The
Proclamation Of The Kingdom
Fruit
Of The Mystery:
Repentance
And Trust In God
The
following meditations are provided to assist you
while praying the Holy Rosary. It is offered in a
format where a question is posed to lead the
meditation and then is followed by an answer below
it. It
may be more helpful to grow in your meditation
skills if you try to contemplate the question while
praying this decade of the Rosary, and view the
possible answer upon completing the prayers for the
Mystery.
The
meditations below offer possible answers to
questions regarding these Mysteries.
Because the Wisdom of God is infinite, there
are limitless insights that one may gain from
meditating repeatedly upon the questions surrounding
these Mysteries.
There are no wrong or right answers when
praying the Holy Rosary in this way.
We are simply seeking to be inspired in our
understanding of who Jesus is and how much He loves
us, as the Holy Spirit gently guides us through
reflective prayer.
For
many reasons it may be difficult to engage our minds
to enter into meditating on the Mysteries at hand.
An alternative option is to simply meditate
upon the meaning of the core prayers of the Holy
Rosary as you are praying them.
You may find these reflections on the Our
Father, the Hail
Mary and the Glory
Be prayers to be helpful during these times.
Repentance
1.
Why is repentance such a significant part of
proclaiming the Kingdom?
Firstly,
we must practice what we preach.
For if we preach one message, but act or
speak in another manner, no one will desire to
follow the One we are supposed to be giving witness
to. We
must also remember, however, that we are sent to
proclaim the Kingdom as imperfect creatures and we
fall. Repentance
is significant because it is only when we repent
that we can be healed, advance in the virtue of
Christ, and continue witnessing.
Through repentance after we fall, we
experience first hand the message that we are
proclaiming- that of placing our trust alone in the
Mercy of God, our loving Father.
2.Why
does Jesus spend so much time calling sinners to
repentance?
Jesus
knows the heart of every man He has ever created.
That means He knows our strengths and
weaknesses, and our virtues and imperfections.
Jesus looks beyond our failings, however, and
sees our potential for goodness.
His message is one of Mercy and forgiveness
beyond all of our sins.
Yet because He has given us the precious gift
of free will, He does not force us to repent. His call is ever gentle and persistent though, as He
understands all of our difficulties and weaknesses.
He never gives up on seeking His lost sheep,
and it gives Him no greater joy than to see the
hearts of us sinners become transformed by His grace
and love into those of saints.
3.
How does repentance relate to the Sacrament of
Reconciliation (Confession)?
The
ultimate message of the Kingdom which Jesus
established is the forgiveness of sins.
This message of Mercy is present in many of
the Sacraments which Christ entrusted to His Church.
Though we are washed clean of all sin in our
Baptism, we continue to sin afterward in our fallen
human nature. The
Sacrament of Reconciliation was instituted by Jesus
to remedy the accumulation of sins after Baptism.
Like everything else Jesus does, this
Sacrament was given to us because He loves us.
It is for our good alone that He urges us to
participate in Reconciliation, because He knows that
being released sacramentally from sin removes the
burden of guilt and purifies our soul.
It is by the grace of God, made present in
this Sacrament, that our hearts which are wounded by
sin are healed, and our relationship with God
becomes stronger.
4.
Why do we have to go to a Priest for
Reconciliation (Confession)?
The
answer to this question is best understood by
looking at the other Sacraments.
If we consider Holy Matrimony, we could also
ask why do I have to be married in a Church by a
priest? Truly
we could elope and get married by a Justice of the
Peace and technically we would be considered to be
married. Yet
we must also acknowledge that there would be a
special grace absent from what could be a sacred
encounter with the Divine.
Like Marriage, the Sacrament of
Reconciliation is recognized through the Church, and
the grace ministered to us through the ordained
member, is a means to draw us into a deeper
relationship with our Creator.
Also, the gift of the Holy Spirit that has
been bestowed upon the Priest to act on the behalf
of Christ and absolve sins, offers us a special
grace that is distributed to purify our souls
through this Sacrament.
Once again it is a gift given to us out of
pure love from our Lord.
