WANTED...your personal insights, ideas on the different mysteries of the Rosary

Beautiful meditations, I especially liked Terry's on The Ascension because it was so heavily scriptural. I think meditations take on real bones and emat when they draw on scripture.

On the Ascension. I was walking the sdoogs round the park tonight I got a real hunger for the Lord, like a stabbing pain, a hunger in the heart. I always go to mass in the early morning so round about this time I fotne dfeel a hunger. In the monastery we did as the early Chrisitans did and met several times each day for prayer. So there was compling , evening prayer and stil lvigils to lokk for ward too. Also of course I spent most of my time in front of the Blessed Sacrament so there was no need for spiritual hunger , we were always fiill. With la ypeople leading a bust life it is different. So as the pslamist says in psalm 41:

:

I think the Ascension is filled with this sweet sadness, but as Terry indicates its a sadness, a hunger that is to be filled by the CHurch, shortly to be formed at Pentecost. As they say, leaving is such sweet sorrow.

 

Sometimes I awake praying the Rosary and the other morning whilst praying the 3rd Joyful Mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God the joy of all of creation at this magnificent and beautiful truth - both Man & Angels were glorifying and praising the Christ Child in songs of praise.

And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the celestial army, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it was told to them.




This will occur in heaven - God's created beings man and angels will praise the Glories of God for all eternity in one celestial choir! I was also conscious of the great act of faith that the angels displayed in worshipping the Christ-Child - the Man God. I know the angels are not saved by faith as we are but there is true humility in the act of an angelic spiritual being worshipping a human being because they had to believe that this was God incarnate the second person of the Blessed Trinity. The angels are truly our brothers in faith

 

I talk to God all day, I pray, I love the Mass but I am constantly starving and thirsting for God.

I was listening to a song one day about thirsting for God and the first line was, "Is anyone thirsty?"

I said, "Are you kidding me God, my tongue is stuck to the floor!"

I can't get enough of God, and can't talk about Him enough either.

 

The angels see everything in complete truth Garabandal.

 

These are wonderful meditations. SteveD's--"they spat at Him in mock annointing" was something that has never occurred to me. Someone should start a thread starting with the first mystery, The Annunciation and everyone could work through all the mysteries in order. That way if someone wanted to look at them for a rosary meditation they could.
I hope that makes sense.

 

Just meditated on Jesus on the Cross...and the great suffering he experienced when they stretched His arms and pulled His arm out of socket...terrible torture. The disfiqurement of sin...how sin disfigures and distorts our natural goodness. The senceless brutality of man toward his neighbor. How it must have pained the Father and Blessed Mother to watch this being done to thier own Son. Pitiful.

 

Lovely photo on your avatar, TIm. You must be so proud!! ..and cold....

 

His death was so cruel because he took every sin of mankind to the cross so he had to endure a cruel violent death. You can see all sin there.

He took every sin in order to atone for every sin. Amazing.

 

I think Hope's idea of working our way methodically rhough the roasry of 20 mysteries is a good way to go.

Let me kick it off then.

In the name of the Father+ and of the Son+ and of the Holy Spirit.+


They say the most important part of a house is the hall way. For any visitor calling to see a house sees the hallway first and will judge the rest by what she sees here. So we start the roasry as we mean to go on, slowly, very reverently and with great deliberation.

When the angel of death visited Egypt to take the first born the Jews saved themselves by making a sign of blood at the lintel of their houses. So too do we set oursleves apart by the making of the sign of the Cross.

I have always been impressed in making this sign most reveretnly how all around becomes holy, as though entering a little church. In prisons, hospitals, cars, homes, fields, mountains with the sign of the Corss all becomes as though still and hushed. THe heart slows down , kneels and prepares to enocunter the holy.

All prayer is Trinitarian, an act of God in our hearts. None of us can pray unless the Spirit call us. In this sign we acknowledge this.

 

Sorry Steve but this made me laugh out loud - isn't it actually the pride that makes us think that our sins are the worst?

If we (me) weren't so proud we'd realize that our sins are just more fly poop in the sea of sin - which is nothing in comparison to the ocean of mercy available... just bring up that bucket of trust.

Thanks for the laugh - I wasn't expecting it.

 

I've never been to the Holy Land but for the Ascension I imagine a sunny hill with a warm breeze.
So whenever I feel a warm breeze on my cheek (doesn't happen to often in Ireland - even in the summer) I think of the Ascension.

This may be the reverse of the inspirations you are looking for Timothius but I like having that reminder in my life, there are so few of the other mysteries that I can animate in my life.

In the run up to Easter I also like to nightly watch the moon grow fuller, because I know it is the same moon that Jesus and Mary watched growing fuller... (Easter timing being based on the Lunar calendar)

Somehow 'sharing' their physical experiences brings meaning to my day - occasionally!

 

I'm glad I raised a laugh but you have misunderstood me. I am not saying that my sins are the worst of all. I'm saying that pride is the worst sin because it leads to all sorts of other sins and I have often been guilty of it. An individual's sins may be insignificant compared to the sum total of evil and compared to the mercy of God but Our Lady assured the visionaries at Fatima that a deceased 18 year old was, for her sins, in purgatory to the end of time. Some poop!

 

Re. the deceased girl in Fatima - has there ever been any indication of her area of sin?
It has always intrigued me that someone in that small community could be living in such a sinful state and that it wasn't recognized by the community.
Yes, more than fly poop. Repent, repent, repent.

I don't want to defend pride Steve, but the badge of greatest dishonor goes to blaspheming against the Holy Spirit... - at least that girl made it to purgatory.

