Mary

She’s only human… but what a human!!!

…the only one of us who has been able to do God’s will entirely.

She’s humble and obedient.

And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord;

be it done unto me according to thy word.

And the angel departed from her. Luke 1:38

You already know Jesus, that He is both fully Divine and fully human.

Yet He is humble and obedient to His Father’s Will.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:2-11


Jesus Christ is God. Let us always first ask ourselves, "What would Jesus do?" But if ever we are discouraged by our human condition, there is a ready reminder of just how emphatically Grace can work in a simple human being. When we think of enlisting fellow believers to join in interceding for us, the saints can, and should, ask the superlative saint to pray for us within that Communion.

The Relevant Rosary

Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among 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.

Is the “Hail Mary” a prayer? Technically, no. It is a prayer request. The Rosary has endured criticism over the years because many incorrectly believed its major component - Gabriel’s Biblical salutation plus the prayer request - takes the focus off the purpose of prayer – talking to the Lord. Also, its repetitive nature produced comparison to a caution given by the Lord to not rattle on like a Pharisee with so-called empty words.

The Rosary is foremost the type of prayer known as meditation. However, it operates on many levels, simultaneously. In its meditative function, we try to discipline the mind to focus on a particular aspect of the mystery of God. Stray thoughts inevitably intervene. We are beset with the consciousness of sore feet, hot weather, or other innumerable aspects of our life and times. However, any effort at transcendence does not go un-rewarded. God posits insight within an erratic stream of consciousness. As with all meditation, there can be no empirical measurement of benefit. The effort will produce results though. Have Faith.

Okay. I can meditate on any of the Scripture passages that make up the Mysteries of the Rosary without physically holding a string of beads, repeating the prayer request, or reciting The Lord’s Prayer and the Trinitarian praises that constitute the structure of the rosary prayer. I’ll still suffer many of the said distractions of my human condition, but also benefit from the effort of focusing on what Jesus’ life can reveal to me. By avoiding The Rosary, you might say I’ve actually eliminated two distractions from the possible mix… fiddling with beads and the incessant droning of a prayer request. So how, you ask, is the Rosary relevant? By these standards it would seem less relevant, as a means toward meditative prayer.

The answer, of course, is purposeful distraction. While multitasking during meditation, I am fed on many levels. It mortifies the flesh with physical - some may say boring -tasks, while inspiring the spirit to transcendence. These words are nourishing reminders of what I need to hear. Being human, I need to hear things repetitively so that they seep into my mind and soul amid the constant distraction and din of my world. In addition to keeping my opposable thumbs busy with human occupation, I hear myself say on my audio learning channel - 5 words that I need to hear – 53 times each during the course of the prayer:

Grace
Womb
Jesus
Sinners
Death

• The longer I maintain the personal notion that I can resist the evil of this world on my own, the more deceived I will become. In reality, I am powerless without the GRACE given freely simply by asking God. I cannot remind myself of this fact often enough.
  
  
• The WOMB is the natural starting point of life. The culture cannot ignore this fact without ultimately rejecting God. The lamest explanation I’ve ever heard is that Jesus, John the Baptist and Jeremiah were important in the womb, but the rest of us are not.
  
  
• JESUS is our sole Redeemer. What a bummer that He died for nothing if it wasn’t necessary to save each of us.
  
  
• I am a SINNER who needs redeeming. Unilaterally changing the rules, so my particular behavior is rationalized as not sinful, so that falling short of the Law of God does not compromise my self-esteem, is making myself God.
  
  
• Oh, that it would become politically correct to actually face the last taboo, DEATH. We all need to live as though we were dying, because we are. Carpé diem! The perspective of our own mortality, accepted without a spirit of morbid-ness, is the greatest motivator on earth. Who needs a [insert the hot CD Set du jour] motivational guru?
  
  

If you haven’t previously considered the topic quite in this light, please accept this as an invitation to try,

or at least tolerate,

the Rosary!

… with Love,
Carl