Archives
If we believe in God, we have to believe that God is more powerful than we.
-Rev. John Phalen
The Year of the Rosary: October 2002 – October 2003
Contemplating with Mary the Face of ChristSeasonal Message
by Rev. John Phalen, CSC, President
Holy Cross Family Ministries
It’s the Year of the Rosary! In his Apostolic Letter, “Rosarium Virginis Mariae,” Pope John Paul II is encouraging the whole Church to rediscover the Rosary as “a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of it’s beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to ‘set out into the deep’…in order to…cry out before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior…”(1)
The Holy Father asserts that: “to recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.” While many put aside the Rosary as overly Marian in orientation, the Rosary in its contemplation of the mystery of salvation is actually very Christo-centric. Mary always brings us to her Son!
The letter goes on to recommend the Rosary as both prayer for peace and prayer for the family. Christ is our peace and in our world today we must admit that peace is an elusive goal. Besides the huge threat of war which hangs over our world today, our own personal lives are often too busy, too taken up with “To Do” lists impossible to accomplish. The Rosary is, by contrast, a peaceful prayer which allows us to contemplate various mysteries from the Gospel which remind us how much God makes up for our lacks. The Rosary is a mantra, repeated again and again so it can go deeper into our souls and we can become convinced that Mary is full of grace and that the fruit of her womb, Jesus, is blessed indeed.
What the Holy Father offers is a new set of mysteries concentrating on the public ministry of Jesus. These are: 1) His Baptism in the Jordan, 2) His self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana, 3) His proclamation of the Kingdom of God, 4) His Transfiguration, and 5) His institution of the Eucharist. These are all considered “revelation” of the Kingdom now present in the very face of Jesus. Holy Cross Family Ministries will certainly do all it can to promote the use of these new Mysteries of Light.
Why?, because they allow us to see more clearly how the Rosary invites us to contemplate the face of Christ and conform ourselves to Christ with Mary’s help.
Padre Pio, the newly declared saint, once said that to go through one’s day without morning prayer, especially the Rosary, is like leaving the house having forgotten to look at ones self in the mirror. Spiritually, one has not checked as to whether one’s countenance conforms itself to that of Christ. How can a person who recognizes the importance of the spiritual life go out into the world having forgotten to make sure that his or her image is as close to that of Christ as possible?
Our two mottos in Holy Cross Family Ministries are very much endorsed by the Pontiff’s message. We need to pray the Rosary for families because “the family that prays together stays together”; and we need to pray for peace, since “a world at prayer is a world at peace.”
In the new Mysteries of Light, we allow the example of Christ to motivate and characterize our lives and actions. If enough light is shed, then we will be motivated to do what Jesus would do. We will become respectful of one another, compassionate toward those who suffer, and forgiving toward those who offend.
Our first film on the life of Christ had a unique characteristic, as it never showed the face of Jesus. We allowed the viewer to imagine that face as they would. Our most recent collaboration with the U.S. Bishops, the movie “The Face: Jesus in Art” gave a great number of artistic renderings of the face of Jesus through 2000 years of world history. Ultimately, we will find that our image of Jesus’ face will be a lot like our own. This year, we come back to the Rosary, at the Holy Father’s suggestion, to contemplate the face of Christ and it is Mary at Cana who exhorts us: “Do whatever he tells you.” Contemplating his face should change our own faces into faces of greater compassion, calm and peace, faces of acceptance of God’s will and service to those in need. This year of the Rosary, may we become more like the One whose life we contemplate. May we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rm 13:14). Happy year of the Rosary!