Our Lady’s and St. Dominic’s Message: You Matter in Infinite Ways (TA)

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Our Lady’s and St. Dominic’s Message: You Matter in Infinite Ways (TA)

 

Note how wonderful that is. But the essence, though, of praying in a way, at different times of the day, in the language of God, so that the language of God, godly sentiments, could begin to penetrate me. It’s a marvelous, marvelous insight. And it’s related to something that the Church has long referred to as the consecration of time.

The hundred and fifty Hail Marys wouldn’t be said all at once, but like the monks, different times of the day. Fifty in the morning. Fifty when we stop and break for lunch. And fifty again in the evening. The rhythm of the Angelus Devotion comes out of this. But note this idea then, at various times of the day, we turn to the Lord in prayer, speaking to God in the language of God.

Learning the Language of God

But this issue of wanting to learn the language of God is vital to really understanding the Rosary because it’s saying, I want my heart to be formed. I want my life to be formed. I don’t simply want to get answers that are things that I need or desire. And I want to grow into a way that is truly pleasing to the Lord.

And it’s in this context, something already exists that Dominic takes up his work against the Albigensian heresy in southern France, around Toulouse, and it extended out into Spain. That’s a fancy word, the Albigensians, we don’t talk about them anymore. But their heresy is a very common one, it was a heresy that was known as dualism.

And dualism holds to an absolute separation, an absolute opposition between the spiritual and the material. It accepts the existence of the spiritual, it accepts the existence of the material, but it separates them completely. In such a way that it basically says the material has no meaning and no value.

Spiritual and Material

And at first glance, at first hearing, that sounds directly opposed to the spirit of modern man today, which apparently says the material has all the meaning. Not quite. Because when you make that disconnection, and you say that the material, the body has no value, you open up the door to some terrible things.

First, on the level of truth, on the level of faith, if the body has no value and the body is no good, then Jesus suffering in the body has no meaning, has no value. The cross is a sham. Direct consequence. If what happens in the body has no value, then his death was a fraud. Now, what a remarkable thing that is.

Now again, it’s not like when the first person proposed this, they sat down and said, let me rule, let me write the death of Jesus out of the equation, but that is the necessary consequence. Then the other problem is this, if the body has no meaning, no value, then it doesn’t make any difference what I do with my body.

Now that begins to sound like the modern world, doesn’t it? My body, my choice. You know, we live in a world that says you can change your biology. Um, and so all of a sudden, if what happens with my body isn’t important, I can misuse my body. I can misuse my body. Further, I can abuse it. I can harm it. Because it doesn’t matter.

The Modern World

And so, it can encourage a certain wrong-headed spiritual excessiveness. Where penitential practices are destructive to one’s health. Because the body doesn’t matter. If the body doesn’t matter, well then, your poverty doesn’t either. If your body doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter that you’re sick and that you’re suffering.

Note the other consequence. Where’s compassion? If what happens in the body isn’t a big deal, why should I try to help you? And then third, if it doesn’t matter what I do with my body, I can indulge it any way I want. I can take advantage of any pleasure, any hedonistic desire that I want. Because it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t make any difference.

What only matters is how I feel in my spirit. And this too sounds very much like our modern world, doesn’t it? I have my truth. I have my good. And that’s what matters, not what I do, but what I feel. Now imagine being the poor guy whose job is to try and correct that. That was Dominic. This is why Our Lady is giving Dominic the rosary.

Why Does Our Lady Gives Us the Rosary?

And so, note, she’s not giving Dominic the rosary saying, here, this will help you. Grow in your own private relationship with God. And she’s not giving him the rosary to say, if you, if you pray this regularly, I will do what you ask me to do. As she’s saying to Dominic, you’ve called to me for help with this great problem that you are trying to address and solve, that affects the church, and it affects the world.

And what I’m going to do is I’m going to give you something to help you get that done. Now isn’t that, it changes how we understand what these beads are when we recognize that. Something has gone off course and needs to be corrected. The correction isn’t going to be coercive, but it has to be founded on the power of true prayer and true faith.

Dominic and Using the Rosary

And so. So, Our Lady inspires Dominic to take those beads that he already had possession of and do something new with them. And so Dominic goes out now against all of this and he’s going to use the rosary as a preacher’s tool and a teacher’s tool. And he’s going to teach people how to use the rosary in a way that the truth and a spirit of true prayer can begin to plant themselves within them.

