I. The Luminous Mysteries
A. The Baptism in the Jordan: the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry
1. Read Matthew 3:13-17
2. Jesus comes to John, and John at first refuses. John and Jesus both are obedient to the Father, in order to “fulfill all righteousness.”
3. Jesus’ baptism is a baptism for repentance from sin, which he does not need; in “fulfill[ing] all righteousness,” Jesus, the righteous one, is taking the place of sinners just as he will on the Cross. Hence Jesus’ baptism at the beginning of his ministry is a foreshadowing of his Passion at the end of his ministry.
Baptism in the Christian faith is a symbol of death: death to sin, death to an old way of life, death of a soul even that allows for regeneration into something new. Just as we are baptized into the death of Christ, so was Jesus’ baptism an anticipation of his own death.
St. Paul: “all under the domination of sin, as it is written: There is no one [righteous], not one, there is no one who understands, there is no one who seeks God. All have gone astray; all alike are worthless; there is not one who does good, (there is not) even one.” (Romans 3:9-12)
Jesus takes the place of the nonrighteous in facing the judgment of God; his baptism is the first public symbol of what is to be the consequence of his life.
4. The Father rewards Jesus, John the Baptist, and the onlookers with his voice, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). This is the sign of the Father’s approval of Jesus’ righteous worthiness.
5. Baptism is so important that even Jesus, who didn’t need it, had himself baptized. In Baptism we are made children of God and given a call to follow him wherever he may lead, by living the moral life. Baptism has led even as far as death for many Christians, and the persecution of the Church isn’t over yet, nor will it be until Christ returns.
“Whereas, relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and ‘swept along by every wind of teaching’, looks like the only attitude (acceptable) to today’s standards. We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires.” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI
Objective truth, especially religious truth, is not popular, is offensive to many, is not taught in the schools or by the culture; Roman Catholics are the standard bearers of the truth. This is our call by virtue of our baptism.
6. Immediately after the Baptism, Jesus goes out into the desert to fast, pray, and be tempted by the devil.
B. The Wedding Feast at Cana
1. Read John 2:1-12
2. What appears to be a simple story of a miracle is deeply laden with symbolism
3. “On the third day,” a clue that this passage is connected to the Resurrection of Christ.
4. Mary says, “They have no wine,” with a clear sense of expectation. Jesus resists, asking “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” Jesus’ “hour” is his passion; another clue that we’re talking symbolically about the Cross.
5. Jesus addresses Mary as “Woman,” as she is acting in her role as the New Eve. Jesus is the New Adam, and the miracle he performs is a sign of the miracle he will perform during his Passion.
At Mary’s instigation, Jesus changes the water into wine. Mary is being obedient to the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is obedient to Mary, even though he at first clearly does not want to. This mystically reverses the disobedience of Eve, who obeyed the devil by eating the fruit, and of Adam, who obeyed Eve.
When the New Adam dies on the cross, with the New Eve at his side, the reversal of humanity’s sin before God will be complete.
On the cross, Jesus takes the wine he asked for, and having taken it says “It is finished” (John 19:30). Then we are told, “And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.” Drinking wine is the last thing that Jesus does for humanity, just as creating wine from water was his first miracle.
The wine Jesus created for the wedding couple was “good wine,” while the wine Jesus drank on the cross was “common wine.” The wedding feast of the bride and groom is a sign of Resurrection into the New Heavens and the new Earth, while the “common wine” is a sign of the final death of sin.
6. We see the obedience of Mary and Jesus. Mary obeys God, Jesus obeys Mary because she is his mother. It is through the obedience of the Son that heaven is open to all of us. It was through the disobedience of Adam and Eve that heaven was closed.
Mary’s words to the wine stewards, “Do whatever he tells you,” (John 2:5), are the last words Mary speaks in the Bible. We do what Jesus tells us when we are obedient, in faith, to the teachings of the Church. As Catholics we believe, simply put, that the Church speaks with the authority of God, and that the teaching office of the Church (called the Magisterium) teaches infallibly on matters of faith and morals. The Church is a sure guide for us.
As a bit of personal witness, this is a very comforting thought for me. The “dictatorship of relativism” is everywhere out there, but the Church stands just as firm as she always has for the last two thousand years. The Church has never taught error, that is, anything that was later found to be irreconcilable with the teachings of Christ himself.
7. Tell story about obedience to the Holy Spirit, and its rewards, on way home from Alaska
C. The Proclamation of the Kingdom: Jesus’ Public Ministry
1. St. Luke mentions that Jesus was “about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23) when he began his public life. It is believed that the public ministry lasted about three years.
