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Rosarium Virginis
Mariae
The Rosary brings us closer to Mary, our
stairway to Jesus
"You are the fairest of the sons of men / grace is poured upon
your lips; / therefore, God has blessed you forever".
We cannot even imagine with what joy and emotion Mary sang this
verse of Psalm 45[44], while she had Jesus before her eyes. No creature
more than she, in fact, was able to contemplate so closely the beauty of
the face of the Son of God "born of woman", because she
was precisely that Woman called to give him flesh and blood.
In his wonderful Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae,
the Holy Father asserts this with firm conviction: "The
contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary.... It was in
her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance
which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever
devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully
as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to him at the
Annunciation, when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In
the months that followed she began to sense his presence and to picture
his features. When at last she gave birth to him in Bethlehem, her eyes
were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she 'wrapped him
in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger' (cf. Lk 2:7). Thereafter,
Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder, would never leave
him"(n. 10).
More than any other, Mary leads us to the contemplation of Christ
Every woman who has experienced motherhood knows well how involving
the life of the child is, conceived and born in pain and joy; and knows
that her existence will be linked forever to its destiny. For this
reason Mary, more than any other mother completely preordained for the
Person and the mission of that only Son, can guide us to the
contemplation of Christ, penetrating in the most hidden depths of his
inner nature what is revealed only to the eyes of faith and love. This,
in fact, is the most complete and profound form of knowledge of the
inner person, able to grasp even the most delicate shades of thought and
feeling. Uniting ourselves to her with simplicity and desirous to know
the Lord, we can truly make a sure and marvellous journey of authentic
contemplation. This will be so only if it does not remain in the
abstract, but becomes conformity to Christ, growth in our identity as
sons of God, as sons of the Son, called to reproduce in ourselves his
own features, his beautiful face of sanctity which is the image of the
invisible God (Col 1:15).
Contemplating the mysteries of Christ is not in fact like looking at
pictures in a gallery from which the observer remains detached, drawing
from them aesthetic enjoyment at most. To contemplate Jesus means to
immerse oneself in Him, in His unfathomable mystery of life and to be
imbued with it.
Mary can and wishes to accompany us in this interior journey through
the mystery of love which is the Lord Jesus Christ. She does so, as the
Holy Father again affirms in his Apostolic Letter, by recounting for us
all the "memories" of Jesus she kept carefully enshrined in
her maternal heart (cf. Lk 2:19, 51).
The Rosary, an exquisitely contemplative prayer, brings before our eyes
all of these "memories", which are the "mysteries"
of our salvation. Today, in a frenetic civilization, the art of calm
recollection and the taste for listening are increasingly being lost,
since news is presented at a frenzied pace and often with aggressive
language and images. We have all the more need to learn from Mary,
therefore, the sweetness of listening, of thoughtfully pausing on what
we have heard and of contemplating with ever new wonder what is being
revealed to our inner sight.
Mary's 'ecce' and 'fiat' open the doors to heaven and hearts
She begins by recalling the Annunciation brought to her by the
angel at Nazareth, and precisely from this "memory" we learn
to recognize the announcements of grace which have marked our own
spiritual journey as well; we learn above all to welcome the Word of
life and to place ourselves — as did the Most Holy Virgin — at His service, to create Him in
ourselves and to give Him to others: that is to say, we learn the art of
humble and loving adherence in faith to the Word, to God's plan, that
our life may become a faithful realization of it.
All of the other mysteries, of joy, of sorrow, and of glory,
have their incipit in that ecce and fiat which
simultaneously opens the doors of heaven and the doors of our heart, so
that the divine and human can meet in an effusion of love which unites
for eternity.
If we set out with Mary of Nazareth, it becomes easy for us to
understand the mystery of the Visitation as well — in which the solicitude and delicacy
of charity towards every creature is expressed — and the Nativity, which leads
us to adore the God-with-us in order to be bearers of Him into
the world, in the midst of the "distant"; beside Mary, we
understand furthermore the mystery of the Presentation in which
we ourselves are taught to be both those who offer and the offering; and
we arrive at the mystery of the Finding of Jesus in the temple
from which we learn the primacy of obedience to the will of the Father
in our daily life.
