Christocentricity of the Rosary, Part I

How can the Rosary be Christ centered? How can a form of prayer which has at its core the Hail Mary be Christ centered? How can a devotion which primarily recalls the events of Christ’s life from the view of the Blessed Virgin Mary be considered Christ centered?

These are some questions voiced concerning the Rosary. They are valid questions, in the sense that Marian devotion is profound and subtle. The brief glance or with causal acquaintance, one might miss the shining splendor, the union with God, the power that Marian devotion brings to the soul.

Imagine that you are looking into a crowded room. In the center of the room is a boisterous, showy person with glitzy hair and porcelain teeth who is making a lot of noise about nothing. Off to the side is a reserved person, just listening. You wouldn’t have even looked in his direction if I hadn’t pointed him out to you. A crisis erupts in our imaginary room. The boisterous show off would be revealed for his lack of depth and courage and the reserved fellow would turn out to be the Tower of Strength. In a way, Marian devotion is like the nondescript fellow. You really can’t know about Marian devotion until you have sat down with Mary, prayed with Mary, learned about Her secret talents and life and this takes time and perseverance.

When one enters the spiritual life in earnest, he must keep before his mind the reality of the human condition. The reality is: the human condition has been terribly weakened by a flaw. We were created good, perfect by God, from Whom all good things come. But, because of the fall of Adam, we are now burdened by the flaw of original sin. Our intellects are darkened and our wills weakened.

(I know there are many Christians in the world who profess belief in Christ and even lead good lives, who yet deny the reality of Original Sin. If there is such a person reading this now, let us not split hairs over definitions. Will you at least grant, that human beings make mistakes? That this is a reality of the human condition – fallibility?)

When a human being with the human condition of fallibility begins in earnest to delve into the spiritual life, he comes into contact with The Supreme Being: The One who has no beginning and no end.

He set the stars in the sky and gave each one a name.
Psalm 147

The Supreme Being can make no mistakes. He is infinite Goodness, Infinite Love, Infinite Mercy. The human person is limited goodness, limited love and barely merciful. There is a chasm so great between the two natures that words defy description.

Into this chasm steps the God-Man: The Hypostatic Union, the two natures in the one person. The person of Jesus Christ who is True God and True man.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law”
St. Paul to the Galatians 4:4

When one begins in the spiritual life, one has to always be on guard for pride. One has to be wary of forgetting the chasm that truly exists between the human nature and the Divine nature despite the outpouring of abundant love showered upon the human person by this Heavenly Father. The consolation of knowing God can be so sweet and He is truly so near to us. Yet it is still also true that He is God and the human person is a creature. Pride is what caused the first man and woman to fall, and it is pride which will always lead to a fall.

Pride causes blindness; sin causes blindness. We see this in the behavior of Adam and Eve after their sin in the Garden. They hid from God. He walked in the garden in the breezy time of the day. What is so frightening about this? Doesn’t fear cause someone to run into hiding? God was visiting with his children, why should they hide from Him? Why should they not want to see Him? Because the sin of pride and disobedience had caused them to no longer want to or be able to see God. There is no accident that we see the Lord in the Gospel healing so many with blindness and then also teaching those who could see to be guard against spiritual blindness.

How can we know that our study of Scripture, our study of Christ, our looking into the pool of Life that we are truly engaged in the full depths of the Divine and not just satisfied with the reflection of our selves at the shallowest level of the water?

If we are left to ourselves, in our fallen human nature (fallible nature) and go with our own selves to be earnestly devoted to Christ, even if we are fully sincere, we may remain just enamored with our own reflection which we call “Christ.”

There is another way. One that doesn’t seem Christ centered at first. It may appear that we take our eyes off the deep pool with depths untold, to follow after a fancy, a fleeting image, an idol.

But appearances can be deceptive.

If we take the hand of Our Lady and let her guide us to Her Son, if we let Her teach us the way a perfect human creature unsullied by sin, undespoiled by pride, loves God than we are not lost in ourselves. She has taken us out of the prison of our limited and sinful natures. She molds us to her own, and reveals the full majesty of God which can only be fully understood when looked at through the pure and sinless heart of Mary.

Part II