The Sorrowful Mysteries: Contemplating the Holy Rosary

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence; I beg your pardon for my sins and the grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. There are some beautiful words of Saint Josemaria in his book The Way of the Cross. He says, "An inexhaustible source of life is the Passion of Jesus. Sometimes we renew the joyous impulse that took Our Lord to Jerusalem. Other times, the pain of the agony which ended on Calvary… Or the glory of his triumph over death and sin. But always!, the love —joyful, sorrowful, glorious— of the Heart of Jesus Christ” (14th station, commentary no. 3). Always, the love; always, the love! Yes, Lord Jesus, when we entered into the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, always the love, the love of the heart of Jesus.

That is surely the most important thing to contemplate; it is the natural thing we contemplate when we engage with the agony in the garden, the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion. Always, the love. We know from Scripture, from Revelation, that God is love, but it's above all in Our Lord's passion when love becomes flesh, and love becomes wounds, and love becomes passion, and ultimately, of course, love goes towards the resurrection. It's in the self-giving love of Jesus Christ that we discover we touch, as it were, that God is love. That's why to contemplate the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary is never something negative. It's never something that brings us down. Rather, it fills us with the conviction of how we are loved, how we are cherished, how we are-we could even say-treasured by God. "In this is love," says Saint John, "not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the expiation for our sins" (1 Jn 4:10). How good it is to contemplate the passion of Jesus, and what a wonderful tradition we have in the Church, in Christian piety, of contemplating Our Lord, You, Lord Jesus, in Your self-giving love. We could, of course, often see the link, therefore, between the passion of Our Lord, the mysteries, the sorrowful mysteries of the holy Rosary, and the Eucharist, and the Mass. Maybe even as a good preparation for Mass sometimes to say the sorrowful mysteries, it helps us to contemplate the great mystery of God's self-giving love, of His self-emptying in the Eucharist in the Holy Mass. Apparently, Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Mother Teresa, used to say, "The crucifix shows us how much God loved us then; the tabernacle shows us how much God loves us now." And it's a very wise phrase because it brings together the mystery of the Eucharist and the Cross, the self-giving love of Jesus, which we contemplate in the Rosary, in the Sorrowful Mysteries, especially. Always the love, says Saint Josemaria. Always the love, always joyful, sorrowful, glorious of the heart of Jesus, Lord, help me to contemplate Your passion. Help me to savor each moment. Help me to accompany You along the road to Calvary, as I contemplate You with Your labored breathing, Your twitching. And trembling limbs, your swollen face, your bruised head. I want to be with you in all of that, because that gives me a realization of how much you love me. And that's why, it's a paradox, isn't it? In that quotation from Saint Josemaria, he says, "An inexhaustible source of life is the passion of Jesus." So life and passion juxtaposed, the death of Our Lord is an inexhaustible source of life because Our Lord's death is life-giving. Again, from Saint Josemaria, from his homily on the Sacred Heart of Jesus: "Jesus on the cross, with his heart overflowing with love for men, is such an eloquent commentary on the value of people and things, that words only get in the way. People, their happiness, and their life are so important that the very Son of God gave Himself to redeem and cleanse and raise them up" (Christ is Passing By, no. 165). Well, that's really what we want to do in the sorrowful mysteries, to contemplate, to come to terms with this love of the heart of Jesus, His heart overflowing with love for people. Words only get in the way. When we contemplate Our Lord in His passion, we can, as it were, be silent in the depths of our soul, even while we're saying the Our Father's and the Hail Mary's and the Gloria's. There is a profound contemplation going on, which doesn't need words. Lord, help me to come to terms a bit more with Your love for us. And for this reason, I cry out especially to Our Lady-- she who accompanied you in your passion-- she who shared most fully in it. Saint Bernard talks of the compassion or the co-passion of Mary, the sharing of Our Lady in the mystery of your self-giving love, in your oblation. And of course in the Rosary, that's exactly what we do, isn't it? When we say the sorrowful mysteries, we contemplate the self-giving love of Jesus to the very end, in the company of Our Lady, and somehow through her heart, with her memories, with her affections, with her experience. There's no better way to contemplate the passion of Jesus. There is in that lovely hymn of the liturgy, the Stabat Mater, which is a hymn to Our Lady of Sorrows. We ask Mary: "Holy Mother, pierce me through, in my heart each wound renew of my Savior crucified." Yes, Mother, help us somehow to realize that being fully engaged with Our Lord's suffering is a source of life, a source of encouragement, of strength, of daring in our apostolate, of ambition in our desires to be saints. It comes from the contemplation of Our Lord's pouring out of His love for us. There is, of course, in the prophecy of Isaiah in the Old Testament, that incredible phrase. We could spend our whole life meditating on it-- "By His wounds we have been healed" (Isaiah 53:5). And by his wounds you have been healed. And Saint Peter, the first Pope, echoes that phrase in the New Testament; he who knew about being healed, who knew about being forgiven by the Lord. "By his wounds we-- you have been healed." But when we meditate on that, and as it were, chew on it in our prayer, in the light of the Holy Spirit, it's extraordinary. I mean, who is ever healed by someone else's wounds? That's impossible. In fact, it's wounds themselves that need healing. So, how can I be healed by somebody else's wounds? Well, Lord, this prophetic phrase, this inspired phrase of sacred scripture, is very helpful because it leads me somehow to plumb the depths of your love for me. You heal me by Your wounds. I remember a lady who was diagnosed with a very serious illness, and she went to her elderly mother to break the news to her mom, to her elderly mom. And her mother was shocked and silent for a moment, and looked at her with tremendous affection, and said to her sick daughter, "Look, I recommend that you meditate on the passion of Our Lord, because in my life, whenever I've had difficult things to face or to put up with, I have always got my strength from contemplating the passion of Jesus." It's