Contemplatio in action: the Trinity's fulcrum?

I love how praying the rosary opens the mind to to insights about our God.

Contemplatio in action.

Monday night's meditations on the joyful mysteries got me thinking about the Holy Trinity, and about the relationships the three persons have with us.

I often assign roles to them in my thoughts and prayers. For example, when anointing DiDi's forehead with oil, I make the sign of the cross, saying:

In the name of the Father who created you

the Son who redeems and saves you

and the Holy Spirit who comforts and guides you.

There they are in their neat little packages.

I continue the prayer by reminding DiDi that she is the daughter of the King, sister of Christ, and spouse of the Holy Spirit.

So in this "model" we have three distinct roles of Father, Brother, Spouse. Still pretty neat and tidy.

But keep going and the divisions get murky, confusing.

Given that the Father is both Christ's father and ours, Jesus becomes our sibling. But because baptism is a marital celebration, and reception of the Eucharist is consummation of the wedding feast, Jesus is also our husband.

So Jesus is not only sibling, but also spouse.

And it doesn't end there.

While contemplating the Nativity in the rosary, I thought about the opening verses in John's gospel:

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be 4 through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; 5 the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Jesus was firstborn, and we were made through him. Without Him nothing came to be. He gave us life.

That's what fathers do. They give us life. We come into being through them.

So this means that Jesus, as the giver of life, is the father.

And that makes the Father really the grandfather.

Let's tally the roles we've got for the three persons so far:

The Father=father/grandfather

The Son=brother, husband/spouse, father

The Holy Spirit=husband/spouse

It is interesting that the roles of the Father and of the Spirit are essentially unchanged throughout the thought stream. They are who they are.

But in the Son, the roles vary. He takes on the roles held by both the Father and of the Spirit, while simultaneously maintaining His own.

I wonder if this is somehow the fulcrum around which the mystery of the Trinity spins?

Big Bang Redux

I was praying the Joyful Mysteries of the rosary last night on behalf of a friend, and was gifted with several interesting tidbits. I'll write about them in separate posts.

The first of the mysteries (and my favorite of all the mysteries) is the annunciation, the moment of Christ's conception. In previous meditations about the annunciation I focused on what must have been an ecstatic experience for Mary. It is beautiful to imagine what it must have been like to have the Holy Spirit fall on you in such a profound way.

But last night God asked me to wonder about what it had been like for Him.

And so I wonder; what must it have been like for our great and glorious God to become begotten? What was it like for Him to say a second time "Let there be light" and have the light of the world come in to existence?

Was this the second big bang?

Did He and the entire universe shudder in a great paroxysm of exultation and pleasure and wonder?

How much does our procreative process mimic His, and vice versa?

What must the ecstasy of God be like?

A gift of caretaking

Thank you Lord for your priests.

I am so blessed by the Father you have sent my congregation. Yesterday, when he knew that I would be coming to spend time in the sanctuary in grief and supplication, he prepared it for me. He lit candles, incensed it with the prayers of the saints, and filled it with Vivaldi's violins singing the seasons.

Our tabernacle is set in the wall behind the altar, fronted with a wooden door that is carved and gilded with chalice and host. I spent an hour immediately before it, my face pressed against the wood as the tears flowed.

The sorrowful mysteries brought great peace, as did a MacDonald passage he later read to me.

I left better prepared.

It was a great gift to have such care taken over me.

A great gift.

Survival of the prayed up

World's collided last night, and everyone survived. Something tells me our Blessed Mother helped, because rosaries were wielded in one of them.

As Fr. Corapi says: My mama wears combat boots.

Mary and the Song of Songs

Luke 1:34 But Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?" 35 And the angel said to her in reply, "The holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. ... 38 Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

***

I had a wonderful contemplation of the First Joyful Mystery while driving home from the cottage last night. It connected to my exploration of the Song of Songs, which I am drawn and drawn and drawn to.

What a lovely thing is the author's handling of verse 38. The scene ends because what comes next is too private, too intimate. The very silence is drenched with meaning.

I imagined what God would have done in preparation for union with His bride. I picture her in a simple room, earthen and humble, clothed in drab homespun, surrounded by the scents of life; wood smoke, animal dung, sweat, dirt, olives. Taking a quiet moment away from a day filled with the necessary tasks of life, to ponder what the angel told her.

And then the Holy Spirit comes and all is changed.

Time halts around them.

Music fills the air.

Mary is enrobed in splendour, and the surroundings change to a scene of love from Solomon's song.

I think this needs to become a poem...