Please read yesterday’s blog before you read this one. It will help you understand the progression of thought.
Today I picked up the Rosary and found the instructions on line. Then I began to pray through the Rosary. Because it is Tuesday I read the meditations for the Sorrowful Mysteries. What I felt and found I was not prepared for. It is a meditation experience I will not soon forget. It gripped my attention, seized my heart and caused my spirit to weep.
Yes I managed to memorize the “Hail Mary” before the second “decade” of beads (they are in groups of ten called decades.) Though I am not Catholic I was surprised to find special significance in the words. It helped my understanding when I considered Mary as symbolic of the Holy Spirit and the divine feminine. It also became very meaningful to me to feel the pain of this mother in the loss of her son. This is something which I can identify with all too well having lost my own son in 2000. As I followed this mother, who had seen so much of the power of the creator in her life, on her path to Golgotha, I felt the agony of her heart.
All of this “Sorrowful Mysteries” piece is about the passion of the Christ. Those last few hours when he suffered in painful prayer, scourging and mocking at the hands of the Romans, bearing his cross and finally in crucifixion.
Each of these steps on his journey is recounted and inspires a lesson for us in life. We are to learn: to follow God’s will, mortify our senses, learn moral courage, patience and ultimately learn to pardon injuries. Through this we feel the depth of his love for us and understand the call to “take up your cross”.
As Christians we often believe that call to carry our cross is about all the junk we have suffered in our own lives. Some might consider my cross is the death of my son. But no, that is not my cross. My cross is enduring that agony and blessing it rather cursing it, forgiving those responsible rather than hating them. It is doing what I am called to do without complaint and counting it all as righteousness for the cause of This Great Love.
I am mere mortal and I fail often. This meditation of the Rosary certainly seems a way to remind me of all that is good and true about my faith and keep me on the track of forgiveness and love. Every bead holds many heartbeats of struggle and victory. Each meditation holds mysteries which I cannot explain but which are the very things which hold me captive to the love of Jesus.
And so continues my journey through Holy Week.
“Take up your cross and follow me.””Take up your cross and follow Me” ….”For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:24-25).
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34-35
Spilt Milk 