By Donal Anthony Folely
The Luminous Mysteries, which are usually associated with the theme of “Light” can also be seen as mysteries of “Change.”
These mysteries were introduced by Pope St. John Paul II on Oct. 16, 2002, and are made up of five meditations on key events during the public ministry of Jesus Christ. The Pope proposed these “Mysteries of Light” as an addition to the traditional Rosary to make it a more complete “compendium of the Gospel.”
In the Apostolic Letter that accompanied the new mysteries, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, (“The Rosary of the Virgin Mary”), John Paul II commented, “This addition of these new mysteries, without prejudice to any essential aspect of the prayer’s traditional format, is meant to give it fresh life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary’s place within Christian spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suffering and of glory.”
“Change” is a very powerful theme in the Mysteries of Light, and while this idea is present in the other Rosary mysteries, it is not so pronounced. For example, it could be said that Our Lady becoming the mother of Christ at the Annunciation was a huge change for her, or that Christ’s death on the Cross was a change from life to death, or that His Resurrection was a change from death to life. And while those points are true, in a number of the Mysteries of Light, there seems to be a change in a different, but more direct way.
The first Mystery of Light, the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan, is symbolic not so much of any particular change in Christ – he was free from original sin and indeed sinless and so did not need to be baptized – but of the change which comes over us when we are baptized. That is, the immense change from being victims of original sin, and so under the dominion of the Devil, to children of God. It is the biggest change in our earthly life and without it we cannot receive any of the other sacraments or be fit for heaven.
With the second Mystery of Light, the Wedding Feast at Cana, we are dealing with the occasion when Jesus, at the behest of His Mother, performed His first public miracle, changing water into wine. Thus, He revealed His divine glory to His disciples, who believed in Him. This mystery is noteworthy for how it underlines the importance of the intercessory role of Our Lady, in that Christ anticipated His public ministry in response to her request. The wine is also an element of the Eucharist and looks forward to it.
The third Mystery of Light is the Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and the call by Jesus to repentance and faith in the Gospel. This is another mystery of “change” in the sense that apart from Our Lady, we are all, to a greater or lesser extent, called to repentance and to live focused on the kingdom of God, which is both an external and internal kingdom in line with Jesus’ words, “The kingdom of God is within you.”
The change involved in repentance, say after a good confession, is akin to the change brought about originally by baptism – and in the case of mortal sin, a complete change from darkness to light, to an intimate friendship with God.
The fourth Mystery of Light is the Transfiguration of Christ on the mountain. During this event, His divine glory, which was usually hidden during His earthly life, was revealed to Peter, James and John in a completely dazzling way – His face shone like the sun. At the same time, as at the Baptism in the Jordan, the Heavenly Father affirmed Christ as His beloved Son.
This too was a tremendous change in the aspect of Christ’s appearance as he was transformed from the earthly Christ who was set to suffer and die, to become the heavenly Christ who will rule eternally.
The final Mystery of Light is the Institution of the Eucharist by Christ during the Last Supper, when he took bread and wine, blessed them, and gave them to His disciples, saying, “This is my body,” and, “This is my blood.”
In a sense this is the most startling and profound change of all – that Christ should take such common items as bread and wine and transform, and indeed, transubstantiate them into His Sacred Body and Precious Blood. It is symbolic of the way we, by receiving Holy Communion should be transformed into living members of Christ’s body, and begin to live, in some sense, the life of eternal bliss in heaven.
In this month of October, the month of the Rosary, perhaps we can think of praying the Mysteries of Light with the particular intention of seeking change, either in ourselves or others dear to us. In this endeavor we can take heart from St. John Henry Newman’s famous saying, “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.”
We also we need to remind ourselves of what Our Lady said during the October 1917 apparition, which was certainly a plea directly from her Immaculate Heart: “Do not offend the Lord our God anymore because He is already so much offended.”
We need to ask ourselves how well we have heeded this motherly plea, and also how well we have interceded through our rosaries for those who ignore it.
The Fatima seers are our models regarding prayer, and we too must allow ourselves to be led deeper into prayer by the Blessed Virgin, and particularly the prayer of the Rosary. If we do that, we will be truly living the message of Fatima.
Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a web sites at www.theotokos.org.uk and http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk. He has also written a series of three time-travel adventure books for young people, The Glaston Chronicles, available at: www.shopfatima.com/blue-army-press
