MEMORIAL OF OUR LADY OF THE HOLY ROSARY - 2021

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!
Blessed art thou among women. LK 1:28

ACTS 1:12-14 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Where Peter and the Apostles are there is the Church and where the Church is there is Mary, the Mother of God, and our Mother, the last most precious given by You to us while You were in the last throes of Your agony on the Cross. 

Anyone who rejects Your Mother Mary is not in full communion with the Church. We are the Church, are members of Your Body. The Twelve are the foundation stones on which the Church stands on Peter, the Rock, and You, its Cornerstone. Christians can quibble until the cows come home, but the unvarnished truth is this, “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” 

After Your Ascension into heaven, the Apostles, as instructed by You, were in the upper room, with them were Mary, Your Mother, the women who followed You to the end, and Your relatives. Here we have the first glimpse of the nascent Church. Peter, the Apostles, Mary, who is the Arc of the New Covenant, and every believer who is a member of Your Body and hence are Your sisters and brothers.  

Today, as the Church celebrates our Mother as the Queen Warrior who has given us the most effective weapon, the Holy Rosary, to battle and defeat the Enemy, let us resolve to pray this prayer so dear to the heart of both Mother and Son every day for as long as we live.

LUKE 1:46-55 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

The most luminous beauty of our blessed Mother comes precisely from the fact that she who is all perfection knows full well that all that she possesses of goodness, purity, truth, and beauty is God's gift to her. She is aware of her exquisite loveliness because she is God's masterpiece preserved from every stain of sin including original sin, by the merits of Your salvific work of redemption on the Cross, by You, her Son, who is God and hence outside of time and space.

There is no more glorious, more beautiful, more enthralling a prayer than the Magnificat that burst forth from the lips of Mary at the Visitation. It is a love song inspired by her Spouse the Holy Spirit. Its words express the thoughts of one who has spent her entire life contemplating God and when her cousin Elizabeth, who in turn was inspired by the Holy Spirit to recognize that she was in the presence of the Mother of our Lord, the floodgates of loving praise burst forth from the heart of one who possessed God and was possessed by God.

Mary's endearing and profound humility comes from her awareness that she was chosen by God and was sinless because of the singular grace she received from God. It would do us well, proud sinful creatures that we are, to be aware that but for the grace of God we are deserving of hell. 

Blessed is the Virgin Mary, who bore the Son of the eternal Father.

LUKE 1:26-38 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

God's plan of salvation since the dawn of creation will finally come to pass when Mary says yes. But the question had to be asked, and her answer had to be given before the salvific work of His Son could commence. God who created this magnificent, peerless creature, along with the heavenly hosts waited with bated breath for this young virgin to give her consent. Her free will was His gift to her and at no point would He coerce her - she could freely say yes or no. Her gift to the God she loved was a joyous, wholehearted yes.

All the glory and reverence we give Mary rebounds to God. You were the Son of God and the Son of Mary, hence she is Mother of God. She was conceived without original sin because she is the Ark of the New Covenant. Only the Levites could touch the Ark of the Covenant, Uzzah touched it and died. How much holier is Mary, who conceived the Son of God by the Holy Spirit. She is full of grace, she is the most highly favored of all human beings and God has raised her higher than the angels. 

The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are constantly outdoing each other to heap grace upon grace on her who is God's greatest masterpiece in all creation.