The Church Year, the Rosary, Our Life and Mission

The church year (Sundays, weekdays, saintsdays) tones and colors our life and mission. It is centered on Jesus, Child of Mary and Joseph, the Child of our Merciful Father and His Holy Breath. It is centered on Jesus of the gospels in His incarnation for us (advent, christmas, epiphany) and in His redemption of us (lent, easter, pentecost), in His words and deeds after His baptism and temptation to before His last supper and agony (ordinary time). This we pray in the rosary with the joyful, the luminous, the sorrowful and the glorious mysteries of Jesus and of us His followers.

We can pray the life and mission of a brother, of a sister, of a friend, dead or still alive on earth, in the light and fire of the mysteries of Jesus in the church year and in the rosary. We can pray the history of the church and our world the same way.

We pray the conception, the gestation, the birth of Jesus of Mary wife of Joseph, we pray His traditioning as child in the presentation and his creativity as youth in the finding (the joyful mysteries). We pray His call in the river and the desert; His words, especially in His talks such as the sermon on the mount; His deeds, especially in His meals such as the wedding at Cana; His opposition in Galilee with the transfiguration; His rejection in Jerusalem with the triumphal entry (the luminous mysteries). We pray His last supper with the washing of feet and the offering of Self in transformed bread and wine; His passion from the agony in the garden to His last breath on the cross; His raising and breathing His breath from His Father in his friends; His ascension and blowing and kindling His Wind His Fire in His friends past present future; His family of friends forever, personified by the wife of Joseph, His mother Mary, taken by Him bodily to heaven (the sorrowful and the glorious mysteries). This is my personal way of praying the rosary each day with fifteen mysteries.

Jesus, present in His church for His world, is celebrated during the church year and weekdays and saintsdays mainly in the memorial word and bread and wine meal of Him truly present offering His body and blood among and for and with us to be heard and offered and eaten/drunk and approached by us. Likewise, He is celebrated in the prayer of hours, psalms in His light and fire for us in our everyday need of heart and conscience and struggle at anticipated midnight readings, morning, midday, noon, midafternoon, evening, night.

The Basilica of St. John Lateran (originally Saint Saviour) in Rome.
Photo by Jastrow via Wikimedia Commons.

Jesus, present in His church for His world, is celebrated in our life and history with sacraments and sacramentals. There is our birthing at baptism; our firming at confirmation, our nourishing and converting and illumining and kindling and impelling at the eucharist; our being forgiven of our sins with reconciliation; our being strengthened in our serious bodily illness with the anointing of the sick; the ordaining of a man to be a priestly servant for the priestly people as bishop or presbyter (both as priests) or deacon (as servant); the marrying of a man and a woman as coupled friends open to giving life to their child. Besides the sacraments, there are sacramentals. Sacraments are actions of Jesus through His church; sacramentals are actions of the church as her prayer to Jesus.

The great sacramentals are the consecrating of a man/woman as a virgin or the committing of a man/woman as an apostle; the burial of the bodily remains of a human person after death for final resurrection; the dedication of a house to be a home for the gathered and sent followers of Jesus. Other than these great sacramentals, there are those for our yearly passover conversion: ashes, branches, oils (of sick, of catechumens, chrism)—cross, candle/candles, water. There are many other sacramentals, blessings of people and things for different and myriad occasions and concerns.

No wonder we treat the church of Jesus as our mother and teacher of us His followers together and singly in our life and mission as his followers together and singly.

Father Don

The Way of the Risen Jesus and His Followers

"Florida Sunrise" by James E.K. via Wikipedia.

We followers of Jesus follow Him the Crucified His way. And we follow Him the Risen His way. He is crucified by us but raised by His Holy Spirit from His Father. We mark fourteen stops to deepen our dying to our sinful self and rising to our graced self.

(1) Jesus rises from the dead at sunrise the third day after His crucifixion and burial. (2) He empties the tomb where His dead body lay. His body is not found in the tomb by Mary Magdalene and by the women nor by the apostles Peter and John. The angel tells them Jesus has been raised up from the dead. (3) Jesus appears to His Mother and friend Mary in communion with His friends alive and dead, especially Joseph. (4) He appears to Mary Magdalene and to Peter individually in the garden near the tomb. (5) He appears to the two disciples on the road and in the inn. Their hearts burn as He walks and talks and breaks bread with them. (6) On this third day of His passover and first day of His resurrection, He appears to the ten apostles in the upper room of the last supper. He breathes His Holy Breath from His Father in them to mercy their brothers and sisters in their sinful misery. (7) On the eighth day of His resurrection, He appears to the eleven apostles in the upper room; this time Thomas, who has doubted, is present and now believes because he has seen and heard and touched Jesus.

Campfire via Wikipedia.

