Day 15, GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, Friday May 15

In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be. And whither I go you know, and the way you know. (Jn. 14:3-5)

Friday after the Ascension

Dom Gueranger, Liturgical Year

The feast of the Ascension shows us the work of God in its completion. Hence it is that the Church in her daily offering of the holy sacrifice thus addresses the eternal Father the words occur immediately after the consecration and contain the motives of her confidence in the divine mercy:

“Wherefore O Lord we Thy servants as also Thy holy people calling to mind the blessed Passion of Christ Thy Son our Lord His Resurrection from the dead and His admirable Ascension into heaven offer unto Thy most excellent Majesty a pure holy and unspotted Host. “

It is not enough for man to hope in the merits of his Redeemer's Passion which cleansed him from his sins it is not enough for him to add to the commemoration of the Passion that of the Resurrection whereby our Redeemer conquered death man is not saved he is not reinstated except by uniting these two mysteries with a third the Ascension of the same Jesus who was crucified and rose again. During the forty days of His glorified life on earth Jesus was still an exile and like Him we also are exiles until such time as the gate of heaven which has been closed for four thousand years shall be thrown open both for Him and for us God in His infinite goodness made man for an end higher than that of being mere lord of creation. gave him a higher destiny than that of knowing truths as his natural powers could grasp. […] Though inferior to the angel and uniting in himself two natures of matter and spirit man was created the same end as the angel Both were to dwell for in heaven both were to be eternally happy the face to face vision of God that is in the closest with the sovereign Good Grace that wondrous and divine to fit them for the supernatural end prepared for them by the gratuitous goodness of their Creator. This was the design which God had decreed from all eternity to raise up to Himself these creatures that He had drawn out of nothingness and to enrich them agreeably to their sublime destiny with the treasures of His love and His light.  […]

Our earth presents to our Creator a new Adam He cannot stay here for He has conquered death He must ascend to heaven and if her gates be closed she must open them and receive Him “Lift up your gates, O ye princes and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates and the King of glory shall enter in.” Oh that He would take us thither with Him for He is our brother and He assures us that His delight is to be with the children of men. But what a joy it is for us to see our Jesus ascend to heaven! He is the holiest the purest the loveliest of our race. He is the Son of a spotless Mother – let Him go and represent us in the kingdom of our inheritance. It is our own earth that sends Him, she is no longer a desert now that she has produced such a flower and such a fruit for heaven. A flood of light poured into this lowly vale of tears when the gates of heaven were raised up to receive Him. Be Thou exalted O Lord in Thine own strength, and we who are still on the earth will sing and praise Thy power. Receive, O eternal Father, the brother whom we send to Thee.  Sinners though we are, this brother of ours is infinitely holy and perfect Where is the curse that once fastened on our earth The earth hath given her fruit.  [Let us rejoice in the Ascension, by which the work of the rescue of Adam and Eve was restored to Thee!]

Day 14, SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, Ascension Thursday May 14

Ascension Thursday

LESSON

Acts 1:1-11

In the former treatise I made, O Theophilus, of all things which Jesus began to do and to teach, Until the day on which, giving commandments by the Holy Ghost to the apostles whom he had chosen, he was taken up. To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion, by many proofs, for forty days appearing to them, and speaking of the kingdom of God. And eating together with them, he commanded them, that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but should wait for the promise of the Father, "which you have heard"(saith he) "by my mouth. For John indeed baptized with water: but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, not many days hence."

They therefore who were come together, asked him, saying: "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?" But he said to them: "It is not for you to know the time or moments, which the Father hath put in his own power: But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the uttermost part of the earth."

And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they were beholding him going up to heaven, behold two men stood by them in white garments. Who also said: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand you looking up to heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven."

From The Liturgical Year, Dom Gueranger

Let us see what effects the mystery of the Ascension has produced on this land of our exile. These effects are of the most extraordinary nature.  Our Saviour Himself explains it to us, by the words He spoke to His apostles after the last Supper: “It is,” said He, “expedient to you that I go.” What means this, but that there is something more advantageous to us than having Him visibly present amongst us? This mortal life is not the time for seeing and contemplating Him, even in His human Nature. To know Him, and relish Him, even in His human Nature, we stand in need of a special gift; it is faith. Now, faith in the mysteries of the Incarnate Word did not begin its reign upon the earth, until He ceased to be visible here below. 

