Today’s post comes from a friend of the Retreat & Conference Center, Fr. Michael Schleupner. Fr. Mike has presented many retreats for our Center and we look forward to seeing him again soon! Let’s take a few quiet moments to read his thoughts about the Rosary.
The Rosary
Dear Friends,
Today I am thinking about mysteries. I do not mean a Sherlock Holmes mystery that a good detective can solve. Instead, I am referring to the great mysteries of life, like the birth of a baby, a sudden and breakthrough insight, sickness, suffering, and death, loving and being loved, or simply the universe.
These realities are, at least to some extent, mysteries. We can never solve or fully explain them. Instead, we stand in awe or wonder before them. So, today I am thinking of these mysteries because October 7 in our Catholic calendar was the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
The rosary is in honor of Mary, and it is divided into the mysteries of our faith:
the Joyful Mysteries (e.g. the Birth of our Lord), the Luminous Mysteries (e.g. the Institution of the Eucharist), the Sorrowful Mysteries (e.g. the Crucifixion), and the Glorious Mysteries (e.g. the Resurrection).
We are drawn to these mysteries because we experience mystery in our own human experience. In turn, the mysteries of the rosary bring us comfort and strength for dealing with the mysteries of life. At one and the same time, the rosary draws us closer to God and closer to our inner self in the journey of life.
And so, we stand in awe before them and become one with them in prayer.
This is why the rosary is a good prayer for us to know and to have in our spiritual toolbox.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst 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.”
~Father Michael Schleupner