Reflecting on the Mysteries of the Rosary
May, in Roman Catholic circles, is Mary's month. It is often signaled by a May crowning, greater devotion to the Mother of God, and praying the rosary. To that end, I want to share a series of poems I've written reflecting on the Mysteries of the Rosary. These mysteries are events in the life of Christ and his mother that we are meant to meditate on as we pray the rosary. To aid in that meditation, I offer to you these poems. I hope they can encourage your spiritual life as we continue in this Eastertide.
Glorious Mysteries: Traditionally prayed on Sundays and Wednesdays
“Resurrection”
A poor man buried in a rich man’s tomb behind
A stone so large there are few who could move it.
Guarded by soldiers as though they feared the Wind
Might blow the body away and so remove it.
But on that Sunday morning the angels rolled
The stone to let the Living Man walk out.
Death had made an attack that was too bold,
His forces recoiled like an army in a rout.
Like snow in the Spring, Death’s power melted away,
Melted into water that lets the seeds
Once dead now spring to life and blossom and play.
They drink the water and on the Sun they feed.
The Son of Man and Son of God is risen,
And he has made a palace of our prison.
“Ascension”
For forty days the risen Lord went feasting,
Even cooking breakfast for his apostles.
But then the day arrived for his ascending,
And he blessed his friends, he dear disciples.
He had to go prepare a place for us,
A place he will bring at his returning.
Somehow he will, that day, transform our dust
Into a life of infinite enduring.
But we needn’t look up to see where he has gone,
For he has gone beyond both time and space.
Instead we must look into our hearts for his throne,
For that is where he made his resting place.
We take him with us throughout the entire world,
And preach the Good News of the living Word.
“Descent”
He ascended to send down the Spirit,
The Paraclete, the Helper for his siblings.
The Hidden Fire descended and appeared
As tongues of flame that set the people trembling.
They breathed in the Spirit then breathed out the Word,
Speaking in the tongues of all the nations
To spread the news of Christ to all the world,
And offer everyone eternal salvation.
So why do I still hide myself away,
Acting like this belongs to someone else?
Lead me through the fear and show me the way
To bring the Truth to others and to myself.
Descend on me, sweet Spirit from above,
And lead me to the final sphere of Love.
“Assumption”
An old woman on her deathbed tells
Her friends and family that they must still love
As they have been taught to do, and swell
Their breath full of grace from the Spirit of God above.
They must not weep as this is not her end;
Her son is coming down to bring her home.
Death will not take our holy Savior’s friend,
His loving mother whom he longs to welcome
Body and soul into his blessed kingdom.
And so the Son takes up his mother’s hand,
Lifting her from her mortal home and bed,
She ascends into the undying lands
Never being counted among the dead.
Immaculate, she came into and left the world,
The stars placed round her shoulders like a robe unfurled.
“Coronation”
Heaven’s holy queen was once a girl
Who lived and breathed in ancient Palestine.
Now she sits enthroned above the world
And champions the stars so they will shine.
Symbol of the world and church exalted,
Sophia crowned with stars and clothed with the Sun,
Standing on the Moon she is undaunted
By the dragon who once tried to ear her Son.
She is the example of the deified
Of the end for which each one of us was made.
Through her Son she left the dragon defied
But first she was the Lord’s humble handmaid.
And before she was crowned the glorious queen of heaven,
She rose by humility like bread enleavened.
Joyful Mysteries: Traditionally prayed on Mondays and Saturdays
“Annunciation”
“Let it be as you have said,” the Handmaid
Of the Lord gives her consent. Her Fiat
Echoes back to when God eternally brought
The stars, the earth and all that was ever made
Into its bright existence. Through what she said
Mary becomes a kind––though humanly not
Divinely––of co-creatrix; it is her lot
To be the Mother of our Lord and his handmaid.
But we should not forget that Heaven’s Queen
Was a young and humble Jewish girl.
She lived and loved and laughed and had her fears.
She walked the streets of Palestine, seen
And heard and likely suffered insults hurled
At her. This is our Queen, who cried real tears.