So, the famous Dominican version of the Rosary is the one that many of us are familiar from our own childhood. Three sets of five decades, fifteen mysteries, joyful, sorrowful, and glorious. Note the structure, okay? It’s the same structure as the Creed. What does the Creed say? The Lord comes, He is incarnate by the Holy Spirit, and then immediately speaks of Him dying and rising in His body.

Note, joyful, sorrowful, and glorious. It’s the movement of the Creed. The genius of this original structure is that It wants to root the Apostles Creed. It wants to root the elements of the true faith within us. And the structure of the Rosary and the organization of those original 15 Mysteries is at the service of that.

The Rosary . . .

And so, the structure of the Rosary is itself a profession of Orthodox faith. What a remarkably beautiful thing that is. And so note… In a sense, what one is doing with 15 decades is one is meditating piece by piece on the fundamental truths of the creed that defines our faith. That’s absolutely remarkable.

But now let’s look at the essence of the way Dominic casts that. The incarnation means that the Word became flesh, right? We’ve all heard that. Hopefully we all believe that. Note, Jesus Christ then really is among us. His humanity, his bodily humanity is real. And so note, five mysteries focusing on the truth that Jesus came among us in the flesh.

The body matters. The material matters.

Reflecting on the reality that the Lord is with us in the flesh, what does Dominic then teach the people? He suffered for us in the flesh. And in saying that, he’s also saying to the people, your suffering then matters too, because the body matters, and it makes a difference what we do with our bodies.

Note how important that is. And the love that the Lord shows and expresses in his bodily suffering is real saving love, in fact. Note how powerful that is.

. . . is Itself . . .

And then, having reflected on that, That the Lord even dies in his body just like we do. How does Dominic begin the Glorious Mysteries? With the resurrection of the body. Followed by the Lord ascending into heaven in his body. Not without it. Note how remarkable that is. You know, there are these misguided notions that the body is merely the container of the soul, and when we die the soul sheds its container.

But that’s not our faith. That is not what we believe. And so note, Jesus full humanity rises from the grave. The full humanity of Jesus ascends into heaven as enthroned at the right hand of the Father. And then the Holy Spirit is sent upon the church that it might be the mystical body of Christ on earth.

Going forth with sacraments that have a material component to them. Because the body matters. And then we move to the Assumption of Our Lady. Note again, body and soul into heaven. All 15 of those mysteries are statements about the truth of the incarnation, the value of the body and its union with the spiritual.

Note how important that is. Because the minute that begins to register, it makes a difference on, in terms of how people live. All of a sudden, there’s a movement to say, what I do with my body and what I do to my body matters. And what I do to the body of somebody else matters too. I can’t be indifferent to that.

. . . a Profession of Faith

All of a sudden, if how I use my body, how I live in my body, which is where my living happens, you know, none of us lives merely in his head. None of us lives merely spiritually like the angels. Rather, our spiritual living is tied to our bodies and expresses itself in and through what we do with the body.

All of a sudden, I have to look at someone to learn how to live rightly in my body. And that’s the one whom I’ve been considering over these mysteries. So note now. In each of these mysteries, I turn to the way the Lord comes into the world in his body and what that shows me and what that teaches me. It shows the value of poverty.

Showing the Victory of Faithfulness

It shows the terrifying reality of suffering and yet the value of suffering offered to God. It shows the victory of faithfulness when one lives well in the body. Note how remarkable that is. And note how important that is for us in this day and age. Where we live, we find ourselves once again. You know, we, we don’t use words like dualism in ordinary conversation today.

Next to nobody knows who the Albigensians were. And yet, what do we see around us but a certain licentiousness. I have my truth. In other words, I don’t need to learn anybody else’s. So much for learning to speak in the language of God, so that I might live in a way that is pleasing to God. I can do whatever I desire with my body because it is my possession.

Note. On the one hand, that’s a remarkable statement about how important the body is, but it’s also a statement that says, no one can tell me what to do. And note how lonely that position becomes. I am alone with my body. And it makes no difference what I do. You’ve just told me then, what you do is not important.

