REFLECTIONS ON THE LUMINOUS MYSTERIES

The Mysteries of Light

The Rosary is a wonderful prayer that opens our hearts and minds to the mysteries of the Incarnation of Jesus and our Redemption. Any one of the numbered reflections below may be sufficient to help you reflect on that particular mystery.

First Mystery: Jesus is Baptized by John the Baptist

1. At the moment of baptism, the Holy Spirit descends on Jesus and the Father says, “Here is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. God says the very same thing to all of us and he is saying it right now! This is the key to living like Jesus! At the moment of our baptism, the Holy Spirit penetrated deep within us and the Lord said, “You are my beloved child! In you I am well pleased!” It is Satan’s fundamental strategy to convince me that God does not love me because I am unworthy. This conviction leads to a disordered search to build an alternative identity on the false foundations of the things that I achieve or the things that I possess. My true identity is the identity I took on at baptism: that of beloved child of God who is a source of great happiness for the Lord!

2. The story of the suffering servant in Isaiah is the key for interpreting this Gospel story of the baptism of Jesus. The servant of the Lord in Isaiah’s text has the onerous task of bringing complete justice to the earth. How is he to accomplish this extraordinary undertaking? The foundation of his mission is his radical relationship with God! The servant is someone chosen by God, loved by God, set apart by God, appointed by God, endowed by God. We see the exact same thing in the Gospel account from Matthew. John at first declines to baptize Jesus, saying that such an act would demean Jesus. But Jesus is not interested in being assigned a place in the human table of honour! He submits to the baptism and at this moment the foundation of his extraordinary mission of salvation is revealed. In a manifestation of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit descends on him and the voice of the Father is heard. “This is my son, the beloved, on whom my favour rests”. Woe to us if we do not see in this text the meaning of our own baptism! Our position in the church does not depend on systems of human honour, status or posturing. We belong to God by virtue of the fact that in baptism he has chosen us, he has set us apart so that we can be extraordinary, he has carried us away from our old selves and inserted us into the life of the Trinity. Our Christian life and mission are utterly founded on the fact of his unconditional love for us, not on our talents, status or accomplishments.

3. Baptism means to be immersed in the Spirit who gives new life. To baptize signifies more than simply to wash or make clean. The Greek term “baptize” means to be immersed completely. The Holy Spirit is the same spirit that hovered over the waters at the creation of the world. To be immersed in the Holy Spirit means nothing less than to have a new life, to be filled with the life that comes from above. When Jesus is baptized by John, the heavens are opened. They are “torn open” and there is direct communication between heaven and earth. A dove descends from heaven towards Jesus. This evokes the story of Noah’s ark when, after the flood, a dove with an olive branch descends on the ark as a sign that the time of death and purification has been completed. The dove alights on Jesus and a voice comes from the heavens that have been ripped open: “You are my son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased”. The scene is described in a way that tells us that the heavens are no longer separated from earth by an insuperable barrier. When we are baptized we too are caught up in this union of heaven and earth wrought by the salvific action of the Blessed Trinity.

4. Jesus’ baptism reveals the nature of our own baptism. God loves this son, and the son’s strength comes from the fact that he is the beloved. The root of his very essence is his loving union with God, generated from the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God. What is expressed in the Gospel about the baptism of Jesus is essential for understanding our baptism, because the baptism of Jesus is the paradigm by which we must understand our own. Our baptism has a foundation; our Christian existence has a particular source; and this source is the same love of God expressed by the Father at the baptism of Jesus. Our life is rooted in the fact of being loved; of being important for someone. Life has no meaning without love. Life demands love. To be alive is to embark on an adventure in which we learn how to love. But in order to learn how to love, we need a source and a master. God teaches us how to love through Jesus. The love that we see in the life of Jesus and that consoles us in our weakness is founded in the acceptance of the love of the Father.

