The Luminous Mysteries

Benedictine Sisters Of St Cecilia's FAITH Magazine May-June 2003

1 The Baptism of Christ in the Jordan

The author of all baptism came to be baptized, and showed Himself by the Jordan. John saw Him and drew back his hand, addressing Him with this prayer: “‘How is it, Lord, that you wish to be baptized, you who sanctify all men with your baptism?’ Yours is the baptism from which flows perfect holiness.” The Lord replied: “I desire it; come forward and confer baptism upon me, that my will may be done. … The waters will be sanctified when I am baptized in them; they will receive from me fire and the Holy Spirit. For unless I receive baptism, they will not possess the capacity to bring forth immortal children.”

St Ephrem: Hymn 14

2 The Wedding Feast at Cana

When the Emmanuel came, He had but to say, ‘Now draw out,’ and the waterpots were seen to be filled with the wine of the New Covenant, ‘the Wine which had been kept’ to the end. When He assumed our human nature-- a nature weak and unstable as water--He effected a change in it; He raised it up even to Himself, by ‘making us partakers of the divine nature’; He gave us the power to love him, to be united to him, to form that one Body, of which He is the Head, that Church of which He is the Spouse, and which He loved from all eternity, and with such tender love, that He came down from heaven to celebrate His nuptials with her.

Dom Prosper Guéranger: The Liturgical Year. Christmas II

3 The Proclamation of the Kingdom of God and call to conversion

We must understand this about the kingdom of God: as there is no partnership between righteousness and iniquity, no fellowship of light with darkness, no accord of Christ with Belial, so the kingdom of sin cannot co–exist with the kingdom of God. If we would have God reign over us, then sin must have no reign in our mortal body.

Origen: On Prayer

4 The Transfiguration

Today the day shines forth for us more brightly than usual, when heavenly light darts forth upon the earth, when the true light illuminates the darkness of mortal men, when the divine radiance shows itself to the human sphere in a visible, even bodily form. Today the mist of fleshly weakness was for a little while removed, and the eternal Sun, in a new and stunning miracle, shone forth by radiating through a yet mortal body. Today the Word made flesh demonstrates the deification of that same flesh He united to Himself, by the brightness of His face and clothing.

Bl. Peter the Venerable of Cluny: Sermon 1

5 The Institution of the Eucharist

The Only-begotten Son of God, wishing to enable us to share in His divinity, assumed our nature, so that by becoming man He might make men gods. Moreover, He turned the whole of our nature, which He assumed, to our salvation. For He offered His body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation; and He shed His blood for our ransom and our cleansing, so that we might be redeemed from wretched captivity and cleansed from all sins. Now in order that we might always keep the memory of this great act of love, He left His body as food and His blood as drink, to be received by the faithful under the appearance of bread and wine.

St Thomas Aquinas: Opuscule 57