Because I can do whatever I want and it makes no difference. And the only meaning and value I can give my actions is the meaning and value that I myself put on them. You know, and anybody who wants to live there for any length of time is going to discover how frustrating and disheartening that way of living is.

Learning What is Pleasing . . .

And so note what Dominic is doing. He’s using the Rosary as a way of rooting the basic elements, the basic narrative of the faith in the hearts of the people. But as he’s doing it, he’s also teaching them that in your prayer. Don’t think first about what you want. Think first about learning what is pleasing to God.

Note how different prayer sounds when I do it that way. Teach me, Lord, to pray to you in the way that pleases you, not the way that works for me. And all of a sudden, my convenience and my sense of how things go, it doesn’t disappear, but it doesn’t become the most important thing anymore. And Dominic is doing this to groups of people who begin praying together and he begins to unite them in a calming, seeking after the right spirit of Christian living.

. . . to God

He begins to unite them in a common movement of Christian living. Note how wondrous that is. And he gave them something that was easy to do and easy to learn. We are the ones who have made the Rosary terribly complicated. Because we add so much to it. And it’s not that the additions themselves are bad.

But there is a value in rediscovering the fundamentally basic beauty of the Rosary. Because when you’re working with people who couldn’t read a pamphlet even if you had them to give them, you have to have a tool that they can master without that. But they all knew the Our Father. They all knew the Hail Mary.

Note how simple that is. They all knew how to count to 10, even if they couldn’t write 1 and 0 next to each other. They knew that. And they knew the basic stories of the life of Jesus. And so note, note what Dominic is doing. He’s saying to them, you already know this. You were already given something. Let’s start with the beginning.

The angel Gabriel came to Mary. Note how wondrous that is. Hail, full of grace. And he reminded them, when you say the Hail Mary, you’re repeating the angel’s words. You’re repeating the angel’s message. Note how marvelous that is. You know the story of how Jesus died for us? Pause with it. Think about it. One piece at a time.

Pause with . . .

And how good that is. It’s overwhelming to think about all the details of the Passion at once, but you don’t need to do that. You can do it one piece at a time. And a little at a time you can learn more and more about it. The same for those other mysteries, those mysteriously glorious ones. But note as well how that puts in front of us a vision of human life.

We are born into this world more of us poor than who are rich. And we have to navigate our way in this world. And sooner or later in this world, suffering and sorrow and even death do come to us. That is, in fact, the truth. It doesn’t do any good to try and deny it and try and pretend that that’s not the case.

. . . the Mysteries

It doesn’t do any good to say, can we talk about something more happy? Because I’d rather not face reality. That doesn’t help. But you know, but, but again, that doesn’t also, that doesn’t mean we have to be grim, because the last word of the Rosary is glory. Note that movement from the cross to glory. Note how wondrous that is.

And as Dominic would be preaching, he’d be saying, this is not just what Jesus did for you, this is what Jesus is calling you to walk into and to live with Him. He took on flesh to share your humanity and your life. Because the ancient dictum of the church is, what has not been assumed, has not been saved.

And, that’s a mysterious expression, but it means simply this. Whatever Jesus didn’t take onto himself, he didn’t save. So if Jesus didn’t take suffering onto himself, he didn’t save it. If Jesus didn’t want to be bothered with your pain and didn’t want to share it, that wasn’t redeemed. So note, note what Dominic is also saying.

Your Life Matters

Your body matters to him, too. And your life matters to him. Because the only thing about you that he doesn’t take, and share is your sinfulness. Because he’s come to save you from that. Not to bring that with you. Note how wondrous that is. And then, to go further, as Dominic would be preaching and speaking and teaching the people, as he gathered them to himself in this way, he also reminded them, you are not alone.

You, in fact, have a mother. In addition to your earthly mother, and the Lord loves you so much that he shares his own mother with you. And so that when you pray the rosary, you are calling out to God, you say the Our Father. You have the mysteries of Jesus before your eyes. But then Dominic said, but let’s be honest.

Having Someone to Help You . . .

It’s hard to see clearly what’s there. Wouldn’t it be good if there was someone who could help you? Wouldn’t it be good if there was someone who could show you? In fact, there is, and it’s the one to whom you are speaking as you look at the face of Jesus and his mysteries. Note how wonderful that is. We look at Jesus in the mystery, but we’re not talking directly to him.