5. We must remain constantly aware of the significance of our baptism. It is the moment when the heavens were torn open and the fact was proclaimed aloud that we are God’s children and that his love towards us is constant and enduring. The Lord has an abundance of love for each of us, an abundance of patience, forgiveness and magnanimity. God is the one who basically wants to find contentment with us. We spend a lot of time discussing what we think, what we believe, what we consider to be important. But it would be much more liberating if we spent some time contemplating what we are for God. Just what are we for God? This Gospel tells us: “You are my child, the beloved!” That this saying would descend into each of our souls and become the key by which to live our lives! The baptism of Jesus reveals who we are: each one of us is immensely precious. We are something essential that God cannot bear to be without.

6. The Gospel account of the baptism presents a contrast between the figure of John the Baptist and that of Jesus. John is prescriptive, telling the people how deficient their lives are and what they need to do to prepare the way of the Lord. Jesus, by contrast, is portrayed as someone radically in relationship with his Father in heaven. At the baptism, the heavens are thrown open and we are given a glimpse of the secret life of the Trinity, which is a relation of love. This is the key to understanding our baptism and our vocation as Christians. Salvation is not about busily doing things for God, but is about entering into a relationship of love with God. Life makes little sense if viewed through the lens of success, possessions or praise. But if viewed through the lens of this relationship of love with God, then what beautiful sense it makes! Just as the Father is well pleased with Jesus, so too he is well pleased with us and wishes us to be immersed further in this relationship of love with him.

Second Mystery: The Wedding Feast at Cana

1. John’s Gospel begins with the words “In the beginning was the Word.” The book of Genesis begins with the exact same words, “In the beginning . .,” and then it culminates in the creation of man and woman on the sixth day. If we follow the episodes described in the first part of John’s Gospel in the original Greek, then we discover that the wedding feast of Cana occurs on the sixth day of John’s description of events. In this way, John’s description of the event at Cana is a reference to the coming into being of a new creation of man and woman. The entire Old Testament bears witness to the fact that something is amiss in creation. This is alluded to by the fact that at Cana the wine is missing. The original wedding feast for which God created us has gone awry. The mother of Jesus has the wisdom to discern that something is gravely wrong. Mary has a fundamental part to play in this Gospel story (and in the history of salvation), and she says to Jesus, “They have no wine.” It is important that we appreciate the state that we are in. We cannot embark on the spiritual life unless we recognize that we have been created for beauty and joy, and we accept that we are betraying this beauty.

2. The third part of the Gospel is centred on the fundamental element of obedience. Mary exhorts the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.” What is it that heals us? By walking in God’s paths as well as we are able in the impoverished state in which we find ourselves. Just as the servants did in the story, the best we can do is fill the bottles with water. But Jesus transforms our water into wine. We must do what we can, but then Jesus takes our efforts and brings them to wondrous fruition.

3. We come to the fullness of life by living out God’s logic, not by following our own logic. Once we have obeyed, once we have had the experience of following his paths, once we have witnessed his power and seen his glory, then we discover the key that will permit us to remain in this state of joy: obedience to Jesus and embracing his Cross.

4. The headwaiter says, “Everyone gives the good wine first and then the inferior wine. But you have kept the good wine until last.” God always gives the good wine afterwards. The first headwaiter of history, the serpent in the Garden of Eden, exhorts Eve to eat first that which tastes good and ignore the consequences. The master of ceremonies in the Cana story represents human wisdom, and he chides the spouse for holding the good wine back. Jesus is the new and authentic master of ceremonies, and he teaches us that we arrive at true light and joy only through the Cross. After the bitterness of obedience comes the sweetness of the new creation. This is the path that we must take if the wedding feast that God has prepared for us is to come to fruition. God gives the good wine, the fullness of joy, only after that fleeting moment in which we undergo the loss, the renunciation, of ourselves. By this “small death” to ourselves in obedience we arrive at the fullness of new life. In this way the story of Cana sets down the parameters for living the spiritual life.