We are thus introduced to the mysteries of the consummation of the
sacrifice, and the face of the Suffering Servant appears to us even
through the veil of our tears, in the sorrowful events of our lives and
those of others. Yet this contemplation, set in the often dark reality
of history, receives illumination from the new gem added to the Rosary:
the mysteries of light, which Mary interprets with her same
silent presence as disciple, Mother and Teacher.
Here we stand before the mystery of the Baptism of Jesus in the
waters of the Jordan with the splendid testimony of the Father: "You
are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased" (Lk
3:22). How can we not leap for joy knowing that we too, baptized in the
name of the Most Holy Trinity, immersed in the death of Christ and risen
with Him, have recovered our resemblance with God, have become sons in
the Son, beloved and favoured like Him?
So let us also celebrate, beside Mary, the water transformed into wine
at the wedding feast of Cana, understanding that we ourselves are
the spouse of the Bridegroom; and with joyous wonder we contemplate in
Him the Kingdom already present, which to enter we must be re-born,
become children, new men and women. In the same way we are able to
ascend Tabor and see for a brief instant — the memory of which endures in our
heart — the indescribable light of the face of
the transfigured Christ: a ray of His glory before it can be said of Him
that "he had no form or comeliness..., a man of sorrows... as
one from whom men hide their faces" (Is 53:2-3). But above all
we are led to understand — beside Mary — the gift of that Last Supper — the Eucharist — in which is anticipated his death and
Resurrection, the coming of the Spirit and our own glorification.
At the end of this journey with Mary, holding fast our gaze upon Jesus,
it can truly be exclaimed in choral union with the elect of Heaven: "Now
the salvation and power and kingdom of our God and the authority of his
Christ have come" (Rev 12:10).
Rosary brings us close to Mary; Mary is our stairway to Jesus
Through the prayer of the Rosary the salvation worked by Christ is
truly experienced and strengthened before the recurring assaults of the
old adversary who, although already conquered, does not want to give
respite to the Son of the Woman and to her descendents. He lays traps,
but the Rosary is a chain stronger than his snares; it brings us close
to Mary, and Mary is our stairway to Jesus as Jesus is to the Father.
This stairway, however, must be climbed without turning back, without
shifting our gaze from the shining star.
When children still played innocent games — without monstrous toys and imitation
of arms and instruments of war — there was a very meaningful game. One
child played the angel at the door of paradise, another played the devil
on the side of the road, one or more children played the travellers and
the angel called to them one by one: "Little ones of the earth, run
here to me!". The child shouted: "I cannot, because of the
devil who will catch me.”. Then from the gate of paradise came a
soothing voice: "Look neither right nor left and do not turn back,
fix your gaze upon me: I will protect you with my wings".
Overcoming his fear, the child raced forward and, if he was not caught
by the devil, reached the arms of the angel. If, however, he was made
prisoner by the devil, he had to be freed. And the angel would run to
offer him a hand which he sought to grasp although hindered by the
devil.
Could not one see in this game perhaps the role of Mary, who leads us to
contemplate her Son? In the sacred Liturgy the Church invokes her as
"Morning Star" and luminous "Gate of Heaven": there
cannot be a more certain guide for reaching the goal of our "blessed
hope" (Ti 2:13). But in order for Mary to help us put on Christ
(cf. Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27), to appear before the Father as a spouse
"without stain or wrinkle" (Eph 5:27), it is necessary to
persevere day after day with her in the “yes" of the Annunciation
and in the "yes" of the Cross, to open oneself to the Spirit
and to nourish oneself with the Bread of Life, with the food that gives
the strength to fight to the last breath the "good fight of
faith" (II Tm 4:7).
Mary too had to walk in faith and not with full sight; she too, although
living beside Jesus, had to accept the mystery of his Person and believe
by seeing beyond appearances. That gaze which was for this reason at
times questioning, at others penetrating, saddened,
finally radiant and always burning with love, is now
turned to us as well. Her gaze reflects the Light which is Christ
himself, and so illuminates our way and dissolves the shadows which try
to envelop our heart. In this way the sweet chain of the Rosary can
become for us a splendid crown of glory.
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