We say, Hail Mary, full of grace. It’s like I’m looking at Michael here, but talking to somebody else. And why am I talking to the other person? Not because I’m ignoring Michael, I’m talking to the other person because she knows him better than I do. And what I want her to do is tell me what to ask, or what to say, or where to look to know him better.

. . . Help You to Know Him Better

That’s the other power of the Rosary. It rests upon, it sits upon, the fact that I am in a relationship with Mary and that is part of my relationship with God. It is part of my relationship with Jesus. She’s not an obstacle to Christ. She’s part of my relationship with Christ. Note how beautiful that is.

The Hail Marys of the Rosary always follow the Our Father. First, I pray in the Spirit of Christ, and then, like Christ, I turn to my Mother, even as I continue to look at Him. And so note that my speaking to Mary is at the service of my learning to see and know and understand the truth of Jesus Christ.

You Become Who You See

This is why the Rosary is spiritually so very powerful. This is why the Rosary is morally so transformative. Because as Dominic taught the people, you become not what you see, you become who you see. And again, think of the world we live in. Think of the world we live in where what we see and who we see on a regular basis is that which destroys our peace.

That which invites us to diminish ourselves. We can live lives where all we see is our insecurity, all we see is our fear. We can be self indulgent and only seeing what might please me now. Or, I can learn to truly see. And this is where, as St. Louis de Montfort so wonderfully taught, we come to know this beautiful element of Our Lady that When she is with us, when she is present, she causes the face of her son to shine forth more brightly and more clearly.

When Our Lady is Present

It’s not that he’s not there. Our eyes are so easily clouded over we miss him. It’s that we have these sinful cataracts in our spiritual eyes that prevent us from fully opening them to his goodness. We need the help of one who can remove those a little at a time from our eyes that we might see and appreciate him.

Having Someone . . .

One of the classic examples of this is, you know, you’ve all been to a museum before, right? We know how the museum works. You go to the museum, there’s the art, there are the exhibits. And you go into an art museum, and a lot of times it works this way, you go into the museum, you see the great art, you know it’s great art, because that’s what everybody said, and that’s why it’s in a museum.

So you walk in, and the standpoint is, it’s got to be great, it’s in the museum. And, you know, we look, we look at these great examples of art from various periods of human history, and we look at them and say, yeah, that’s pretty nice. But I don’t get it. Or, you know, I, I wish I, I, I see it, but I wish I knew something about it.

. . . to Direct Us

We have that experience, don’t we? So, we, we know it, we know it must be great. They put it in the museum. Everybody’s told us it’s great, but we don’t know why it’s great. We don’t know what makes it great. Think of your rosary.

It can, it’s a gospel on a chain. We know it’s great. We know the mysteries are great. They’re the mysteries of Jesus. They’re in the Rosary. They’ve got to be good, right? But let’s be honest. Don’t we sometimes have that question of, I still can’t see what’s great about it. I know it’s great because it’s about Jesus.

I know it’s great. It’s here, but in the museum. You ever notice how sometimes there are tours in the museum? And there’s a small group of people and they have a guide. And they come into the gallery where we’re all looking at our different paintings. Trying to look like we really know what it is we’re looking at. And all of a sudden, the guide parks himself in front of one of the paintings and begins explaining it.

Further, you notice how everybody else in that gallery goes over and gloms on to his explanation. And why? Because he knows how to see the picture. He knows what to look for. The guide knows what the details mean. He knows why it’s great. And he’s not keeping that knowledge to himself like a secret. He’s helping us learn to see its greatness.

Our Lady Shows Us How to Appreciate the Greatness of Her Son

That’s what Our Lady helps us do when we are conscious of being with Her as we meditate on the mysteries. Our Lady is that one who’s not just convinced that they’re great, she knows the greatness of the mysteries of her son, because she treasures each and every one of them in her heart. And so from that treasury where she considers all things, note, she begins to instruct us out of the treasury of her consideration of the greatness of her son.

Of her appreciation of the greatness of her son. And that allows me, a little at a time, to begin looking into these mysteries with her, reorienting my gaze, opening my eyes, so that I see details that I miss. I see elements of them I didn’t understand before. And in understanding them, I can treasure them too.

The Real Fruit . . .

