The Mysteries of the Life of Jesus - Knights of Columbus

1 #3 The New Evangelization SeriesMichelle K. BorrasThe Mysteriesof the life of Jesusc at h o l i c i n f o r m at i o n s e rv i c egeneral eDitormichelle K. Borras, Information Servicemanuscript eDitorsalton pelowski &Brian caulfield copyright 2013-2020, Knights of rights works are copyright their citations adapted from therevised standard version, catholic edition(san francisco: ignatius, 1994).nihil oBstatsusan m. timoney, DeputatusimprimaturDonald cardinal WuerlArchbishop of Washingtonarchdiocese of Washingtoncover imageThe face of christ, flanked by mary and John the Baptist. from the chapel at centro aletti, rome. The mosaic was completed by fr.

2 Marko ivan rupnikand the artists of centro aletti. image courtesy of centro 6, 2013 The nihil obstatand imprimaturare officialdeclarations that a book or pamphlet isfree of doctrinal or moral error. There is noimplication that those who have grantedthe nihil obstatand the imprimaturagree withthe content, opinions, or statementsexpressed Mysteries of the life of JesusMichelle K. BorrasContents O Great mystery ! 1 Your face, o lord, i seek 4 The mystery that surpasses all understanding A mystery of Joy9 and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us 11 o marvelous exchange! A mystery of Light15 he who has the bride is the Bridegroom 17 You have saved the best wine for last 19 This is my body, which is given for you A mystery of Sorrow23 i thirst!

3 25 unless a grain of A mystery of Glory29 The seal of the covenant32 ascension and pentecost34 The spirit and the Bride say, come! 39 sources44 about Your face, O Lord, I seek, hide not your face from me. (psalm 27:8-9)christ flanked by mary and John the of centro aletti, courtesy of centro aletti. O Great mystery ! it is part of the mystery of god that he acts so gently, that heonly gradually builds up hishistory within the great history ofmankind, that he becomes man and so can be overlooked by hiscontemporaries and by the decisive forces within history; thathe suffers and dies and that, having risen again, he chooses tocome to mankind only through the faith of the disciples towhom he reveals himself; that he continues to knock gently atthe doors of our hearts and slowly opens our eyes if we open ourdoors to him.

4 Pope Benedict Xvi, Jesus of Nazareth1 Your face, O Lord, I seek human beings have a remarkable capacity to yearn forsomething greater and purer than anything they haveexperienced. This is particularly evident in young people, butit is not limited to them. We thirst for what is great, forfullness, 2even if we don t know how to attain this, or livein ways that contradict it, or can t bear it if it comes. ottoneubauer, a young scholar who teaches at a catholic centerfor dialogue in vienna, austria tells of an encounter with astudent that encapsulates this yearning for a beauty and alove that surpasses us:1after a year in a course on media, one student asked me if shecould ask an intimate question that touched on my this whole year she had repeatedly expressed that,though she was an unbeliever, she felt incredibly at home in thecourse, as well as in this house.

5 Now she wanted to knowwhether at the end i had prayed for her. at first i hesitated toreply, because she wasn t looking to be converted. Who, after all,wants to be an object of mission ? When i said yes, she askedif i had prayed for her since the beginning of the course, that is,for the last year. When i said yes again, she said emotionally, to be honest, i was hoping you had been! 3We are all hoping. perhaps we hope simply for someone tonotice our yearning for something we don t understand. somany people don t receive the love they need from the us. sometimes, in this time of god s absence when theearth of souls is arid, 4our hope threatens to turn intodespair.

6 We would like to forget that we yearned foranything that is, until we encounter something, orsomeone, who yearns for us. it can be the smallest experience of being taken seriously,of being loved. it can be the most fleeting encounter withbeauty in another human person, in art or music, or in thenatural world. We might even have the inexplicableintuition that we wouldn t thirst for something we can t giveto ourselves unless someone had first thirsted for us. andsuddenly something rises up in us that is like the ancientprayer pope Benedict Xvi quotes, begging god to showhimself to all those who seek him: My soul is thirsting for you,2for the living God; like the earth, it is parched, lifeless and without soul is thirsting for (psalm 62:2).

7 5someone hasfirst thirsted for us. in a way, this is the wholechristian gospel. god is already perfect in himself, and yet his heart aches for us, he reaches out to us 6to such anextent that he chose to become man. at the heart of thechristian faith is the god who not only created us. he wasso moved by our suffering that in christ [he] descended tothe lowest depths of the human being, even into the nightof hatred and blindness, the darkness of man s distance fromgod, in order to kindle there the flame of his love. 7like the young student in vienna, we all hope withoutquite knowing what we hope for. our souls are like theparched and lifeless earth. very many of us are tempted tocover over our yearning, to smother it or simply forget it,because it doesn t seem as if it will ever be filled.

8 Not unlikethe gentiles who sometimes came to pray in the courtyardof the temple in Jerusalem or many people of our own daywho don t yet have faith we wait, dissatisfied with the gods, rites and myths we have made for ourselves. Wecontinue to desire the pure and great, even if god remainsfor [us] the unknown god (cf. acts 17:23). 8 This unknown god stooped down to show us his face. heentered into a relationship of love with us, binding himselfto us forever. When this happened, all the earth was filled by the greatand complete reality that we are all awaiting. 9it was filledwith god s power, which took the form of poverty. it wasfilled with the humility with which he begs for our the face of this revelation, we suddenly become able toaccept our search for god, and the yearning concealedwithin it.

9 11We then find that our yearning doesn tdisappear, but is instead transformed, filled with wonder atthe beauty that has appeared among us. our temptation todespair in this time of god s absence becomes a marvelinggaze at the one who is present. Jesus is god and man joined in an irrevocable covenant. inhis person, he weds heaven and earth. confronted with hislove with the son of god being born, dying and rising inour midst we suddenly understand ourselves. Weunderstand that all this time, he who is our beginning andend, our origin and our destiny, hoped that we were hopingfor him. The mystery that surpasses all understanding The experience of thirsting and hoping for what we don tfully understand is not new.

10 When two young Jewish fishermen sat by the shore of thesea of galilee many centuries ago, mending their nets withtheir father, a man with strangely compelling authoritywalked by and said to them simply, follow me. Theirimmediate response reveals the startled glimmer ofrecognition they must have had in that moment: and theyleft their father in the boat with the hired servants andfollowed him (mark 1:20). in this rabbi who was calling them, James and John caughta glimpse of something for which, together with the faithfulpeople of israel, they had been waiting all their lives. 4for three years, they watched Jesus pray, teach, heal, castout demons, feed multitudes, and calm the wind and thewaves.