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April 27, 2023Sometime ago I was rummaging around in my dresser drawer when I came across my old set of Rosary beads, the ones I had received for my First Holy Communion. I took them out and held them in my hand, and something marvelous and mysterious happened. I felt a rush of all manner of emotions: innocent joy, muted guilt, sorrowful appreciation, and a visceral wonder. While such an encounter with an object might seem strange, I found the feelings both comforting and contemplative. It was akin to a sound or a smell reawakening deeply buried memories and the intense emotions associated with them.
Throughout my life, I had received other sets of Rosary beads, all much more elaborate and ornate than the set I now held in my hand. But I must confess that with each set I was given, I found myself moving further away from regular use of the Rosary. It may have been that worldliness and the voices of non-Catholics who spurn the Rosary as a vain repetition had turned my heart away from devotion to Mary. Perhaps I had become more impressed with the materials of the beads than the truths they brought to mind. Or maybe I simply felt I had outgrown the routine replication of the familiar prayers.
As I pondered these thoughts in the presence of this simple collection of steel links and wooden beads now clutched in my palm, I was struck with a sense of longing from hidden places in my soul. I began to sense that something was missing. It was then that I realized that the Rosary is an experience woven much more intricately into my Catholic identity than I had ever imagined. I saw that who I was as a believer had been shaped profoundly by a lifetime of wrestling with the mysteries of my redemption.
Worn Beads for a Worn Man
In my younger days I had a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother. Much of that came from the example of my parents, but some from my own need for acceptance before a holy God. In struggling along the road of life from youth into manhood, Mary was always there, a gentle mother who loved me despite my many failings. Reciting the Rosary was a way to honor her and ground myself in my faith.
In looking more closely at the beads in my hand, I noticed just how worn they had become. There was even a section of the chain near the crucifix that had come off and been reattached with sewing thread. Despite the wear and tear, though, the Rosary itself was still in good shape.
Many memories began to come back to me. I thought about how many times I had run my fingers over these wooden beads in a way that did not truly measure up to the honor due to Christ and his beautiful mother. As a boy, I had often used my Rosary as a “holy sleeping pill” to calm my nerves before bed, often falling asleep before getting past the second decade. And many times in praying the Rosary after Mass, I recited the words with sincerity, but without an authentic knowledge of the mysteries embodied in the prayers.
I can only hope that such childish attempts at holiness were pleasing to the Blessed Mother. I believe with all my heart that, even in my stumbling through the prayers, she was looking on me with love. As I held these battered beads and felt their smoothness, it dawned on me that our Lady was offering me a meaningful message to apply to my faith journey. In many ways I was like this set of Rosary beads: my body and my emotions worn with age and many labors, my mind and my understanding smoothed over with a lifetime of searching and study, and my heart and its loves softened by trials and blessings. Perhaps our Lady and the Holy Spirit were using this simple object to reawaken a work God had been doing within me this whole time.
Rediscovering the Mother and the Mysteries
I have spent a lot of time with non-Catholic Christians. To say that they have downplayed Mary’s role in salvation history is an understatement. In their eyes she has been everything but the Mother and Queen she deserves to be. To many, she is merely a holy incubator for the Messiah, a poor and sinful peasant girl who lovingly did her duty and went on to live an ordinary conjugal life with Joseph as she mothered her “other children.” For me to even suggest that she is something more has brought from my separated brethren everything from unpleasant looks, to politely heated arguments, to a complete change of attitude about my status as a man before God.
But, there has been a blessing in these awkward encounters, a spiritual stirring that has slowly led to a profoundly deeper understanding of Mary and her place in the Kingdom of God. Such reluctance on the part of non-Catholics to honor Mary for fear it might diminish the Savior has led me to a much more thorough and heartfelt examination of my own beliefs about our Blessed Mother. It has caused me to dive more deeply and passionately into the Scriptures – which non-Catholics claim should be the sole and final authority on any spiritual subject – in order to rediscover just what God has taught us in the Bible about Our Lady’s importance in our salvation, and God’s incredible plan for her from eternity past.
In more recent years I have plunged myself into the depths of the Mysteries of the Rosary, searching the Scriptures for the truth about God’s plan for Mary from Genesis to Revelation, and connecting the Old Testament typology and prophecy with their fulfillment in our Lady through her words of surrender, her lifetime of loving charity, and the commitment of her pondering heart to the cause of her Son.
Like my hands smoothing out the Rosary beads over many years, our Lady prayed over the holy words and events of her life as she pondered them in her heart. She pieced together all her reflections, arranging them within her mind so that she could understand the grace in her life, the Father’s call upon her, and the working out of her own part in salvation’s story.
Signs of the Kingdom in the Woman
In pondering the Mysteries over and over, a whole new world of understanding has awakened in my soul. I see The Father’s plan for Mary foretold in the Old Testament and made fully alive in the Gospels. I see too how, in the Book of Revelation, God’s plan has reached the summit of perfection in how our Mother of Mercy sits with her Son in the heavenly realms, loving us as we wait for Christ to call us home.
