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Rosary Meditation: The Second Luminous Mystery

: Image by Loci Lenar via Flickr

Today’s rosary meditation is the second Luminous Mystery — The Miracle at the Wedding at Cana. At a wedding party, Jesus turned water into wine in His first public miracle. This started his ministry of healing the sick, giving site to the blind, and mobility to the paralyzed. There are two main threads that are common to all the Gospels and they are Jesus’ miracles and parables. Why are Jesus’ miracles so critical to his ministry? And, if He could perform all these miraculous deeds, why did He not eliminate everyone’s problems and hardships instantly? Why do we still have sick, blind, and paralyzed people today if it is so easy for the Lord to heal someone?

In order for Jesus’ miracles to have any meaning you must understand the reason behind them. They are not performed for the sole purpose of making peoples’ lives easier. We cannot reduce Jesus to a mere genie who will grant us all our wishes. They are performed in order to increase our faith and open us up to His word. When Jesus gives sight to the blind He does a lot more than just heal one person. The miraculous act is a sign of His divinity and power so that many more will come to recognize him as Christ our king and follow His path. We are like children where His miracles are a way of getting our attention so that we will be more receptive to His message. The miracles are not only for the one who is healed, but also for those who witness them so that our doubt will be transformed into unquestioning faithfulness.

However, Jesus’ asks a lot of those whom He heals. They must make a firm commitment to transform their lives, follow Him, live according to His will, and have faith that He will guide them to His heavenly kingdom. Luke’s Gospel talks of Jesus healing ten leapers. Of that ten only one came back to thank and praise Him at which point Jesus said that his faith made him well. The other nine eventually died, as we all do, so their physical healing was only temporary. But the one who returned to the Lord received more than temporary, physical healing. He received the gift of faith which is the true purpose of the miracle and more important than any physical healing we receive in this life. Ask yourself, would you return and thank Him for His wonderful works? If yes, then ask yourself how many times you have thanked our Lord for the great miracle of a new day? For the miracle of friends? For the miracle of family? Many times we are the nine healed leapers who are given so much and yet we never return to thank the one who provides it all.

Do we pray for miracles for the right reasons? Do we ask for them in order to grow in our relationship with our Lord or do we ask for them just so that our lives will be made easier? We must remember that a miracle that only makes our lives easier is worldly and temporary and will eventually fade away and be replaced by different challenges. Let us remember that God always hears us even when our request for a miracle goes unanswered. God, in His infinite wisdom, knows that many of our requests only serve to make our present lives easier and would not bring us any closer to Him. Like a good parent, He knows when to tell us “no.” Jesus did not come to us to make our lives easier in this world, but rather He came so that we may be with Him for all eternity in our next life. Let us pray this decade that Jesus’ miracles heal our soul, increase our faith, and lead us closer to His love.

Rosary Meditation: The First Joyful Mystery

Today’s rosary meditation is the first Joyful Mystery — The Annunciation. This is when the angel Gabriel told Mary, a mere teenager, that she was to be the mother of God. Now think about that for a while. What would you do if you found out that God chose you to bring His son into this world? Would you run outside rejoicing as if you just won the lottery? Would you turn pale, pass out, and then hope that it was all just a dream? Would you calmly tell the angel Gabriel that you are not ready and there are others who will be a much better choice? I do not think becoming the Mother of God is something that any of us are exactly prepared for.

But God has only asked one person in the history of the world to be the mother of Jesus Christ so that is not something He will likely ask of us. When compared to our Mother Mary, God asks so little of us in comparison to her great responsibility. For many of us, just making it to Mass on time or taking a few minutes out of our day for prayer are responsibilities where we fall short.

Why are we not prepared for the times when God asks something of us? After all, He asks something of us every day. He asks us to be faithful, to follow His laws, and put Him first in our lives. God speaks to us every day through the Pope, the Church, our priests, the Bible, saints, angels, and others to follow Him and to do His will. Do we ignore all these messengers? How many times have you not followed His will only to plead ignorance that you just did not know or that it is just too hard? When He asks, do we tell Him that we do not think we are ready and He should ask us at a more convenient time? Or do we tell Him, “YES!”, only to follow another road besides the one He lays out for us? God asks us to follow Him more times than we think and we often tell Him “no” through our words, our thoughts, or our actions.

So let us recognize that God calls on us every day to follow Him. Let us imitate our mother, Mary, and tell him “Thy will be done.” Mary put her faith in God knowing that He never gives us more than we can handle. Let us put our faith in Him that His plan for us is the best path and the only true path to eternal happiness. Mary was made pure by the Holy Spirit to carry the heavy burden of bearing the Son of God, Jesus Christ. We are strengthened by the same Holy Spirit to accept God’s will in our own lives. With the Holy Spirit, the Church, and our Mother Mary as our guides we are more than prepared to follow His path. Let us pray that when God asks us to follow Him we can confidently say, “Thy will be done.”

The Miracle of Prayer

Hello and thank you for visiting my website. Hopefully you are here because you are searching for a better way of getting more out of your prayers. Perhaps you only pray a few minutes a day or give a quick prayer of thanks before meals. Maybe you pray every day but are looking for new ways to meditate on it. And it is quite possible that you have not thought about uttering a prayer since elementary school. Regardless of your current prayer life, you’ve come to the right place.

This site will contain my prayer meditations. In particular I focus on rosary meditation and I will share my thoughts for each decade. I will also discuss the power and importance of prayer and the freedom that comes from trying to live a spiritual lifestyle.

First, let me introduce myself. I am not a priest, nun, or pastor. I am a software engineer living in San Francisco. I enjoy watching television, browsing the internet, reading books, playing hockey, and discovering new technology. Most people would consider me a pretty normal person. About a year and a half ago I traded in my twenty-minute commute to work for a two-hour one when I changed jobs. At first I tried to pass the time listening to the usual FM music, AM talk, and occasional audio book. However, I always felt like I was wasting my time on my commute and there were other things I could do that would be more productive.

It was in my two-hour commutes that I started praying the rosary regularly. I was already in the habit of praying the rosary but it was only about once a week. With such infrequent prayer I could never seem to gain any momentum to dive deeper and truly contemplate the meanings behind my words. Now I pray anywhere from one mystery to all four of them on my daily commute. I have found that my rosary meditation centers me and gives me the strength to face my everyday challenges. It has been my spiritual exercise and I’ve never felt more fit.

I hope I can share my enthusism over prayer, the rosary, meditation, and faith. It has been a great, transforming factor in my life and I hope that it can be one in yours as well.