Third Mystery: Jesus Preaches the Kingdom of God

1. The good news that Jesus proclaims is that the time is "complete" and that the Kingdom of God is close at hand. In other words, we are in touching distance of something marvellous, something whose moment has finally arrived. If the Kingdom of God is not here, then what is here? The kingdom of men, the kingdom of nothingness, the kingdom of evil, a kingdom of anarchy that lacks a true point of reference. If the Kingdom of God is not actual in our lives, then we are living an empty existence that is heading nowhere. If the Kingdom of Heaven is not here, then who is in charge here? This is a question that we should often ask ourselves? Who or what is dictating the course of our lives? To who, or to what, have I bound myself in order to survive? We are all vulnerable and insecure, and we need supports to lean on, lights to illuminate our darkness. Who do I lean on? What are the "lights" that I use to illuminate my way?

2. The Kingdom of Heaven is near, and, if I choose, I can make God the focal point of my life. I can make him my strength, and my organising principle. The Kingdom of Heaven is near and I can change mentality completely. I can stop being a victim, move away from the sad, unhappy, and hopeless concerns that dominate my life. What a load of unnecessary preoccupations fill our heads! What silly obsessions we cultivate in our minds! How many trivial things fill up the space in our souls that should be reserved only for God! How many senseless things occupy the place in our hearts that can only be warmed by the certainty of the love of God for us! Jesus appears and tells us: "Change mentality and be converted! Leave behind that which is inconsistent and senseless! Reject that which is false and confused so that you will be able to believe in the Good News!"

3. Embracing the Kingdom means to follow Jesus and no-one else. He alone deserves our attention. He alone has given his blood for us. He alone is willing to do anything for us. He alone knows how to look after us and love us. To follow Jesus means not to go ahead of him, in the sense of thinking that he should comply with what we want. To follow Jesus means to stop following others and seeking "life" from them. We must seek life only from Jesus. It is our responsibility to follow Jesus, and, once we do that, it is Jesus' responsibility to transform us.

4. God makes a covenant with Noah after the flood. Jesus goes into the desert and then announces the Kingdom of God. Both of these episodes reveal that communion with God comes after the time of purification. The desert is an essential part of Christian life! Woe to us if we think we can enter the Kingdom, taking all of our illusions, fixations and self-deceptions with us! We need to be purified before we can enter the pure house of God’s love. Woe to us if we confuse the door that leads to our own limited goals with the door to the Kingdom of Heaven! There are many things we need to be rid of before we can make a real alliance with God. The experience of the desert rids us of these things. Jesus tells us that the Kingdom of God is at arm’s reach, but we must repent and be converted if we are to enter it.

5. Jesus’ parables reveal that the Kingdom of Heaven comes to maturity in our lives in ways that we do not understand or expect. It is something that has its own logic and that must be allowed to come to fruition according to its own internal dynamic. Welcoming the Kingdom of God requires being open to something that does not square with our way of thinking. It doesn't matter whether the farmer is awake or asleep. All he must do is simply provide the ground, and then the seed will grow according to principles that he cannot understand. In the same way, the power of God is working in our lives in ways that cannot be appreciated by our limited framework of understanding. In Jesus, the Kingdom comes to maturity at the moment when all seems lost. At the moment when we think he is going nowhere, he is on the point of resurrection. The crucifixion seems an insurmountable scandal, an event that can bring no good, but what seems like a never-ending moment of tragedy comes to maturity when the time is right.

6. Genuine love involves becoming the despised seed that yields fruit in God's time. In today's scientific, rationalistic, culture there is a tendency to accept everything that makes sense to us, and to dismiss everything that is incomprehensible. Anything that does not fit in with our preconceived notion of life is considered mistaken. The cross never fits in with our approach to life, but the cross is an absolutely essential part of the experience of love. It is not possible to love someone unless we are willing to stand beside that person and serve them at times when it seems absurd. The little thing that Jesus has done explodes into the great tree where all the birds find rest and everyone comes to find shelter. Whoever has faith finds shelter in this great tree; whoever is willing to wait until God brings his designs to maturity, refraining from making judgements according to the size or greatness of what the eyes can see, trusting only in the action of God.

