very cross, and they can crucify as the disciples had recently experienced this frightening lesson for themselves! But it was not all doom and gloom because as he also said at the Last Supper, they would come to know great joy, the greatest possible joy on earth.
Despite the trials and tribulations of his life on earth, Jesus told them that he was a man of joy, and he prayed they would come to know and experience the same joy that filled him. He also predicted that he would soon be leaving them to prepare a place for them, not just after their death but here and now on earth. It was a place where they could all be one again but in a different way.
The moment they lost sight of Jesus was the moment when he was reunited with His Father because his divine nature had been one with His Father from all eternity. However, now something new happened. The Son of God had returned home with a human nature, that was for the first time united with God like never before. Now in his human nature, he could contemplate the glory of God in such a way that God’s glory utterly transformed him and the nature of his being. While being one with God in glory and in heaven, he would also be in the world in a new way. For now, in this new form of being, Christ could be both in this world and in the next world at the same time. For he now had a mystical body that would expand to encompass the outer boundaries of the ever-expanding universe, while at the same time drawing all who were open to receive him into his new glorified mystical body, where they would be one in him, and he would be in them.
Pentecost
If all was ready in heaven for what was to come next, all was not quite ready on earth. It would take time for the Apostles to get over the events that took place on that first Easter, as they had all experienced untold physical and psychological pain and suffering. But they were to experience the greatest joy that anyone could have. They needed time to reflect and pray and come to terms with the fear that was not unwarranted. They were still in Jerusalem and they had been told to go out and preach the same message that Christ had preached. Would the same happen to them? The thought was unthinkable, especially with the memory still haunting them night and day.
Then suddenly things changed. Ten days later their prayers were answered and Christ, as promised returned with his mystical body and the love that he received from his Father came pouring out. It was the Holy Spirit, his own personal love that casts out fear. The new presence of Christ was even closer than before because before they had been with him, but now they were in him. Before he could not be with even his closest disciples at all times, but now he could and would be with all who would freely choose to receive him through the waters of baptism in a life consecrated to endlessly turning to receive the love that he was always ready and able to give.
Who would not want to spend their lives repenting if it meant endlessly coming closer to Jesus, and through him to the Father who had sent him? With their newly given love that casts out fear, they immediately went out to give the good news to a crowd of over three thousand who in their turn also received the same Holy Spirit.
The promised Holy Spirit had arrived and the Church was founded, and a new age began. It was the age of Christ the King, and the Kingdom on earth, exactly ‘as it is in heaven’.