2. He begins at home, in Nazareth:
“He… went according to his custom into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’ Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, ‘Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16-21).
3. Mary had an important role in Jesus’ public life, even though she is only occasionally mentioned by the Gospel writers.
“In the course of her Son’s preaching she received the words whereby, in extolling a kingdom beyond the concerns and ties of flesh and blood, he declared blessed those who heard and kept the word of God as she was faithfully doing” (Lumen Gentium, 58).
Pope John Paul II: “We can assume that [Mary] was present in the synagogue of Nazareth when Jesus, after reading Isaiah’s prophecy, commented on the text and applied it to himself. How much she must have suffered on that occasion, after sharing the general amazement at ‘the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth,’ as she observed the harsh hostility of her fellow citizens who drove Jesus from the synagogue and even tried to kill him! ‘They rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away’ (Luke 4:29-30). Realizing after this event that there would be other trials, Mary confirmed and deepened her total obedience to the Father’s will, offering him her suffering as a mother and her loneliness.” (From a 1997 papal audience)
“Separation did not mean distance of heart, nor did it prevent the Mother from spiritually following her Son, from keeping and meditating on his teaching as she had done during Jesus’ hidden life in Nazareth. Her faith in fact enabled her to grasp the meaning of Jesus’ words before and better than his disciples, who often did not understand his teaching, especially the references to his future Passion. Following the events in her Son’s life, Mary shared in his drama of experiencing rejection from some of the chosen people… In this way the Blessed Virgin would often have come to know the criticism, insults, and threats directed at Jesus… Through this suffering borne with great dignity and hiddenness, Mary share the journey of her Son ‘to Jerusalem’ (Luke 9:51) and, more and more closely united with him in faith, hope, and love, she co-operates in salvation.”
4. “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15)
Jesus now takes up where John the Baptist left off; Jesus begins to preach repentance and belief in the Good News.
Repentance is as necessary now as it ever was. Repentance, or sorrow for our sins, is a sign that we love God. God expects us to come to him and stay with him, which will inevitably mean setting the old aside and changing our lives.
5. Jesus heals and forgives sins, which is a sign both that he is a prophet (and more) and that he intends to heal our spiritual wounds as well as our physical ones. Jesus intends his healing to be a sign that he is God, not merely a prophet or a holy man.
“They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd, they opened up the roof above him. After they had broken through, they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, ‘Child, your sins are forgiven.’”
This is an example of intercessory prayer. Jesus forgives the paralytic because of the “faith” of the men bringing him to him.
Jesus goes beyond simply curing him, and forgives his sins, which is something only God can do. Jesus says that the physical healing-”I say to you, rise, pick up your mat, and go home”-is a sign of who he is, so “that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth.” (Luke 2:10)
6. Jesus teaches a whole new way of life: the Beatitudes are a summary of his teaching
7. He gives a new commandment: “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (John 13:34).
8. Jesus warns us in many places about the possibility of Hell
9. Jesus foretells his death on many occasions, and the disciples don’t understand him
10. Jesus tells Peter that “you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
11. Jesus reveals himself to be God, both by forgiving sin and by flatly stating the case: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM” (John 8:58).
D. The Transfiguration
1. Read Luke 9:28-36.
2. Peter, James, and John-Jesus’ “inner circle” of disciples-are taken up to the top of the mountain, where they see Jesus transfigured into a creature resplendent with heavenly glory.
3. The Transfiguration is usually taken by scholars to be a preparation for the disciples’ sake for the ignominy of Jesus’ coming death
4. The Transfiguration is a reminder to each of us that we live the life of Heaven today, by virtue of our baptism. The moral law, the commandments, and the Great Commandment to live according to love are all essential for us in living out our baptismal calling.
5. Peter said, “Master, it is good that we are here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’” Peter wants to stay on the mountaintop with Jesus-who wouldn’t?-but we are expected to come down from the mountain, leave church, and go engage the world as we find it.
E. The Institution of the Eucharist
1. We talked about the Eucharist when we talked about the Mass, and Father will devote an entire class to the subject next month. So we needn’t say much here, except to say that the Last Supper was part of Jesus’ public ministry; and so the Mass is part of the Church’s public worship.
2. When we stand up and recite the Creed at Mass, we are making a public statement of what we believe. Those of you being received into the Church will have to make a public statement that you believe all that the Church professes and believes.
3. We are accustomed, in this age of relativism, to thinking of religion as a private matter. Not so the Catholic Faith. The Church you are entering has a very public aspect. Just think of some of the things the bishops have lately been telling Catholic politicians who dissent about abortion. The bishops are holding these politicians to their responsibility to witness to the Catholic faith as they exercise their public office, and the bishops have every right to do so.
