With the rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ. To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events and the sufferings of his human life…is the task of every follower of Christ.
On the Most Holy Rosary of the Virgin Mary, 1 & 9
As an at-home mother of five small children and a sometimes theology teacher and writer, I have little time for contemplative prayer. Recently, as I was picking up a pile of books that my eighteen-month-old twins had pulled from a bookshelf, I came upon a lovely little essay on the Martyrs of Compiegne, the sixteen nuns who died at the guillotine during the French Revolution. I couldn’t resist stealing a few minutes and reading a few pages. Each one of these women was a martyr for peace, and each one saw her death as a glorious fulfillment of that great goal of Carmelite spirituality: union with the beloved Bridegroom.
I read and marveled at the witness of these women. How lovely and profound, this union with the Bridegroom! How beautiful were their lives and how meaningful their deaths! But, then, I wondered: how could it be for me? How can I seek the face of the Bridegroom in the midst of my very busy life? Is this beautiful spirituality out of my reach?
The dynamic of love
In this frame of mind, I approached Pope John Paul II’s apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae—a letter which presents in the simplest and most direct way a spirituality of union with Christ.
It is a humble prayer, the rosary. Any five-year-old can pray the Hail Marys and Our Fathers. But the Holy Father, a seasoned devotee of the rosary, sees the simplicity of the repetition as profound: “To understand the rosary, one has to enter into the psychological dynamic proper to love.” The lover never tires in asking “Do you love me?” and the beloved unceasingly responds: “With all my heart, I do!” The prayer of the rosary takes shape within such a dialogue of love: the encounter of Mary with the angel Gabriel. Reciting the rosary, we are taken up into this dialogue. We hear God’s greeting: “Hail, highly favored one!” And we are drawn into Mary’s response: “Be it done unto me according to your word.”
The face of Christ
In the space of love that this dialogue opens for us, we are invited to reflect on the mysteries of Christ’s life. We are taken into the heart of our mother, where these mysteries are unceasingly contemplated. Mary teaches us how to contemplate in the same way that she did: for “she treasured all these things in her heart.” Contemplation is not some sort of mental gymnastics that can be achieved only by a spiritual elite, but neither is it a passive “looking.” Contemplation is a receptive listening to God’s word—allowing that word a place in our lives, allowing God to have a place in our lives! For what we are contemplating are no mere words. As the Holy Father teaches, in the rosary, we are contemplating the face of Christ.
Only a person has a face! And through the face we may come to know a person in all their depth—who they are, where they have been, what their desires are. We can glimpse in the faces of those we meet whether they are happy or sad, whether they are burdened by the past or are abandoning themselves to hope. And what do we see in the face of Christ? Who is he? Where does he come from? In the mysteries of the rosary he reveals his divine person to us. In his newborn face we see the gift of a new creation. In his transfigured face, we see the divine splendor that fulfills all our longings. In his bruised and beaten face we see the merciful love that will bear all our sins.
And what does Jesus want? What is the hope that we glimpse on the face of Christ? We see this hope reflected in Mary, in her glorious Assumption. The words of the Song of Songs, that biblical dialogue of love, are often used to express the meaning of this mystery: “Come then, my love, my lovely one come,” the bridegroom calls to the bride. And in the same way he calls to each one of us, drawing us to himself.
This, then, is the surprising answer to my questioning. Is there a spirituality for us housewives (and office-workers and laborers)? Yes, it is the rosary. Can it be that I am called to the intimacy with Christ that animates the martyrs? Yes! The rosary is the beginning of this intimacy, a chance to meet Christ face to face. In this dialogue of love I meet the Bridegroom, he who desires to make me whole.
©Magnificat June 2003