7. The life of faith consists in PROVIDING THE GROUND in which the seed of the Kingdom can grow. "Providing the ground" involves trusting in God despite all obstacles. This is how the life of faith is. It does not follow obvious routes that make perfect sense to us. Instead it leads us in ways where we are confronted with obstacles that prevent us from going any further. There are times when we find ourselves powerless, and the only thing that remains is to trust in God. At these times, what is essential is that we continue to provide the ground in which the seed can grow. In this way, something small and despised can become in our lives the great work of God.

8. Who is my real master, the Lord or worldly things? If I am anxious about worldly success, the admiration of others, my economic and physical wellbeing, then how can I claim that the Christian God is my God? Our culture lauds individualism. Each human being is expected to be the measure of his own existence and the master of his destiny. But if the meaningfulness and value of my life depends on me, then my situation is indeed desperate! We must entrust ourselves totally to the Lord, but this entrustment is not reckless abandon that disparages everything. Our entrustment must also include obedience. The justice that is implicit in the Kingdom of God is the justice that comes when one is in right relationship with God. Entrustment to the Lord and conformity to his will go hand in hand. We have a choice: turn to God and lose our worldly consolations; or turn to worldly consolations and lose God. The joys and consolations that come from entrustment to God are far greater than the worldly pleasures that we idolize.

9. The Gospels tell us how Jesus sent the disciples out in pairs to preach a pure Gospel of the Kingdom that will transform people’s hearts. The Lord gives the disciples a very well-defined power: the authority over impure spirits. What does this refer to? Something that is impure is something that contains within it a mixture of good and bad elements. The most powerful forms of deception often contains elements of truth or goodness in them. How often we try to sweeten the Gospel, compromising it so that it fits in with our self-interested plans! Woe to the Church if it does not preach true conversion to the pure message of the Gospel! Jesus tells the disciples that if people reject the Gospel, then they are to shake the clay of that town from their feet. Is this a condemnation of those people? No, it is a statement of the purity of the Gospel and a way of testifying to that town that they are being called to embrace the pure ground of the Gospel. It is a way of saying: “The ground of our faith cannot be mixed or compromised with the ground of the way of life that you lead, so I shake that ground from my feet as a message to you that the Gospel must be accepted in its purity”. This Gospel also calls each one of us to be converted to the purity and fidelity of the Kingdom. We are called to allow ourselves to be cultivated and pruned by the Lord so that we too are converted to a pure observance of the Gospel.

Fourth Mystery: The Tranfiguration

1. The phrase “I will make of you . . .” is at the heart of every call from the Lord. When Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James and John, he says “I will make you fishers of men.” A call is the work of the Lord. When God calls Abraham, what’s important is what God will do for Abraham, not what Abraham will do on his own initiative. And what we see in the Transfiguration is what God (in the form of the second person of the Trinity) will do for humanity in general. Our human nature will be transformed into light; it will be transfigured. It is not just the body of Christ that is changed. Jesus took his body from the Blessed Virgin and became one of us. The body that is transfigured is the same reality that belongs to us and to which each of us is called.

2. We are called to live today this transformation into light. The experience of Jesus on Mount Tabor is an experience of intimacy with God, of contact with the word of the Lord (Moses and Elijah represent the Law and the Prophets). The relationship of the Son with the Father is announced – “This is my son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour; listen to him.” And it is through this relationship that the nature of humanity will be transformed. We do not approach the Lord Jesus just to stay as we are! We are called to be transfigured through our relationship with him, through contact with his word and with the sacraments. When Peter, James and John see Jesus transfigured, they are discovering what is hidden in human nature, what lies buried in each one of us.  Through the Transfiguration, through the journey of life, each of us is called to discover what is extraordinary inside of us. Through fasting, prayer and works of charity, we embark on a discovery of what is beautiful within. In God we possess a beauty that is astonishing.