(8) Days later, Jesus appears to the seven disciples at the lake. He missions Peter to care for His lambs and sheep out of love for Him. (9) Forty days after the resurrection, He appears to the eleven apostles on the mountain. Then Jesus missions them to evangelize and sacramentalize their brothers and sisters from all the nations; He pledges to be with them to the end of time. (10) Jesus ascends in their presence to His Father by His Cloud, His Holy Breath, and continues to help His followers from the side of His Father by His Holy Breath. (11) During nine days, the 120 disciples, including Mary His Mother and some extended family members, and including Peter and the other apostles, pray in the upper room for His Holy Breath from His Father. (12) Fifty days after His resurrection and ten days after His ascension, Jesus from His Father breathes His Holy Breath in the 120 disciples. (13) His Holy Breath is Water filling them, Wind blowing them, Fire kindling them, Soul animating them together and singly, each original for and with all and each, making them His Body and Him their Head.

(14) So the story of Jesus and His Church, His gathered and sent followers, unfolds through history (gospels of Jesus, acts and letters of apostles, revelation). People belong to Him inwardly by His graced faith and hope and love and justice in their heart and life and mission, and outwardly relating to Him our Way and Truth and Life through His shepherding and teaching and sanctifying in His Church for His world by our graced good will, human and secular and hopefully as religious, as Christian, as Catholic. Jesus crucified and raised calls us His way during our life and history to be His family of friends of Mary and Joseph to the image and likeness of Him Child of theirs and of His Father by His Holy Breath.

The last supper, the passion, and the resurrection of Jesus is our passover, our liberation. The coming of His Holy Breath from His Father is our covenant, our communion. The last supper is now the passover and covenant meal offering of Jesus and of us His friends, especially Mary and Joseph.

Popular prayer in the Church by the Holy Breath inspires our prayer together and singly: 

Abba, Father, we are His children, His friends, His family of friends. Alleluia, praise the Lord. Take my freedom, receive my imagining, knowing, willing. Only give me your love and grace, that is enough, nothing more. Soul of Jesus, Body of Jesus, hide me in Your wounds, never let me be separated from You. Mary, Mother of Mercy, after this our exile, show us your Child, our Jesus. Together with Joseph, pray for and with us to your and our Jesus now and at the hour of our death. By the Holy Breath in the Church. Amen, let it be so.

We together and singly are deeply involved in the struggles of our Church and of the nation and world. We have our concerns and our hopes and dreams. With the help of Jesus, we do our best and entrust all to Him. His and our Church and nation and world are in His heart and mind and hands.

Father Don

The Way of the Crucified Jesus and His Followers

Pieta by Michelangelo. Photo by Juan M. Romero via Wikimedia Commons.

During Lent, we practice more often the popular devotions of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary and of the Way of the Cross. We want to follow Jesus in His sorrows and in His way of His cross to His resurrection. This latter devotion involves some traditional fourteen stops that deepen our dying to our sinful self and rising to our graced self.

(1) We start with Jesus being judged religiously by the Jewish high priest and secularly by the Roman governor and condemned to be crucified. (2) Then He shoulders the cross for the walk to the hill of crucifixion. (3) He falls the first time, bruised by people like us who are not loyal in our faith and obedience. (4) He is met and encouraged by His mother and friend Mary, and through her in the communion of saints by His father and friend Joseph. (5) He is helped by the man Simon, who also shoulders His cross. (6) He is helped by the woman Veronica, who dries His face. (7) He falls the second time, bruised by people like us, who are not modest in our hope and poverty.

(8) Jesus encounters some weeping women of Jerusalem and urges them to their and their families' conversion. (9) He falls the third time, bruised by people like us, who are not truly affectionate in our love and chastity. (10) He is stripped of His clothing by people like us, who are not childlike in our humility and cheerfulness. (11) He is nailed to the cross by people like us, who are not honest in our justice and perseverance.

(12) Jesus burns out on the cross, dying for us His enemies and friends. He prays for our forgiveness, He promises us His everlasting home, He entrusts us together and singly to His mother and her to us. He experiences our abandonment from His Father because of our sins and yet trusts Him completely and loves Him wholeheartedly and us mercifully. He thirsts for us, His brothers and sisters, to be His family of friends. He completes His life and mission by His Holy Breath for His Father and for us. He hands over His Holy Breath to us, His brothers and sisters, to make us His family of friends.

(13) Jesus' dead body is held truly affectionately by Mary. (14) His dead body is buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple belonging to the Jewish ruling council, only to rise on the third day to breathe and blow and kindle us with His Holy Breath, His Wind and Fire, from His Father. So He makes us together and singly, each original for and with all and each, people and angels with our earth and universe during our time and eternity His family of friends of Joseph and Mary in His Church for His world, to the image and likeness of Him Child and His Father and His Holy Breath.

We pray for the concerns of the successor of Peter about the Church and the world. We hope with the help of the prayer of the Church to Jesus (indulgence) to overthrow the impact, psychological and social, of our past sins. We sorrow for our sins because we fear to be separated from our friend Jesus, because we hope to be joined closely to Him our Friend, and mostly because we fail to love Him our faithful Friend and Companion and Savior, our Brother and Lord, our Comrade and Champion and Revolutionary, freeing and uniting us to be His family of friends.

The last supper, the passion, and the resurrection of Jesus is our passover, our liberation. The coming of His Holy Breath from His Father is our covenant, our communion. The last supper is now the passover and covenant meal offering of Jesus and of us His friends, especially Mary and Joseph.

Father Don