What the Rosary means to me … 13

In a very beautiful poem Gerard Manley Hopkins SJ says that Mary had this one work to do: let all God’s glory through. The mysteries of the rosary are moments in the lives of Jesus and Mary when the divine glory shines powerfully through. God is the artist or composer who created these mysteries. He composes or paints them in different hues and tones, with different shades and contrasts. In some of them the note of joy predominates, in others the note of sorrow. In others it is the clear light of revelation that helps us see who Jesus is and what His mission is about. In the last five mysteries we are held by the golden light of glory, overwhelmed by the mighty trumpets that herald the new creation.

It is possible to ‘press’ each mystery against our lives, or rather to press our lives against the shape of each mystery, to see how what it contains is being fulfilled in our journey of faith. What is God asking of me? Who needs me to turn towards them today? How am I helping the Word come to birth in the world? Where do I find the Lord’s presence? Do I not know that I should be occupied with my Father’s affairs? And so on for the rest … humanity is greatly exalted through these mysteries of the Word made flesh, which embrace and transform all joy and sorrow, all understanding and desire for love.

Mary, says Hopkins, not only ‘gave God’s infinity, dwindled to infancy, welcome in womb and breast, birth, milk, and all the rest’ but ‘mothers each new grace that does now reach our race’ … countless such new graces reach our race through the rosary and very many people, clever and simple, have become great contemplatives through meditating on its mysteries.