by Susan Fox
Christian Pastor James J. Brown is pro-life, favors Traditional Marriage and understands the dangers of Islam. But he doesn't understand why Catholics pray the Rosary. This is his notice to Catholics on Google:
Pastor James J. Brown, such is vain ignorance.
The
Rosary is a meditation on Scripture itself. It is the vast training ground of
prayer and therefore the door that opens when Christ knocks.
It leashes
the three dogs of useless talking, vain imagination and a cold heart towards
God. These three dogs are trying to pull us in three different directions. The
Rosary --
 |
Useless talking, vain imagination and cold heart pulling
us in different directions |
properly prayed -- ties up these fractious dogs and allows us to love
God with our whole heart!
The first
dog resides in our wagging lips. This dog will waste our time rattling
endlessly so much flotsam and jetsam. "Did you hear what that no good
bloke said to me yesterday?" "Why is she dressed like that?"
“Silence.
Pray,” the angel says. “Listen to me:” "Hail
Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and
blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus." (Luke 1:28,31) When the
disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, His answer was: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
Name." How can
we go wrong praying what Our Lord Himself told us to pray, and doing it five
times during the entire Rosary?
The
second wild dog is our own imagination. While you are trying to pray, are you
not endlessly distracted with thoughts about what someone said to you
yesterday, or what you will eat at dinner? This dog is pulling you away
from God. When we pray the Rosary,
we must THINK about the very Life of Jesus
as we have read about it in Scripture! These are called the mysteries of the Rosary.
We think of His Birth, how the angels came to the little people of the world --
the shepherds, inviting them to the Birth in the manger. Pray about the excited
response of the shepherds! They got up and ran to where the Child lay in the
manger! Lord, give me that excitement in Your Presence!
During
the Rosary, we think about the Wise Men who traveled far to give Him gifts fit
for a King, God and Sacrifice. Do you realize the implications of that? Here is
God come in the flesh willing to die for our sins. Already, at His Birth,
foreign kings understood this. And the usurper King Herod, who was not born of
the line of David, also understood the significance of Christ’s Birth. When he
realized that the foreign kings had double-crossed him by not returning to give
him the location of the Messiah, he sent his guards into Bethlehem (meaning “House of Bread”) to kill the true King along with all the male children age two and under.
"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." (Matt 2:18)
In the
Holy Rosary, we think of Christ’s Life -- His presence at the Wedding Feast of
Cana. Here He worked His first public miracle at the request of His Mother.
We ponder Jesus’ Baptism in the River Jordan, how this holy guy named
John the Baptist didn't think he was fit to tie Jesus' sandals! Why not? What
is different about Jesus? Isn’t He just a man?
While
praying the Rosary, we think of the parables of the Kingdom of God. What do
they tell us about Christ? Is not the Kingdom of God the very Life of Christ
within us? We pray about His Transfiguration, the manifestation of His
Glory, which so confused the apostles that they wanted to build three altars!
We
meditate on the Last Supper. "This is my Body. This is My Blood." Lo,
He didn't say, “This is the symbol of my Body. This is the symbol of my Blood.”
He literally said, “This is my Body.” And since it is Christ saying it, we know
He made it true.
"I am the living
bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live
forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My
flesh." Then the Jews began to
argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to
eat?"
(John 6: 51-52)
How is it
that those Jews knew Christ was telling them to eat His flesh, and you Bible
beginners don’t know that Christ told us to eat His flesh -- even though you use
your lips to say Scripture is infallible? You don’t think Scripture is
infallible! You think you are infallible, and your out-of-context interpretation
is infallible.
Many
Catholics go to daily Mass where Christ's one Mediation in time is
re-presented. This is what Christ was talking about! “This is my Body! This is
my Blood!” We Catholics are time travelers because at every Mass we participate
in His original Last Supper and His original Passion, Death and Resurrection.
We eat the Real Body and Blood of Christ every day as He commanded literally. We
hear His Gospel daily, the Word of God!
It's not because He needs to die over and over again. No, He does it once. But we are human beings. We are weak. We need the nourishment of His Passion, Death and Resurrection every single day.
Christ willed to accompany us daily during our entire lives! Yes, He is present in the Word of God, in which we rejoice during the Mass, during the Liturgy of the Hours, and during our private Bible reading. The Word of God is the complete focus of our meditation in the Rosary! Daily we can receive the Word of God, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist! Daily we can focus on His Word praying the Rosary.
In praying
the Rosary, we think about His Passion. We comfort Him in the Garden while the apostles
sleep. We watch in horror His scourging at the pillar, which He so
mercifully suffered, for our sakes. We stand with Him as He is mocked,
humiliated and scorned during the crowning of thorns.
We walk
with Him and Simeon, carrying the cross. We see the kindness and generosity of
Jesus as He meets the people along the way, telling them not to weep for Him,
but for their own children. While He suffered on the way to Calvary, He felt
pity for Jerusalem, which he knew would be destroyed in 35 short years by the
Romans.
"Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How
often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her
chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. "Behold, your house is
being left to you desolate! “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me
until you say, 'BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!'" (Matthew 23: 37-39)
In the
Rosary, we kneel at the foot of the cross as He says, "Behold Your Mother!" We rejoice in the honor shown to
Mary by Her Son along with St. Paul, who said "And
if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is
honored, all the members rejoice with it.” (1 Cor 12:26) Mary is honored by the angel at the
Annunciation, honored by the Son at His death, honored by the Church at its
Birth on Pentecost, and honored by Elizabeth in the Bible when she says, "Who am I that the Mother of my Lord should come to
me?" (Luke
1:43) If all these in the Bible honored Mary, why should we not do so?
On the
cross, He owned nothing! Not even His clothes. And He gave His last remaining and
most precious possession away! His Mother. “Behold
Your Mother!” We are to take her into our home.
During
the Rosary we meditate on the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This leashes the dog of the imagination that wants to run wild and think about
something vain and worthless like chastising Catholics who honestly worship in
Spirit and Truth when they pray the Rosary.
The third
dog to be leashed is the heart. Oh the heart wants to run after riches, getting
things done (prayer is useless), wasting time thinking about a shiny bobble or
a new car. The heart wants to stick its nose in other people’s business. The
heart slyly wants to admire itself. It does this so the human being isn't aware
of it. “Aren't I good? Don't I do good things for God?” says the heart.
But the
Rosary restrains the dog of the heart, and encourages it to wholeheartedly turn
to God, its Creator. The Rosary softens the heart, makes it grateful for the job
God did to save its worthless hide. “God so loved the world
that He gave His only Son!” (John 3:16)
Jesus was upset when he realized the Jews were thinking that
Moses gave them the manna in the desert. You can almost hear the frustration in
His voice: “It
is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who
gives you the true bread from heaven.”
Hush, now,
I am praying the First Joyful Mystery of the Rosary and therefore I am in the
room where the angel comes to announce to Mary that she will be the Mother of
God. I notice how sweetly she accepts the will of God. She clearly recognizes
that the angel invites her to be the Mother of the Messiah. She fully knows
what he means because she uses the words of the Messianic Psalm 116 to accept
the will of God:
"O LORD, surely I
am Your servant, I am Your servant, the son of Your handmaid, You have loosed
my bonds. To You I shall offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And call upon the
name of the LORD. I shall pay my vows to the LORD, Oh may it be in the presence
of all His people" (Psalm 116:16-18)
And Mary
response shows she read that psalm. She understood it. She knew God was asking
her to be the Mother of God. "Behold the
Handmaid of the Lord, Be it done to me according to Your Word." (Luke 1:38) She would be the mother
of the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, the prophesized Messiah.
But her
statement: “How shall this be done, because I know
not man” is also prophetic.
(Luke 1:34) She is not just talking about her virginity though she is a virgin.
She is talking directly to God with a very important question that any good Jew
would ask. The angel’s response gives us a clue to what she is asking.
“The Holy Spirit will
come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy
one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1: 35)
How did God
enter the Temple the first time? God entered the Temple through a cloud that
overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant. And the Glory of the Lord traveled with
the Israelites in the form of a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. “And it came to pass, when the priests came out of the holy
place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could
not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the Lord filled
the house of the Lord. (I Kings 8:10-11)
Tragically,
Ezekiel sees the Glory of the Lord leave the temple about 600 years before the
Birth of Christ. And Mary is aware of this. She knew God’s presence left the
temple before she was born because of Israel’s secret worship of abominations
in the Temple. God asks Ezekiel, “Have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the
darkness” (Ezekiel
8:12).
The
horror that Ezekiel saw and reported in chapters 8-11 is fulfilled when the
armies of Babylon destroy the city and slay its inhabitants in 586 B.C.
“How can this be? I know
not man.” The young
Jewish virgin asks God, knowing that God’s Hand left the Temple because of her
people’s transgressions. “Are you coming back?” she asked.
The angel
tells her, “Yes. He’s coming back. You are the new Temple. The Cloud will now
overshadow you, most highly favored daughter of Israel. You are the New Ark of
the Covenant.” “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of
God.” (Luke 1: 35)
So my heart
is totally engaged in this scene, not only out of love of Mary, whom I do honor,
but out of love of God, Whom I adore. I marvel at His plan for our salvation. I see He has
taken care of every detail. My heart is enkindled with love for Him. Never once
did I blasphemy because all true devotion to Mary is Christ centered.
Mary is
transparent – almost invisible. She is a magnifying glass for God. It’s in the
Bible: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit
has rejoiced in God my Savior!” (Luke 1:46) She is the little key that opens the
door of our hearts to God, the King of Glory. "Behold your Mother."
We say the
words of the angel, “Hail Mary,” and she turns to Christ and gives Him our Greetings.
We put our
imagination to work and think of the moment of the Annunciation. We bury
ourselves in the Great Cloud that descended on her during the Conception of
Christ in her womb and she turns to Christ and gives Him our imagination.
We turn our
hearts to what is taking place in the Scriptures, and Mary takes our hearts, softens them, and gives them to God Himself.
She is an Intercessor par excellente. We are all called to be such.
And when
the Rosary is finished. I take a little flower from the bouquet of what I have
given to God, and I press it to my nose all day long. And so I have Peace. Not the
peace that the world gives, but the Peace that Christ gives.
And that is
the power of the Holy Rosary.