Because that’s the other element. The real fruit, in no small measure of praying the rosary regularly, is a double fruit. It’s the fruit of coming to know Jesus Christ so well, that I can become more like him. I become who I see. But for that to be true, I have to see him. I have to rightly see him. But it also means that my heart itself becomes something of a storeroom, something of a treasury just like Our Lady’s.

What do we hear in Scripture? She treasured all these things in her heart. Dominic’s goal, in no small measure, as Our Lady taught him, was that she wants to share that characteristic of her heart with the Christian faithful. That we hold all of these things as treasures in our heart, where with regularity, we can reflect upon them, like she did.

. . . of The Rosary

Not as perfectly, not as clearly, not as purely, not as constantly. but like her in a very real way. What a wonderful gift that is. What an absolutely wonderful gift that is. And it’s in this context that we now begin to speak of the Rosary in terms of those other kinds of victories. Over those powers that oppress us.

Over those forces that threaten us. And, over realities in the world that are hostile and overwhelming. Or realities in ourselves and in our lives that are just difficult. But note, note how different a prayer that calls to heaven for help is when it rises from a heart that has begun to treasure the greatness of Christ than from a heart that still doesn’t know him.

And again, it’s not to say that that other prayer is bad, but it is different. It is different. And when we look at great examples of the power of the rosary in history, it wasn’t just that it was the beads that desperate people grabbed. It was the prayer that had been forming the prayerfulness, the faithfulness, the hearts of the faithful, and from those hearts it rose.

The Power to Change Things

Were all the hearts equally formed? No. Were all hearts equally good? No. But when the Rosary is said together, there’s a tremendous additive power about it, where stronger hearts carry upward the prayers of weaker hearts, where weaker hearts in their own ways help to sustain the strong so that they don’t exhaust themselves so much.

It’s a marvelous, marvelous treasure and a marvelous gift. The Rosary is powerful to change things, but it’s powerful to change the world because it is first powerful to change our hearts and our spirits. That’s why when St. Louis de Montfort wrote his little book on the Rosary, the common title of it is The Secret of the Rosary.

The Admirable Secret

That’s a nice, easily understood title, isn’t it? Except it’s not the title he gave the book. You know, we in our modern world, we like things to be short. Well except me, I always go long. Um, but In the, but it’s in the spirit of my founder, whose little book was given a big title. The admirable secret of the most holy Rosary so that you can convert and be saved.

That’s, that’s the actual title of the book.

And note all of a sudden what I hear, the rosary sounds different. When you know, you hit me in the head with a title like that. It’s not this nice little tool for your spiritual growth. It’s not a good prayer to say as you’re learning your faith. It is those things. But know what Father de Monfort says.

It contains within it a secret, an admirable secret, not a trivial secret. Not an ordinary secret, but something admirable. And this secret to be valued is at the service of the conversion of my heart. So that I can be saved.

At The Service of Conversion of My Heart

When was the last time you pulled your rosary out of your pocket and thought, I have a vehicle toward my salvation in my hands? And therefore, I have a vehicle that works toward the salvation of the world. What a remarkable thing that is, but what’s the key? The conversion, the transformation of my character.

Because we’re not saved by merely intellectual conversion. Conversion has to be the conversion of the person. Intellectually, morally, spiritually. And so again, we come back to Dominic. The body matters. In other words, my complete life and your complete life matter. And they matter to an infinite degree.

What I Do . . . Matters

Because what I do in this life that I have in my body in time determines my salvation.

That’s the other thing that gets lost when you say the body doesn’t matter. And so note. Note what that says about the intrinsic value of my everyday choices, the intrinsic value of my everyday living. Let alone the great and infinite value of what I do across the length and the breadth of my life. And the essence is it matters.

And when St. Dominic tells people it matters what you do, what he’s really saying to them is you matter. You matter in an infinite way. And what you do matters. How you live matters. Therefore, if it matters that much, maybe we want to get it right. And so, he would say to them, let’s start with this. Let’s start with this.

And in no small measure precisely because it is a chain. Not the chain that prisoners wear, not a chain that enslaves, but a chain that joins. A chain that unites. And this chain of Hail Marys and this chain of mysteries is at the service of uniting our lives more.

What a great, what a great gift that is. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.