“Visitation”
Two pregnant women meet, it is so strange
To think that something so natural could lead
Them to a moment of eternal exchange
A moment so simple, like the counting of a bead.
And yet it is so oddly extraordinary,
Life makes its home in a woman’s womb,
Life which we think so dully ordinary
Is itself a gift, one lost too soon.
But when Mary meets her pregnant, Levite cousin,
One baby in a womb, he leaps for joy
In the presence of the one who undoes sin.
And Elizabeth, she longs for Mary’s boy.
Adding to the gift of their conceptions,
Our Savior meets them in this visitation.
“Nativity”
The night is cold when Mary begins to push,
She’s giving birth in the strangest circumstances.
For God is not coming in a flaming, unburnt bush,
Even if he comes during cosmic dances.
Recently wed, she seems like just a girl,
Just another Jewish girl who’s giving birth.
But this girl was about to change the world.
Because she said yes, the Savior comes to earth.
Surrounded by the animals of labor,
She labored on, pushing even harder,
Delivering up her Son who on Mt. Tabor
Would show himself as God in the human garden.
But Mary knew she’d one day feel the loss
Of seeing her Son dying on the cross.
“Presentation”
Too poor to buy the proper sacrifice,
Mary and Joseph buy two simple doves.
Their Son was the Lamb who’d one day pay the price,
On whom the Dove would descend, the Spirit of Love.
He brought joy to the hearts of Simeon and Anna
While He, the Word, lay cooing, infant-wordless.
They saw before them the living Manna,
The One who came to die, to fight while swordless.
They prophesied the rise and fall of many,
The redemption of eternal Jerusalem,
An old man and woman dreaming dreams of plenty,
Of the baby who at last had come to save them.
Present him to us, sweet Mary, holy mother,
That we may meet humanity’s true Lover.
“Finding”
Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem,
With all the precociousness of a twelve-year-old.
He knew his Father’s will could never fail him,
But still, you likely thought he should told
You where he was and not just disappear.
After all, it was you who had been given
The Son of God, he was placed in your care,
And yet it was his work, his job to enliven,
To give us life abundantly, with joy.
What did you think when you saw him sitting down
And all the priests listening to your little boy,
Teaching them before he received his crown?
Did you rejoice to see him at his work?
Could you see the devil waiting where he lurked?
Sorrowful Mysteries: Traditionally prayed on Tuesdays and Fridays
“Agony”
He asked his friends to wait with him a while,
So he could pray before his final hour.
He prayed for us, the lowly rank and file,
But he also prayed that he could be passed over.
Who would want to die upon the cross?
Who so easily would give up their life?
And yet, though he asked for the cup of death to pass
He would not abandon his adulterous wife.
He submitted his human will to the divine,
And sweat with blood before he died for us.
He would give up his life and all to give me mine,
And you yours. He would die for us and still be sinless.
Three times he had to wake his sleeping friends,
And even for them he would have to make amends.
“Scourging”
They tied you to a post and tore your skin,
All so Pilate could finally let you go.
But since it was the Truth he didn’t know,
He couldn’t keep you from the clamouring din,
The shouts of hate which represent our sin.
Still they whipped you, counting every blow,
Hoping with this gruesome, vulgar show
The cries to end your life would be reined in.
But Pilate could not stop the will of God,
And the evil desired would be turned to good,
And the blood you lost was only the down payment.
For death was about to swallow to big a Word,
One it could not speak in its evil mood,
Changing death into a beautiful raiment.
“Coronation”
They crowned you as befits your kingly station;
They put the imperial robe upon your shoulders.
They struck you and you gave no protestation,
And so they hit you harder feeling bolder.
The crown upon you head is filled with thorns,
Driving always into your aching head.
The crown grows red with blood as it is worn,
And still you are alive and not yet dead.
Stripped again, they leave you with your crown,
Believing with it you are humiliated.
They prepare to march you through the heart of the town,
Not knowing that their sins would be expiated.
