If God wants man to be united with him in the
perfect love that the Blessed Trinity always had, has, and will have, then man
must do whatever it takes to achieve and maintain that loving union with God.
To
help us attain to that everlasting union, God has given us three gifts. By these gifts, we may come to know, love and
serve God in this life, so that we may be happy with him forever in the
next. These three distinct gifts together
form a pathway that will lead us to our final end if we continue to walk along
it.
The first of these gifts is Holy Scripture. Here is the
Word of God, presented to mankind as God’s revelation of his love for
them. By it we may come to know God. In its most basic analysis it contains the three
fundamental elements of the Story of Redemption—man’s creation, his fall from
grace, and his restoration to the life of grace.
The
Holy Rosary is God’s second gift to
man. This time he gave it through the
hands of his Blessed and Immaculate Mother, reminding us of her essential role
in our Creation and Redemption. Her
Rosary encapsulates the scriptural Story of Redemption, highlighting its
essential events so that we may see the big picture without distraction. When we encounter these events in the context
of the joys, sorrows and glories of Our Divine Saviour and his Blessed Mother, we
naturally apply them to our own life experience with all its own joys and
sorrows. The Rosary is our instruction
manual on how to correspond to God’s love for us by means of the daily joys and
sorrows we face in our lives, and the glories that are promised to us hereafter. The Rosary shows us how to love God.
At
the Last Supper, God gave us his third gift of Divine Worship—the means by which man is enabled to adore God perfectly. This supremely acceptable form of worship would
be by sacrifice. In the Old Testament,
man had struggled and failed to offer to God something worthy to atone for his
sins. But now, after Christ’s Passion
and Death, there would be finally be a sacrifice that would be sufficiently
pleasing to God. It would be the
sacrifice of the Blood of a New and Everlasting Covenant between God and man,
the Blood of God’s only-begotten Son shed in the Sacrifice of Calvary, the same
Blood of Christ offered to his Father in the Sacrifice of the Mass. The perpetuation of the graces of Calvary through
the Sacrifice of the Mass enables his faithful followers to serve God worthily.
But
this third gift did not end there. The
Mass would contain an extra element, a sacramental element that would allow us
to know, love and serve God in this
life, and be happy with him forever
in the next. It would be the miraculous
transformation of bread and wine into Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, but
still under the form of bread and wine that could then be received
sacramentally in Holy Communion.
Finally, man could achieve union with God, the union that would be his
final destiny and which God desires for himself and for us.
Is it any wonder, then, that there are so
many connections between the Rosary and the Mass? They both have their source in God and his
revelation to us of the path of salvation.
They both answer our inmost yearnings for union with God, the Rosary by
describing that union, and the Mass by actualizing it. As Catholics, we must cling to both Rosary
and Mass in order to make sure we never deviate from the path they lay out before
us.
As with all prayer, the purpose of the Mass
is to unite us with God. While we do
this in a spiritual sense whenever we pray, the Mass allows us to experience a
more intensely intimate union with God, which we would not dare attempt if we
had not been commanded to do so by our Lord himself. We feel ourselves unworthy. We know
we are unworthy, and yet God commands it.
God's delight is to dwell among the
children of men.[1]
He was made flesh and dwelt amongst us for this reason. He wants us
to save our souls for this same reason, so that we might dwell with him
forever. This is the reason we were created. Each Mystery of the Rosary carries
us in spirit a step further towards that ultimate union with God in
heaven. Meanwhile, in this life, God
wants us to be as close to him as we can, not only spiritually but
physically. He has provided us with the
means of achieving true spiritual and physical union with him through the
reception of his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in Holy Communion.
While
our Lord gave us the Mass, his Blessed Mother gave us the Rosary. This should not come as a surprise to
us. After all, she is our Mother too. She wants us to
save our souls so that God’s will may be fulfilled, her Son may be glorified in
our salvation and we, her children, may be happy. She wants to lead us to
her Son. For this reason she gave us her
Rosary, with each of its beads a signpost on the road to salvation. These signposts all point us towards the Mass.
She knows that our salvation can be achieved
only through the graces that flow from the Holy Apostolic Mass and the union
with God that is its fruit. And so she points the way. To the Mass through the Rosary. To Jesus through Mary.
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