Who could tell the triumphant power of faith? St. John gives it a glorious name; he says: “It is the victory which overcometh the world.” It subdued the world to our absent King; it subdued the power and pride and superstitions of paganism. It won the homage of the earth for Him who has ascended into heaven, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, Jesus. And this blessed faith, which is our very life, gives us, at the same time, all the light compatible with our mortal existence, for knowing and loving the Word consubstantial with the Father, and for the just appreciation of the mysteries which this Incarnate Word wrought here below in His Humanity.

It is now eighteen hundred years since He lived on the earth; and yet we know Him better than His disciples did before His Ascension. Oh! Truly it was expedient for us that He should go from us; His visible presence would have checked the generosity of our faith. And it is our faith alone that can bridge over the space which is to be between Himself and us until our ascension comes, and then we shall enter within the veil.  Glory, then, and thanks to Thee O Jesus, who to console us in Thine absence, hast given us faith, whereby the eye of our soul is purified, the hope of our heart is strengthened, and the divine realities we possess tell upon us in all their power!  Preserve within us this precious gift of Thy gratuitous goodness; give it increase; and when our death comes—that solemn hour which precedes our seeing Thee face to face—Oh, give us the grand fullness of our dearest faith!

Day 13, JOYFUL MYSTERIES, May 13, Feast of Our Lady of Fatima

Apparition of May 13, 1917

Leading their flock out from Aljustrel on the morning of the 13th of May, the feast of Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament, the three children passed Fátima, where the parish church and cemetery could be found, and proceeded a kilometer or so north to the slopes of the Cova. Here they allowed their sheep to graze as they played in the pasture land sprinkled with the occasional oak tree. After having had their lunch about noon they decided to pray a rosary, although in a somewhat truncated fashion, saying only the first words of each prayer. Shortly, they were startled by what they later described as "lightening in a clear sky." Thinking that a storm might be approaching they debated whether they should take the sheep and go home. Preparing to do so they were again surprised by a strange light.

And we began to go down the slope driving the sheep towards the road. When we were half-way down, near a holm oak there [the large tree which today is encircled with an iron fence], we saw another flash of lightening, and after a few steps we saw on a holm oak [a small one lower on the hillside] a lady dressed in white, shining brighter thanthe sun, giving out rays of clear and intense light, just like a crystal goblet full of pure water when the fiery sun passes through it. We stopped astounded by the Apparition. We were so near that we were in the light that encircled her, or which she radiated, perhaps a meter and a half away [4-5 feet].

Please don't be afraid of me, I'm not going to harm you.

Lucia responded for all three, as she would throughout the apparitions.

"Where are you from?"

I come from heaven. 

The Lady wore a pure white mantle, edged with gold and which fell to her feet. In her hands the beads of a rosary shone like stars, with its crucifix the most radiant gem of all. Still, Lucia felt no fear. The Lady's presence produced in her only gladness and confident joy.

"And what do you want of me?"

I want you to return here on the thirteenth of each month for the next six months, and at the very same hour. Later I shall tell you who I am, and what it is that I most desire. And I shall return here yet a seventh time.

"And shall I go to heaven?"

 Yes, you will.

"And Jacinta?" 

She will go too. 

"And Francisco?" 

Francisco, too, my dear, but he will first have many Rosaries to say. 

For a few moments the Lady looked at Francisco with compassion, tinged with a little sadness. Lucia then remembered some friends who had died.

"Is Maria Neves in heaven?" 

Yes, she is.

"And Amelia?" 

She is in purgatory. She will be in Purgatory until the end of the world.

Will you offer yourselves to God, and bear all the sufferings He sends you? In atonement for all the sins that offend Him? And for the conversion of sinners?

"Oh, we will, we will!"

Then you will have a great deal to suffer, but the grace of God will be with you and will strengthen you.