3. Jesus calls Peter, James and John to climb the mountain with him and there they see the beauty of the Lord. This is a journey that each of us must make every day! We climb that mountain by devoting time to prayer and reflection. When we contemplate God’s word, the veil is lifted and we begin to see the beauty of the face of Jesus. We cannot see that beauty if we do not dedicate time every day to prayer and contemplation! By going apart with Jesus, the disciples discover his true identity. We too need to go apart with Jesus so that we can find out who he really is.

4. The Transfiguration shows us the status of being Son of God is something of insuperable beauty. “This is my beloved Son. My favour rests on him.” Oh, what the love of God can accomplish when it lives in our hearts! The beauty that the love of our tender Father is able to draw out of each of us! We can become part of the body of Christ, the image of his beauty, the manifestation of his workmanship in us. Through intimacy with Jesus, through familiarity with the Scriptures, through the effects of his work in us, we can throw back the veils on the true beauty within us. Let us look to Jesus to see what God can achieve with human nature. Let us not resign ourselves to what we are as a result of our own miserable efforts. Let us allow God to work on our poor nature with his incredible power. He can transform us into a true work of art. 

5. Peter speaks those words that are at the heart of Christian motivation; "Rabbi, it is wonderful (or beautiful) for us to be here!" The reason why we are willing to struggle with our own flesh, with the world and with evil, is because we have discovered the beauty of Christ. Christianity is founded on the encounter with the most beautiful of the sons of men. The reason why people are willing to make sacrifices and confront all the difficulties of the mission God has given them is because they have been illuminated to the depths of their being by Christ. It is simply wonderful to be with Christ and that is all the motivation that one needs. It is essential that we (and the younger generation in particular) be grounded on the revelation of the beauty of the face of Christ, the beauty of the one who became unsightly out of love of us. His beauty is not the beauty of a beautician's parlour, nor of the cover of a glossy magazine, but a different type of beauty altogether. It is the beauty of one who knows how to love and who is the wisdom of God.

6. The joy of Peter leads him to say, "It is wonderful to be here!" This significance of this statement cannot be over-estimated. Christianity is not founded on obligation, nor is it a philosophical or ideological doctrine. Christianity is founded on beauty and its goal is the joy of humanity. We are called to be in a beautiful place and to be with someone whose company is beautiful. This beauty must be proclaimed and defended robustly.

7. The story of the Transfiguration has three elements that are crucial for the daily life of the Christian. Our lives are full of confusion, egoism, banality and emptiness. The first thing we must do is extract ourselves from this chaos on a daily basis and “ascend Mount Tabor”. Secondly, in solitude with the Lord, we must contemplate the Scriptures (represented by Moses and Elijah), and in this way come to an awareness of the beauty of the face of Christ and the meaning of our lives. Thirdly, we must descend from this “mountain” and live out our mission in the world. This is the correct rhythm for an ordered Christian life. Sometimes we tend to think that it is sufficient to pray when trials present themselves. But we cannot confront the trials of life unless we are already ascending Tabor on a daily basis, contemplating the glory and beauty of the Lord. This permits us to descend daily, “enter Jerusalem”, and carry out our mission in the world.