4. “If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you” (John 15:19).
5. God has chosen you to be here, and for that reason, the world may hate you; reflect on that, and ask yourself if you can, with God’s help, live the demands that your Catholic faith may well make of you.
II. The Sorrowful Mysteries
A. The Agony in the Garden
1. “Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, … and began to feel sorrow and distress.” Gethsemane is Hebrew for “olive press”; Luke refers to the garden as the “Mount of Olives.” St. Mark refers to Gethsemane using the words for “place” or “estate”; while John uses the word kepos, which means “garden” or “orchard.”
2. What began in a garden ends in a garden. Jesus’ suffering in the Garden is horrific; we are told:
“[He said,] ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.’ And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him. He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.”
3. Christians are called to give all-to sacrifice everything for the love of God. It is clear that Jesus at this point does not want to continue; but he remains obedient. As a comparison, I can only think of the love of a father or mother who would be willing to give his or her life for the child; we are called to have this sort of love for Christ, and to give even our lives for him if we are called to.
4. Jesus clearly connects his situation with the sin of the world; he says to the soldiers come to arrest him, “This is your hour, the time for the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53).
5. When the soldiers arrive, Judas betrays Jesus by kissing him. Jesus still addresses him as “friend”: “Friend, do what you have come for” (Matthew 25:50).
6. Read John 18:1-11
7. Jesus three times refers to himself by the divine Name. He is flatly telling us (and those who are arresting him) that he is God. When we read the narrative of the Agony, or of the subsequent events of Christ’s passion, we should see not the Romans, not the Jewish people, not even Judas doing these things-we should see ourselves.
B. The Scourging at the Pillar
1. The situation is, Pilate, the Roman governor, doesn’t want to have anything to do with Jesus. He sees this as a dispute among Jews about religious matters; the only reason the Jewish leadership is getting the Romans involved is that the Jews are forbidden to exercise the death penalty, and they want Jesus killed for blasphemy.
When Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin (the Jewish leadership), he was asked “‘Are you then the Son of God?’” And Jesus replied ‘You say that I am.’ Then they said, ‘What further need have we for testimony? We have heard it from his own mouth.’” (Luke 22:70-71)
2. When Pilate asks Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus gives a similar answer: “You say so” (Matthew 27:11). Luke tells us that Pilate then says, “I find this man not guilty” (Luke 23:4). He explains to the Jewish leaders that he has investigated Jesus and found him not guilty, and “so no capital crime has been committed by him” (Luke 23:14-15).
Jesus was found not guilty of any sort of misconduct against the government or Caesar in spite of the fact that he admitted to Pilate that he was the king of the Jews. Jesus’ death resulted solely from claiming to be God.
3. Pilate then tries to have Jesus released by offering a choice between him and Barabbas, an insurrectionist and a murderer. The people choose the murderer.
4. But the civil authorities abdicate their responsibility. Instead of releasing a man whom Pilate has just judged innocent, he has him scourged; and then, after the scourging, Pilate acquiesces to the demands of the crowd that Jesus be crucified. The government failed to protect the innocent-but it was the rest of us who wanted the innocent man condemned.
C. The Crowning with Thorns
1. The soldiers mocked Jesus, took away his clothing, and threw a scarlet cloak over him. (Scarlet is a symbol of royalty.) “Weaving a crown out of thorns, they placed it on his head” (Matthew 27:29).
Thorns are a symbol of the Fall of Man. When Adam and Eve were ordered out of the Garden, God said to them, “Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field” (Genesis 3:17-18).
2. Jesus is now crowned-although intended mockingly, a crown is the foremost symbol of the king-with the very same thorns that were a curse to our first parents.
He bears in his own body the weight of our sins, and he wears on his head the sign of God’s curse. With his death, our sins and the resultant punishment from God die too. With his Resurrection, sin and death are conquered and the wrath of God is satisfied.
3. The crown of thorns is also often seen as a symbol for mental illness. Not that Jesus was mentally ill, but the crown is a sign of the suffering of people who struggle with these types of conditions.
D. The Carrying of the Cross
1. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matthew 11:29-30).
2. Jesus is doing the heavy lifting so we don’t have to. The proper Christian attitude toward suffering:
We do not seek suffering; it is healthy and normal to do everything we can to avoid it. Sometimes, however, suffering becomes unavoidable, and when this happens, we see suffering as an opportunity-even a gift-to unite ourselves more closely with God. In this case we receive the suffering from God with as much goodwill as we can muster, with the goal of being able to eventually suffer wholeheartedly as Jesus did for the sake of God. People who suffer greatly in this life will be rewarded most greatly in the next. “The worst things always happen to the best people.”