Lucia relates that as the Lady pronounced these words, she opened her hands, and we were bathed in a heavenly light that appeared to come directly from her hands. The light's reality cut into our hearts and our souls, and we knew somehow that this light was God, and we could see ourselves embraced in it. By an interior impulse of grace we fell to our knees, repeating in our hearts: "Oh, Holy Trinity, we adore You. My God, my God, I love You in the Blessed Sacrament."

The children remained kneeling in the flood of this wondrous light, until the Lady spoke again, mentioning the war in Europe, of which they had little or no knowledge.

Say the Rosary every day, to bring peace to the world and an end to the war.

After that she began to rise slowly in the direction of the east, until she disappeared in the immense distance. The light that encircles Her seemed to make a way amidst the stars, and that is why we sometimes said we had seen the heavens open.

Day 12, GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, Tuesday May 12

 from Vigil of the Ascension, by Dom Gueranger, Liturgical Year

We begin to count the hours of the last day which the Son of God is to spend upon earth in His visible presence. During these three days, we seem to have forgotten that the time of separation is close upon us; but not: the thought itself, and the humble supplications we have been presenting to heaven, in union with holy Church, have prepared us to celebrate the last mystery achieved by our Emmanuel on earth.

The disciples are all assembled in Jerusalem. They are grouped around the blessed Mother, in the cenacle, awaiting the hour when their divine Master is to appear to them for the last time. Recollected and silent, they are reflecting upon all the kindness and condescension He has been lavishing upon them during the last forty days; they are ruminating upon the instructions they have received from His sacred lips. They know Him so well now! They know in very deed that He came out from the Father. (St. John, xvii. 8.) As to what regards themselves, they have learned from Him what their mission is: they have to go, ignorant men as they are, and teach all nations; (St. Matt. xxviii. 19.) but (Oh sad thought!) He is about to leave them; yet a little while, and they shall not see Him! (St. John, xvi. 16.)

What a contrast between their sorrow and the smiling face of nature, which is decked out in her best, for she is going to celebrate the triumphant departure of her Creator! The earth is blooming with the freshness of her first-fruits, the meadows have put on their richest emerald, the air is perfumed with blossom and flower; and all this loveliness of spring is due to the bright sun that shines upon the earth to give her the gladness and life, and is privileged to be, both by its kingly splendor and the successive phases of its influence upon our glove, the grand symbol of our Emmanuel's passage through this world.

Let us go back in through to the dismal days of the winter solstice. The sun looked then so pallid; his triumph over night was slow and short; he rose, and sank again, often without our seeing him; his light had a certain timid reserve about it, and his heat was, for weeks, too feeble to rescue nature from the grasp of frost. Such was our divine Sun of Justice, when first He came on earth; His rays made but little way in the world's thick gloom; He kept His spend our in, lest men should be dazzled by too sudden a change from darkness to light. Like the material sun, He gained upon the world by slow advances; and even so, His progress was shrouded by many a cloud. His sojourn in the land of Egypt, His hidden life at Nazareth, were long periods during which He was wholly lost sight of. But when the time came for all magnificence, upon Galilee and Judea; He spoke as one having power (St. Matt. vii. 29), His works bore testimony to His being God (St. John, x, 25.), and the people hailed Him with the cry of 'Hosanna to the Son of David!'

He was almost at the zenith of His glory, when suddenly came the eclipse of His Passion and Death. For some hours, His enemies flattered themselves that they had for ever put out His light. Vain hope! On the third day, our divine Sun triumphed over this final obstruction, and now stands in the firmament, pouring out His light upon all creation, but warning us that His course is run. For He can never descend; there is no setting for Him; and here finishes the comparison between Himself and the orb of day. It is from heaven itself that He, our beautiful Orient, is henceforth to enlighten and direct us, as Zachary foretold at the birth of the Baptist (St. Luke, 1:79.). The royal prophet, too, thus exultingly sang of Him: 'He hath rejoiced, as a great, to run the way: His going out is from the highest heaven, and His circuit even to the summit thereof: and there is no one that can hid himself from His heat. (Ps. 18:6,7).