You submit yourself to their cruel humility
Because you made us for sublimity.
“Carrying”
They make him carry a gallows on his back;
They make him tie the knot of his own noose.
They thought it was their choice, that he didn’t choose
To walk on this death march, on Death’s own track.
But in this the crowd and his tormentors lacked
The higher knowledge of just what it was
That Christ had come to do, and yet because
They didn’t know, he marched to his final act.
And so he walked the path to trample death,
Every step a toll to sound the end.
And on his back the means of execution,
Not for him, but for Death’s final breath.
He went to die so that he might send
Us to our home, our final resolution.
“Crucifixion”
“Cursed is the man who hangs upon a tree,”
So Moses told the ancient Israelites.
But you were there to be a curse for me,
To bring to an end by your kenotic might
The wages of our sin, our final death.
Not one of us was good enough to die,
Despite our souls breathed in by holy breath,
We were too trapped by sin to even try.
But by the death of God we reached at-one-ment,
Just as at his birth he joined his nature to ours.
But his death was the final, missing component,
Which allowed us to join the celestial choirs.
People watched him die in sullen mood,
But this was the Friday we’d one day soon call good.
Luminous Mysteries: Traditionally prayed on Thursdays
“Baptism”
Water rushed by, the Light of the Sun reflected,
Light, and water, and the descent of the dove,
And a voice, a thunderous voice, which echoed above,
For God had come in form and place unexpected.
He hallowed the waters before he was rejected.
John buried Christ and brought him up resplendent.
The waters changed that day, were filled with love.
He cleansed the waters, which cleanse us and reprove,
He washed the waters on which we are dependent.
Every drink I take, and every time I wash,
The hallowed water enters into my life.
It doesn’t matter that I’m made from ash.
He hallowed dust, just as he hallowed strife.
This hallowed water brings me to the hallowing Christ.
“Wedding”
“They’re out of wine,” his mother said to him.
“Woman, what has that to do with me?”
But water comes again, to make us see.
“Do what he says,” as she draws the servants in.
“Draw the water, fill the cups to the brim.”
By his desire for festive joy, for free
He gave the gift of wine. Matrimony
And all other celebrations are blessed from within.
So I now sip my glass of red, a cabernet
Or Pinot Noir. And I participate
In that wedding feast, the one which called ahead,
To the paschal feast on that fateful Lenten day.
So I have drunk his blood in wine, and I ate
His flesh under the guise of humble bread.
“Proclamation”
From mountainside, from boats and beaches the cry
Is heard of Kingdom come, of God among us.
In synagogues, he reads the scrolls about why
The servant came to set the captive, us,
Free. To cheer the poor, raise up the lowly,
And as his Mother said to Elizabeth,
He came to cast down from their throne the mighty.
This was his message, he would not take a breath
Until lifted up he took his last, the final
Breath, these words his final homily:
“Into your hands, I commend my spirit, all
Is done.” But we still need help, need eyes to see.
“Transfiguration”
Taboric light, shekinah mist unveils
The Truth, the hidden Light behind the Shadow.
The dull becomes radiant, and holy blows
The wind. The three men continue to tell their tale.
Moses and Elijah prep the Holy Grail.
Peter sees and kneels and bends and bows
While James and John sit silent, Peter knows
Not what to say, his understanding fails.
The Light and mist return from whence they come,
Only to find their way back to the earth.
For Christ and Spirit dwell inside us all,
And he united all things from our home
To his unapproachable divinity, our worth
Refreshed with light and life from one eternal.
“Institution”
He lifts himself when lifting up the bread,
And in the cup of wine they drink his blood.
He presents himself to us just as should
Because he is alive who once was dead.
With the whole of Christ we are wholly fed,
And are consumed by this our holy food.
We become what we eat, and this is good
For we are washed by his flesh and the blood he bled.
But how do I live this all consuming life?
And how is it the substance is transformed?
And how could he join to our humanity?
Consumed I no longer live for sin and strife,
But am transfigured by the one who performed
The final task. I in him and he in me.