Fifth Mystery: The Institution of the Eucharist

1. In the Old Testament Moses reminds the people how God looked after them during the forty years in the desert. When we know that we are in a desert, we realize that we have nothing to rely on but God. We no longer live on bread alone but on the life-giving word that comes from the mouth of God. Our existence in this world really is a desert, but we don’t always realize it. What do we try to base our lives upon? How many silly and frivolous things we are fixated with! Jesus comes to us in the form of bread to show us that he is as essential to us as physical food is for our existence. Let us ask ourselves “What is really essential for me to live an authentic life?” We must reflect on our lives and recognize that much of what we base our identities upon is non-essential. Those things are an empty desert that fail to nourish us in a permanent way. Jesus is our true bread that gives us life of a genuine nature. When we look to the Eucharist, we see the same loving, provident God that looked after the people of Israel during those forty years. He looks after us too in the desert of our existence, this God who becomes bread for his people and nourishes us to eternal life.

2. The theme of the Gospel of the loaves and the fishes is the problem of how to satisfy the hunger of the crowd. What does humanity need if its hunger is to be satiated? It is interesting to note that this basic need of humanity to eat and drink has a central place in the liturgy and in the sacraments. We have been created by God with this necessity of having to eat, with the requirement for external sustenance in order to survive. Hunger was the first temptation of Christ in the desert, and it had a central place in the first sin recorded in Scripture. Adam and Eve ate that which was not supposed to be eaten. They sought to satisfy their inner anxiety with a form of sustenance that was inappropriate. This is a perennial theme of the human being: our anxiety to find a source of sustenance for our lives. We have a constant, burning, worry about where we will obtain what we need for life. This necessity gives rise to a terrible anguish within humanity, but it is ultimately a question of relationship with God. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus exhorts us not to worry about what we will eat, drink or wear; it is the pagans who worry about these things. God has given me life. Do I continue to rely on him for the source of my life, or should I take things completely in my own hands and look after that business myself? The Eucharist calls on us to abandon ourselves completely to the providential grace of God.

3. Jesus offers himself to us in the form of bread. God could have chosen many other ways to enter into relation with us. Why did he choose food? Because food and drink are linked to survival. We can survive without many of the things we possess, but we cannot survive without food and drink. Jesus decides to be present in the bread because he wants to show that he is absolutely necessary for us. It is incredible how we Christians think that we can go through life with an occasional prayer, and with ambivalent attitudes towards obedience to the Lord. We abandon ourselves to God only if there is no other alternative. Ideally, we think, we should never have to abandon ourselves to God. We ought to be able to manage by ourselves. In the depths of our heart, we do not live by the word that comes from the mouth of God; we live by other things. And this is evident in our behaviour. If we really had true life, then we would not be frantically pursuing the things that we do pursue. Authentic Christians, by contrast, manifest a marked peace and serenity. They are not plagued by fears and anxieties. The fact is that it is possible to live by Christ, to be detached from the world and to have serenity at the most authentic level of our being. Many Christians who claim to live by Christ are full of anxiety! They are always seeking something, always complaining about things as if it were a national sport, always feeling insufficient as if something fundamental were missing. Christ is our true food, our real sustenance, and this is expressed most perfectly in the institution of the Eucharist. We still need to eat and drink ordinary food too, but we must do so according to Christ. Everything we do must be done in the light of Christ. His love, tenderness and providence must be discerned in everything that we experience.

4. By making the Eucharist the centre of our lives, we submit to the loving providence of God and begin to partake of eternal life here and now. When everything is embraced as coming from Christ, we are able to get by with much less that we habitually do. In some monasteries where people live a frugal life by Christ, we find more serenity and happiness than in palaces where there are things in abundance. Many Christians, on the other hand, fail to find satisfaction in ordinary things because they lack this attitude of submission to the providence of God. The Gospel passage from John tells us that whoever eats the bread that Jesus gives us will live forever. This does not mean that we avoid bodily death. It signifies that we begin to partake already of the eternal dimension of things, a dimension that is characterised by attachment and surrender to that which bestows authentic life. The reception of the Eucharist is an opportunity to contemplate the true manna, a food that nurtures us even in the most frightening and desolate deserts of our lives. The Lord Jesus, in his providence, gives his very self to us in the wonderful sacrament of the Eucharist.