3. Simon the Cyrenean is pressed into service carrying Jesus’ cross; he helps the Lord in a real, practical way by taking some of his suffering upon himself. Even though he was unwilling at first, he is recognized today as a saint for the service he performed for Jesus.
E. The Crucifixion
1. The soldiers and the people choose to mock Jesus as he is crucified, telling him “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself” (Luke 23:37). This is way, way over the top behavior and is a sign of the depravity that fallen Man is capable of.
2. When Mel Gibson filmed the scene of The Passion of the Christ of the nails being driven into Jesus’ hands, he filmed his own hands driving the hammer.
3. Jesus and the good thief: one of the criminals crucified with Jesus asked him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus replied, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 24:42-43).
4. Jesus entrusts Mary to St. John: “‘Woman, behold, your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother.’” (John 19:27)
Jesus is speaking to Mary in her role as the New Eve, and he is making her the Mother of the Church. John, as the “beloved disciple” and as an apostle, represents both the Church that is we disciples and the Church that is the hierarchy. Mary is mother of both.
5. Jesus took the “common wine” and “handed over the spirit” (John 19:29-30).
6. The soldier pierced Jesus with the lance and “blood and water” flowed out (John 19:34).
Blood and water are the sign that Jesus’ death is the source of new life for the world. Blood, a sign of his life, flows out upon his Church standing at the foot of his cross. Water, a sign of the Holy Spirit, is poured out upon the world in a prefiguring of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit will pour out upon the world through the nascent Church. “Death, far from ending his life, becomes the moment at which he shares his life” (http://www.cptryon.org/).
“This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ” (1 John 5:6).
7. After Jesus’ death, the Roman centurion “glorified God” and said, “This man was innocent beyond doubt.” The people went away “beating their breasts” (Luke 23:47-48). Beating breasts is a sign of penitence. After the orgy of wickedness, the “hour” for the power of darkness has passed and people realize what they have done.
8. Sin is always like that. It feels good at first, but then you get a massive hangover. The Jewish people had such a hangover.
III. The Glorious Mysteries
A. The Resurrection
1. But the tomb was found empty. Read Luke 24:1-12.
2. Peter is the first person to respond in faith, for he was “amazed at what had happened.” Peter knew by faith that Jesus had risen, just as we all know today. This is the central tenet of the whole Christian faith: the tomb was empty, and Jesus has risen. If Jesus has not risen, to paraphrase St. Paul, we’re all wasting our time.
3. In John’s account, the Lord appears first to Mary Magdalene.
4. Thomas at first refuses to believe, a sort of blindness caused by pride. This was a very serious sin on the part of Thomas, but he was later rewarded by Jesus when he did come to believe: He proclaims Jesus “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
B. The Ascension and the Pentecost
1. Read Acts 1:6-12.
2. The apostles are still thinking that this is all about a political comeback.
3. They are instead admonished by the angels not to “stand there looking at the sky” (Acts 1:11). They have work to do, because as Jesus promised, “in a few days you will be baptized with the holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).
4. Jesus died so that he could ascend and send the Holy Spirit upon the newborn Church. “It is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
5. At the Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, “they were all filled with the holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim” (Acts 2:4). The tongues were a sign of the universality, the Catholicity, of the Church that was being formed.
C. The Assumption of Mary and the crowning of Mary Queen of Heaven
1. The last two mysteries bring us back to Mary, the woman who “Kept all these things… in her heart.” Remember that she has accompanied Jesus in spirit through all his journeys, from his Baptism to his public ministry to his crucifixion and death. Now she accompanies him on his final journey.
2. Mary had grown in wisdom through her contemplation until she had reached the point where she could be made Mother of the Church. And now, not just mother, but Queen of Heaven.
3. Pope Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus: “By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.”
4. Scholars are divided over whether Mary died and, at the point of her natural death, was taken up into Heaven body and soul; or whether she was spared physical death altogether. Either way, the result is the same: Mary was spared the grave and the corruption of her immaculate body.
So then, the great Mother of God, so mysteriously united to Jesus Christ from all eternity by the same decree of predestination, immaculately conceived, an intact virgin throughout her divine motherhood, a noble associate of our Redeemer as he defeated sin and its consequences, received, as it were, the final crowning privilege of being preserved from the corruption of the grave and, following her Son in his victory over death, was brought, body and soul, to the highest glory of heaven, to shine as Queen at the right hand of that same Son, the immortal King of Ages (The Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII Munificentissimus Deus).
5. And Mary now reigns at the side of Jesus as Queen of Heaven and Mother of all humanity. Not bad for a farm kid, huh?