Parables
1.
Why is it that when preaching the Gospel Jesus
often uses parables which the people do not
understand?
It
is made clear in Matthew’s Gospel that outside of
Peter’s house in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee,
people were spoken to and did not understand the
parables He was teaching.
Yet it was explained openly to the disciples
when they were inside of Peter’s house.
If we think about our culture today, this
remains to be the case.
Those who enter “Peter’s house,” the
Church, are enlightened by the Word of God in Faith,
while those outside of the Church and outside the
Faith do not comprehend the light.
Jesus also does this purposely as part of His
loving plan to allow us to pick up where He left off
in His preaching ministry.
Jesus explains the parables openly to the
disciples, so that they may openly preach the Gospel
once empowered by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
Even today we are called to participate in
His salvation plan by proclaiming His Kingdom and
revealing the mysteries that may be unclear to those
around us.
The
Miracles of Jesus
1.
Is there a human component to the Divine
miracles of Jesus?
When we examine the many miracles of Jesus we
find that His human emotions are what breech the
barrier of between His Humanity and Divinity.
Though the power of the miracle was Divine,
it was His Human emotions, especially compassion,
which gave rise to them. Consider some examples, like raising the widow’s son at
Nain (64),
the feeding of the 5,000 (97),
the raising of Lazarus from the dead (153),
etc.
2.
Why does Jesus often tell those who He heals not
to say anything about it to anyone?
In
all of Jesus’ miracles and healings, He always
seems to tell those who have been healed, as well as
the surrounding witnesses, not to say anything.
This is because the cripple that walks, the
mute that now talks, the blind man that now sees
would not have to say anything but just “be” in
order to witness their healings to others.
Often, as we let the Lord heal us, our best
witness is simply our actions which have been
transformed by His peace and joy more than our
words.
3.
Why does Jesus offer forgiveness of sins before
He physically heals a person?
The
forgiveness of sins is God’s greatest sign of love
for mankind. We
see this of course in the Passion and death of
Jesus, but also in many miracles of healings that
Jesus performs (45),
(68),
etc. What
Jesus tried to teach us in these examples is that
the physical miracles that He performed were
secondary to the healing of their hearts that
occurred by believing in Him.
Though the physical healings would eventually
die with the person, the spiritual healings offered
through Faith in Him would give them eternal life.
Thus the component of forgiveness displays
the great Mercy that our Lord desires to offer us to
heal us, and to make us whole and complete in His
Love.
Training
1.
Why does Jesus send His disciples out to preach
and perform miracles without Him on several
occasions (91
and 126)
as He journeys toward His Passion and death?
We see they are not perfected yet in their
task (111)
and yet Jesus continues to send them out after
falling on many occasions.
Even when it seems they are successful in
their responsibilities (126),
they soon have their greatest failure as they
abandon Jesus in His Passion.
Why would Jesus send them out if they were
‘not ready’ yet?
A
child begins to learn to ride a bike with training
wheels; at the next level they are removed and the
parent runs behind for safety; finally the child
begins riding alone.
Certainly when the child rides alone there
will be falls and bruises, but the parent must let
them go through this process so they can eventually
enjoy riding in total freedom.
This is very similar to what Jesus did for
the disciples. He trained them during His Public Ministry to Proclaim the
Kingdom, and gradually gave the disciples more
freedoms to proclaim the Gospel without Him in order
to prepare them for their public ministry after His
death and Resurrection.
The falls they encountered helped to shape
their abilities to trust in Jesus and rely on the
Holy Spirit to accomplish their God-given mission of
Proclaiming the Kingdom.
How does this lesson apply to our daily lives
as we meet failure and success in our call to preach
the Gospel through our words and actions?
Little
Children
1.
Why must we become like little children to enter
the Kingdom of Heaven?
If
we are to effectively proclaim the Gospel, we must
have the faith of a child.
For the most important part of ministering
God’s word and love to others is that it is always
carried out according to His Will.
We must become like little children who never
presume to act without first finding out the will of
their father and mother- of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven.
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