Through my study of the word of God, I have found three particular aspects of the Blessed Mother to be crucial to unlocking the Mysteries of the Rosary with a greater joy and deeper devotion than I have ever known.
Firstly, from Genesis and the Gospels, we see Mary as the new Eve, the one who, in giving birth to the Savior of the world, crushes the serpent’s head, even as the serpent strikes at the heal of the Suffering Servant. While the first Eve gave in to temptation and partook of the forbidden fruit before the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, the second Eve remains perfectly obedient to the cause of her Son as she offers him back to his Father beyond the Garden at the foot of the Tree of Life upon which the Savior is crucified.
Secondly, in the stories of the Exodus, King David, and the Visitation from Luke’s Gospel, we see Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant, the holy vessel overshadowed with God’s powerful presence. In the holy encounter between Mary and Elizabeth, Luke carefully reveals this truth in the parallels he makes between the Virgin with child coming to Elizabeth, and the Old Testament Ark of the Covenant coming to dwell in the Holy City of Jerusalem. Just as the Levites sang and played in praise before the holy Ark, Elizabeth becomes a holy instrument proclaiming loudly her praise over Mary’s blessedness among all women. Like David, who felt unworthy that the Ark should come to him, Elizabeth expresses astonishment that the Mother of her Lord should come to her. As David danced before the Ark in unbridled delight, John the Baptist leaps for joy in the womb of his mother upon hearing the greeting of Mary. And as the Ark remained in the house of O′bed-e′dom the Gittite three months, Mary remains three months in the house of Zechariah with her kinswoman Elizabeth.
Thirdly, from these and other stories in the Gospels we see Mary as the perfect Mother and Disciple, who honors God by following the Law of Moses, rearing her Son to manhood, and letting him go as she follows him in faith, taking her place at his side. Mary is the Queen Mother, honored by King Jesus. She is the one who is bold enough to call Jesus to share a sign of the Kingdom at the wedding feast at Cana, and humble enough to ponder every word and action of her Son as she seeks to know the full measure of her place in the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan.
God-bearer, Intercessor, Queen Mother to the Church
In carrying these wonderful signs even further, we learn from story of the Annunciation that Mary is truly she who is “Full of Grace.” This is no ordinary greeting from the angel Gabriel. The Greek word used, kecharitōmenē, means one who has been, is now, and ever shall be, filled with divine life. God has exalted Mary, applying Christ’s salvation to her life in a mysterious way, so that she may be the holy vessel worthy of carrying the Second Person of the Trinity within her womb. Like the Ark of the Covenant being made with indestructible acacia wood, overlaid with precious gold, and overshadowed with the presence of Almighty God, Mary is made incorruptible to sin, overlaid with golden grace, and overshadowed with the presence of the Holy Spirit, so that she becomes the God-bearer.
Unlike Eve, the “woman” of Eden who became the mother of all the living, but fell in sin, Mary is the “Woman” at Cana, whose obedience and devotion to her Son makes her the sinless advocate and mother to the Church. She who could intercede for the couple whose wine had run out, could also intercede for God’s people who were thirsting for the abundant wine of the Wedding Feast to come. The Woman whose submissive last words are, “Do whatever he tells you.” is carried by that same grace to the foot of the cross, where she accepts John as her son, and with him, all who will come to believe in Christ.
In the book of Revelation, John sees a vision of the Ark residing in the Temple in heaven. Jesus, who cleanses the Jerusalem temple immediately after performing the miracle of the abundant wine, is the new temple not made with human hands who has been raised up perfect and incorruptible. He ascends in his resurrected body and soul, entering into heaven. Mary too is taken body and soul into heaven. She is the new Ark who has come to rest with her Son. Yet, as the Woman clothed with the sun, crowned with twelve stars, and wearing the moon at her feet, she also continues to intercede for her spiritual children, the Church, until the end of time.
Taking Up a Habit Old and New
Our Lady is a precious part of a journey of grace that spans from Genesis to Revelation. As Mary weathers the trials of her life, celebrating the sorrows and joys of redemption brought to earth in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of her Son, she too attends the school of obedience, becoming the loving mother and perfect disciple her children can follow.
As I continue on the road to heaven, I see how God’s grace has smoothed over my rough and stony heart, bringing a beauty into my life that is not my own. And yet, it has been my thoughts, words, and actions – grace-enabled and grace-inspired as they are – that God has used to shape me into a well-weathered disciple who loves and lives out the mysteries of my faith as embodied in the Rosary. As once more I take up this old habit to make it new, I, like our Blessed Lady, will continue to ponder, pray for, and pursue that same grace, as I work out my own journey of salvation with fear and trembling.
In the end, it is truly a gift that God has given me in putting this worn out set of Rosary beads back into my hands. There is now a deeper joy in seeing the smoothed edges of my life, repurposed and tempered by love and grace. Though I am worn, there is a newness to my heart that spills out in the words I speak and the deeds I do in love. That transformed joy has given new meaning to my recitation of the Rosary ever since.
At each encounter with these beautiful Mysteries, may God use your own humble prayers help to smooth over the coarse parts of your soul and bring new meaning to your life as grace wears away the old to make room for the new.