true, isn't it? There so many brothers and sisters of ours down through the ages in in this great family of the church, and even today, of course, as well, who draw their strength from contemplating the love of Jesus, the love of God made flesh, in the crucifixion of Our Lord, in Our Lord's passion. After all, 'passion' means a great suffering; it also means a great love. It's a suffering of love. It's a love which suffers. That's why it's so good for us to contemplate and pray the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary. By your wounds, Lord. I have been healed, by your wounds, Lord; we have been healed. Extraordinary. So, what a wonderful thing it is to enter into Our Lord's company in His passion! We can do it if we wish with the meditations which were composed by Saint Josemaria, which are very beautiful, and leave us ample space for personal meditation, contemplation, imagination. I suppose the fundamental thing is communion with Our Lord, with and through his mother, that's the mystery of the rosary and the power of the rosary. Jesus, we contemplate you and we venerate you firstly, in your agony in the garden. The garden of Eden, which was the place of our downfall, the place of infidelity, of lack of trust, now becomes the place of abandonment to the Lord. Trust in in God's love in spite of suffering. Our Lord says yes where we have said no, and in that we are healed. Jesus, help me to keep you company in the agony in the garden. Perhaps quite often I keep you company simply by praying this mystery well as best as I can. At other times in my life, when I'm suffering, when there's a difficulty, when I'm confused, when I'm not feeling well mentally or physically, then I keep you company in the agony in the garden. Then, Lord, we reverence and love you and adore you in the mystery of the scourging at the pillar. Let us not be afraid to contemplate Our Lord's immense suffering, which are the proofs of his love. I believe that often when he blessed a crucifix, a little crucifix people asked him to bless Saint Josemaria would kiss the wounds of Our Lord. A beautiful Christian Catholic, you might say, instinctive reaction to Our Lord's self-giving love. Let's not shy away from the scourging at the pillar, the crowning with thorns. Perhaps in this mystery we can be drawn particularly to the face of Jesus. We see the thorns; we see the streams of blood. We get some intuition of the pain, and above all, Lord, we contemplate Your face, Your face streaming with blood, radiant with love for us. As Saint Josemaria writes, "the beloved face of Jesus, which had smiled upon children and was transfigured with glory on Mount Tabor, is now, as it were, concealed by suffering." Yes, Lord. We want to contemplate Your face, concealed by suffering, and that very suffering reveals Your love for us. By Your wounds, we are healed. Every thorn wound in your head is part of my salvation. It's part of my own autobiography, Lord. It's part of my life. I want to appropriate it. I want to cherish it. Above all, Lord, I want to see your face. We remember how Pilate mockingly paraded you out in front of the crowd and said, "Ecce homo"-- behold the man. "Ecce rex vester"-- behold your king. Well, indeed, Lord, you are the king. You are the king of love, of mercy, of salvation. And it is good for me-- it's good for all of us-- to contemplate your loving face. The saints always give us a great example of this. How often Saint Josemaria would say, "What must the gaze of Jesus be like?" And he would encourage us to look out, to seek out the face of Our Lord. Or the great Saint John Paul II: "The Church pauses in contemplation of this bleeding face, which conceals the life of God, and offers salvation to the world." Behold your King. Behold the man, indeed, the ultimate man with the capital M, the ultimate King. And Jesus, I want to seek Your face, as the psalmist says, "It is Your face, O Lord, that I seek. Hide not Your face from me, Lord." I want to seek Your face. I don't want to shy away from that love. Jesus, we love you. We reverence you. We adore you also, as you carry the cross. We don't want to leave you alone. We can hear the din, the noise; it is a hellish din, in fact. It's a moment when you might say the demons and Satan are somehow let loose, though it's very temporary victory for them, pathetic we might say. We see the crowds watching you. You're paraded through the streets. Ignominy, shame, humiliation. And through this, "by your wounds, we are healed." We want to get through the contemplation of the fourth sorrowful mystery. We sense, Lord, of the struggle you had to make it up to Calvary, get out of the city, through the city walls, up the side of the hill. How difficult that was! How loving each step was! In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read, "Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony, and his passion, and he gave himself up for each one of us." The Son of Man loved me and gave himself for me. "He has loved us all with a human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins and for our salvation, is quite rightly considered the chief sign and symbol of that love, with which the divine Redeemer continually loves the Eternal Father, and all human beings, without exception." Such a beautiful point in the Catechism. Jesus knew and loved us, each and all, during his life, his agony, and his passion, and gave himself up for each one of us. We can all say with Saint Paul, especially as we contemplate the carrying of the cross and the crucifixion of Our Lord, "the Son of Man loved me and gave Himself for me." Jesus, in turn, I would like to take all the graces, all the love of Your passion, and bring them to the people around me, to my family, to my friends, to the whole church, to the whole human race, especially to the people who are most in need of your mercy, most in need of your grace and your help. There is in the German city of Münster a very poignant crucifix in one of the old churches there, a church which was severely damaged during bombing during the Second World War, in which a large crucifix lost its arms. The crucifix was very badly damaged. The arms were blown off it, and after the war, the parishioners tried to fix their church, which they did, and they considered what to do with the crucifix. And instead of replacing the arms along the cross beam, they simply put this phrase in inverted commas: "I have no arms but yours." This is true, Lord. Despite our vulnerabilities, our own spiritual inadequacy, our poverty, we can be Your arms. We, in the company of Mary, can be the love of Jesus in our place of work, in our family, in our social life, in our sports life, and whatever we're doing, to be the loving arms of Jesus around His people. Jesus, help me to do that. I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me in this time of prayer. I ask your help in putting them into effect. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.