This Ascension, which enthroned our Emmanuel as the eternal center of light, was, by His own decree, to take place on one of the days of the month which men call May, and which clothes in its richest beauty the creation of this same God, who, when He had made it, was pleased with it, and found it very good (Gen. 1:31). Sweet month of May! Not gloomy and cold like December, which brought us the humble joys of Bethlehem; not lowering and clouded like March, when the Lamb was sacrificed on Calvary; but buoyant with sunshine, and flowers, and life, and truly worth to be offered, each year, to Mary, the Mother of God, for it is the month of her Jesus' triumph.

O Jesus! Our Creator and our Brother! Our eyes and heart have followed Thee from Thy first rising upon our world. We have celebrated, in the holy liturgy, each of Thy giant steps. But Thy very growth in beauty and brightness told us that Thou must one day leave us, to go and take possession of the place that was alone worthy of Thee, the throne at the right hand of Thine eternal Father. The splendor that has been on Thee since Thy Resurrection, is not of this world; Thou canst no longer abide among us. Thou hast remained here below, for these forty days, only for the sake of consolidating Thy work' and tomorrow the earth that has been blessed with Thy presence for three and thirty years, will be deprived of its privilege and joy. We rejoice at Thy approaching triumph, as did Thy blessed Mother, Thy disciples, Mary Magdalene and her companions; but we are sad at the thought of losing Thee, and Thou wilt forgive us. Thou wast our Emmanuel, our 'God with us'; henceforth, Thou art to be our Sun, our King, reigning from the throne of heaven, and we shall no longer be able to hear Thee, nor see Thee, nor touch Thee, O Word of life(I St. John 1:1.).

Still, dearest Jesus, we say to Thee with all our hearts: Glory and love be to Thee, for Thou hast treated us with infinite mercy! Thou owedst nothing to us; we were unworthy of a single look from Thee; and yet Thou camest down to this sinful earth, Thou hast dwelt among us, Thou hast paid our ransom by Thy Blood, Thou hast re-established peace between God and man. Oh, yes! It is most just that Thou shouldst now return to Him that sent Thee. The Church, Thy bride, consents to her exile; she thinks only of what is most glorious to her Jesus; and she thus addresses Thee, in the words of the Canticle: 'Flee way, O my Beloved! And be swift as the roe and as the young hart, and ascend to the mountains, where the flowers of heaven exhale their sweet fragrance (Cant. viii. 14.)!' Can we, poor sinners as we are, refuse to imitate this loving resignation of her, who is Thy bride, and our mother?

Day 11, SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, Monday May 11

Novena 2, Day 2, PETITION

They fixed the ladder against the Cross. Joseph of Arimathea mounted first , and Nicodemus after him. Mary, with John and Magdalen, remained immediately beneath them. It seemed as if some supernatural grace issued forth from the Adorable Body, and encircled them round, softening and subduing all their thoughts , making their hearts burn with divine love, and hushing them in the deepest and most thrilling adoration. Old times came back upon the Mother’s heart, and the remembrance of the other Joseph, who had been so often privileged to handle the limbs and touch the Sacred Flesh of the Incarnate Word. It would have been his office to have taken Jesus down from the Cross. But he was gone to his rest, and one that bore his name supplied his place, and it was both sweet and grievous to Mary that it should be so. One Joseph had given Him his arms to lie in, the other should give Him his own new monument to rest in, and both should pass Him from their own arms to those of Mary.

It is strange, too, how often the timid are unexpectedly bold. These two disciples, who had been afraid to confess their Master openly when He lived, are now braving publicity when even apostles remain within the shelter of their hiding-place. Happy two! With what sweet familiarities and precious nearness to Himself is not Jesus recompensing their pious service at this hour that He is in Paradise! With gentle hand, tremblingly bold, as if his natural timidity had developed into supernatural reverence, Joseph touches the crown of thorns, and delicately loosens it from the head on which it was fixed, disentangles it from the matted hair, and, without daring to kiss it, passes it to Nicodemus, who gives it to John , from whom Mary, sinking on her knees, receives it with such devotion as no heart but hers could hold. Every blood-stained spike seemed instinct with life, and went into her heart , tipped as it were with the Blood of her Son, inoculating her more and more deeply with the spirit of His Passion.