 

Sins against the Holy Spirit... Is where one ignores Him their whole life and refuses to be moved to love others. It is those who completely shun him by their lives.. Took me a while to understand this, when God forgives everyone.

Sins against the Holy Spirit are when one doesn't want to be forgiven. Grieving The Holy Spirit.

 

Thanks Padraig...but if you notice the boy with with no coat (3rd to your right)...thats my son James Jacob...he's like his dad..."ain't got a lick of common sence".

Has anybody have an idea on the 4th luminious mystery...I'm sort of stuck, thanks!

 

Perhaps you need to start a new thread to go this way

 

Ohwell Hope I suppose this ways as good.

 

I am a little surprised Tim you got stuck on the Transfiguration, it seems so beautiful and open.

In the West we concentrate on the Passion and in the East on the Transfigaration and light.

There was a saint in Russia , Orthodox, a hermit in the 18th century who always used to wear white robes, instead of the usual black , he said it was in memory of Easter. He used to famously feed the bears out in the forest in his hermitage, something I always thought cute.

Anyway St Seraphim had a very famous Transfiguaration in front of a visiting agnostic newspaper reporter . St Seraphim was talking about the Holy Spirit and how He works in our lives and Seraphim invited him to look at his face which began to shine like the sun. The point being that we are all of us in the process of being transfigured. I wil ltry to find this account for it is wonderful.

 

Here, by the way, are some of his prophesies regarding Russia. He was a very great saint and worth paying attention to.
Prophet

By the very nature of his role as a staretz, the Holy Spirit worked through St. Seraphim to guide the faithful, and this often took the form of prophetic utterances. Many are found recorded in the various biographies of the saint. A few selections follow.
To a Father Anthony: "You will be leaving your monastery, but you are not to die yet. Instead, you will be appointed to head a large and famous monastery elsewhere." Sometime later he was indeed appointed to serve as acting head of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius in Zagorsk.[59]
Regarding the Diveyevo convent: "I entrust you to God and to our All-Holy Virgin. Have no fear. After many trials, order will be restored to the convent with the twelfth Mother Superior, whose name will be Mary." (see Diveyevo discussion below.) Such troubles began during Seraphim's lifetime due to jealousy, pettiness, and intrigue on the part of some of the fathers.[60] It is also related that before St. Seraphim reposed, he had given a candle to his spiritual son, N.A. Motovilov, and told him, “When my relics return to Diveyevo, meet me with this candle.” Motovilov said in astonishment, “Batiushka, the monks of Sarov will never give you to Diveyevo.” St. Seraphim simply repeated that it would be so. After Motovilov’s death the candle was passed from nun to nun until Matushka Margarita returned to the village from prison, when it was passed on to her. When St. Seraphim’s relics arrived in 1991, having been carried for miles on the shoulders of eager pilgrims, Matushka Margarita met her beloved elder at the gate with the lighted candle. St. Seraphim not only predicted the monastery’s closing, but its revival as well. Matushka Margarita says, “He said that the churches would be destroyed for seventy years and then given back, ‘without your asking.’ But I am still awaiting the arrival of the great Diveyevo bell that was taken away after the monastery closed. St. Seraphim said that after the reopening of the monastery the great bell will return overland, and at its ringing, he and the four others, whose relics he will uncover, will arise. Soon afterwards the end will come.”[61]
Regarding apostasy in Russia: “At that time Russian bishops will become so ungodly that their impiety will exceed that of the Greek bishops who lived in the reign of Theodosius the Younger. They will not even believe in the most important dogma of the Christian Faith the Resurrection of Christ and the general resurrection.”[62]
Regarding the fall of Russia (as related by Countess Natalia Vladimirovna Ursova): "I knew of the prophecy of St. Seraphim about the fall and resurrection of Russia; I knew it personally. … Count [Y.A.] Olsufyev… once brought me a letter to read through, with the words: 'I have preserved this as the apple of my eye.' The letter, yellow with age, with severely faded ink, had been written by the very hand of the holy St. Seraphim of Sarov to Motovilov. In the letter was a prophecy concerning those horrors and misfortunes which would befall Russia, and I only remember what was said in it about both the pardon and salvation of Russia. …"[63] After his repose, St. Seraphim also appeared in a prophetic vision to St. John of Kronstadt regarding the persecutions that Christians were to undergo in Russia.[64]
Regarding Tsar Nicholas II: St. Seraphim of Sarov prophesied in clear words about the tragic fate foreordained by God for the Tsar who would be present at the Savor solemnity of faith, when there would be Pascha in the midst of summer (the glorification and canonization of St. Seraphim in 1903). According to his prophecy, if there would be repentance in the Russian people, God would yet have mercy on her, but first He would allow for a time the triumph of lawless men: the Tsar would to overthrown and killed, so that the people might know in experience what life was like under the Tsar anointed by God, and under the rule of men who have trampled underfoot the law of God. St. Seraphim, by revelation from God, wrote in his own hand a letter to the Tsar who would come to Sarov and Diveyevo, entrusting it to his friend Motovilov, who gave it to Abbess Maria, who in turn handed it personally to Emperor Nicholas II in Diveyevo on July 20, 1903. What was written in the letter remains a secret, but one can suppose that the holy elder saw all that was to happen and warned against the frightful events to come... [65]

 

You can read of St Seraphim's transfiguration here:

http://www.cjoc.ca/pdf/Vol2-W-2 Acquisition of the Holy Spirit2.PDF