Reflections on the Luminous Mysteries -Part 1

Reflections on the Luminous Mysteries -Part 1

Submitted by Thomas Stidl

     Many months ago, I wrote an article on the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary and last month, I wrote Joyful Mysteries 2 where I revisited my first article. The next phase of the life of Jesus ans Mary is contained in the Luminous Mysteries. The first Luminous Mystery is the Baptism of Jesus. Jesus went to see his cousin John at the Jordan River. Upon seeing Jesus approaching him, John declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world.” Jesus then asked John to baptize Him. After a discussion between the two cousins about who should be baptizing whom, John consented to baptize Jesus. Did Jesus need to be baptized? No, he is the sinless, spotless son of God. After John baptized Jesus, the voice of the Father could be heard from the clouds of heaven. “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. Then the Father sent the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

     After the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, He began to call his disciples. In that process, there was a Wedding Feast at Cana which brings us to the second Luminous Mystery. Jesus, his disciples, and his mother Mary were invited to the wedding. As the story goes Mary was told that there was no wine. She told her son, and his response was that his hour had not come. Mary told the servers to follow the orders of Jesus with the following words, “Do whatever He tells you.” These are the last recorded words of Mary in the bible. It was sound advice for the wedding servers as well as sound advice for us today and for the future.

     Getting back to our story, Jesus told the wedding servers to fill the large fluid holders with water. He then told the servers to draw some of the water made wine and take it to the head waiter. When the head waiter tasted the water made wine, he went to the groom and asked why he saved the best vintage wine for last. This was the first miraculous manifestation of Jesus.

     Now let us examine the third Luminous Mystery which is the preaching of the gospel or good news. This practice is on going. The message of Jesus to the people of his day was to repent and believe the good news of the kingdom or government of God to first be established in our hearts. It is basically love for God and love for our neighbors. It must be continuous, for when we love continuously, we are not committing sin , but we are doing the work of the Father in heaven.

     During this month we heard the parable of the Good Samaritan which illustrates the preaching of Jesus. All of us should not be like the priest and the Levite who walked past the victim of assault and theft. Rather we should be like the Samaritan who treated the victim with kindness and care. To translate this into today’s terms, we would need to call police and ambulance so that the victim could be treated by competent medical staff. This happened on my watch once and I accomplished what I just wrote. This is putting the gospel in action and creating the physical kingdom of God on earth from what is in our hearts. It is expected of us as Christians to take care of our fellow human beings. By doing this action, we have brought comfort to Jesus Christ himself.

     In part 2 of this article we will contemplate the last two Luminous Mysteries.

     Until next time, Laus tibi Christe. Laus Deo, Deo Gratias. See you in paradise.