Who can describe with what reverential touch, while the cold Body was a furnace of heavenly love burning against his heart , Joseph loosened the nails, so as not to crush or mutilate the blessed Hands and Feet which they had pierced? It was so hard a task that we are inclined to believe angels helped him in it. Each nail was silently passed down to Mary. They were strange graces, these which were now flowing to her through the hands of her new son and yet, after all, not so unlike the gifts which Jesus had Himself been giving her these three-and-thirty years. Never yet had earth seen such a worship of sorrow as that with which the Mother bent over those mute relics, as they came down to her from the Cross, crusted too as they were, perhaps wet, with that Precious Blood , which she adored in its unbroken union with the Person of the Eternal Word. But with what agony was all this worship accompanied, what fresh woundsall these instruments of the Passion made in her heart! What old wounds they reopened! But a greater grief was yet to come.

The Body was detached from the Cross. More and more thickly the angels gathered round, while thrills of love pierced with ecstatic bliss their grand intelligences. Mary is kneeling on the ground. Her fingers are stained with Blood. She stretches the clean linen cloth over her arms and holds them out to receive her Son, her Prodigal come back to her again, and come back thus!

Can such a sorrow, such an accumulation of concentering sorrows, have any name? Can she bear the weight? Which weight? The sorrow or the Body? It matters not. She can bear them both. From above, the Body is slowly descending. She remembers the midnight-hour when the Holy Ghost overshadowed her at Nazareth. Now it is the Eternal Son who is so strangely overshadowing His kneeling Mother. Joseph trembled under the weight, even while Nicodemus helped him. Perhaps also it was not the weight only which made him tremble. Wonderfully must grace have held him up to do what he did. Now it is low enough for John to touch the Sacred Head , and receive it in his arms, that it might not droop in that helpless rigid way, and Magdalen is holding up the Feet. It is her old post. It is her post in Heaven, now highest of penitents, most beautiful of pardoned spirits!

For one moment, the Virgin Mary prostrates herself in an agony of speechless adoration, and the next instant she has received the Body on her extended arms. The Babe of Bethlehem is back again in His Mother’s lap. What a meeting! What a restoration! For a while she remains kneeling, while John and Magdalen, Joseph and Nicodemus, and the devout women, adore. Then she passes from the attitude of the priest to the attitude of the mother. She rises from her knees, still bearing the burden as lightly as when she fled with Him into Egypt, and sits down upon the grass, with Jesus extended on her lap. With minutest fondness, she smooths His hair. She does not wash the Blood from off His Body. It is too precious, and soon He will want it all, as well as that which is on men’s shoes, and the payment of Jerusalem, and the olive roots of Gethsemane. But she closes every wound, every mark of the lash, every puncture of the thorns, with a mixture of myrrh and aloes, which Nicodemus has brought.

The Virgin must now take her last look of that dead Face. Mothers live lives in their last looks. Who shall tell what Mary’s was like ? Who would have been surprised if the eyes of the Dead had opened, and His lips parted, under the kindling and the quickening of that look? With heroic effort she has bound the napkin around His Head, and has folded the winding-sheet over the sweet Face. And now there is darkness indeed around her. The very dead Body had been a light and a support . She has put out the light herself. Her own hands have quenched the lamp, and she stands facing the thick night.

Faber, Fr. Frederick William (2015-02-14). The Foot of the Cross with Mary: or The Sorrows of Mary KIC. Kindle Edition.

Day 10, JOYFUL MYSTERIES, Sunday May 10

Novena 2, 1st Day: Petition

Day 9, GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, Saturday May 9

John, Ch. XI

[21] Martha therefore said to Jesus: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. [22] But now also I know that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. [23] Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again. [24] Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again, in the resurrection at the last day. [25] Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live:

[26] And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this? [27] She saith to him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ the Son of the living God, who art come into this world.