REGAINING OUR SENSE OF DIRECTION

OUR LADY OF THE ROSARY  

Jonah 3:1-10; Ps 130:1-4,7-8; Lk 10:38-42

The One thing Necessary

Our loss of focus on God is the source of all our sins and problems. Since God is the purpose or end of our creation, for he made us for himself, to turn our gaze away from him is to lose the right direction for our lives. However, for us to be able to direct our lives towards God, our ultimate goal, we need knowledge of God. Again, no one knows the Father except the Son, who makes him known. It follows that the Son must make himself present to us in one form or another, for us to attain the knowledge of God. Thus, God’s gift of his word is essentially to bring us to the desired communion with him. The proclamation of God’s word to man is the most important office or duty for human or angelic beings. Before the human or angelic assumption of this duty or role, creation proclaims the will and knowledge of God to us. The nobility of creation derives from this most important role. In this sense, we have always upheld, with the Scripture, that the wisdom of God is present and operative in the whole of creation. If non-rational creation fulfils this duty, how much more we, who are made in the image of God. Thus, each of us who pays attention to our daily reality receives the vocation to proclaim the will of God that is present and operative in the universe. God sends his word on a special mission when the natural mechanisms he has put in place for man’s education fail.

Prophet Jonah’s mission to Nineveh is one of such special missions of the word of God to men. God called Jonah to be a special envoy of his sacred word to the Ninevites. Just as his refusal to accept the mission was about to end his life in catastrophe had he not repented, none of us can refuse to be the herald of the word of God without danger of eternal perdition. The destruction that comes to those who refuse to listen and align themselves to God’s will is not the intention or the mission of the word, but the salvation of men from the destruction. The word of God that the prophet Jonah preached to the Ninevites produced the desired result of repentance and conversion. “And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least. The news reached the king of Nineveh, who rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat down in ashes.” The repentance and conversion of the people stemmed from their faith in God, who sent his word to them. The alignment of their lives and conduct with the will of God spared them from the destruction that awaited them on the sinful path they were walking. Those who have repented and realigned their lives according to the will of God cannot suffer destruction. Hence, it is said that God repented. “God saw their efforts to renounce their evil behaviour, and God relented: he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.” The mission of the word of God is to redirect us away from evil and destruction to eternal life.

The most exalted and sacred of these missions of the Eternal Word is in the Incarnation and humanity of the Son of God. His mission in our human nature is to present the Father’s holy will vividly and personally to us. So, his human presence was the most sacred gift to us. Thus, the Lord judges Mary’s choice to be attentive to him better than Martha’s entertainment. “‘Martha, Martha,’ he said ‘you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part; it is not to be taken from her.’” The Rosary prayer helps us place ourselves in Mary’s vantage position, to attend to the words and life of our Lord. Through the Rosary prayer, we meditate on the mysteries of our Lord’s human life. Because the mysteries of the Rosary encompass the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Church considers it the most powerful prayer after the Mass, which is the holy sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. Knowing the immense worth of the Rosary prayer to us, the Blessed Virgin Mary consistently offers it to us as a means of conversion from our sinful lives to the life of holiness that Jesus Christ purchased for us at the cost of His precious blood. The feast of the Holy Rosary was instituted by Pope Pius V to celebrate the anniversary of the defeat of the Turkish fleet at the battle of Lepanto on the first Sunday of October 1571. The defeat was ascribed in part to the prayers and processions of the Rosary confraternity in Rome. The Rosary prayer surely puts an end to the reign of sin and evil in our lives.

Let us pray: Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.