The Luminous Mysteries by Fr. Josh Johnson
one
The first luminous mystery is the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ
When Jesus Christ was baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist in the Jordan River, the heavens opened up and the Father’s voice was heard. The Spirit of God came down in the form of a dove and the Father said, “This is My Beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
And Jesus listened when he prayed. He didn’t just speak. Prayer isn’t just us talking.
Certainly Jesus Christ recited rote prayers. He even taught the Apostles a rote prayer in the Our Father. Certainly Jesus Christ prayed scripture out loud. As he was on the Cross dying, he was reciting scripture.
Certainly Jesus Christ prayed spontaneous prayers. In John 17 He prayed a spontaneous prayer from the depths of His heart to His Father.
But in addition to the talking, Jesus Christ also listened. He prioritized intentional and consistent time to listen to His Father speak. And what did He hear when He listened to the Father speak?
He heard the Father say, “You’re My Beloved Son. I am pleased with You. I delight in You.”
It was the Father’s delight that dictated every decision that Jesus Christ made in His walk towards Jerusalem.
He says in the end of the Gospel, “I say what I saw My Father doing and I do what I saw My Father doing.”
He was looking at the Father, He was gazing at the Father, He was receiving the Father’s delight and that is what motivated Him to continue His journey toward the Cross. He was not motivated by the opinions of others, by the approval of others. Martha tried to tell Him what to do and He didn’t listen to Martha. Peter tried to tell Him, “Don’t go to the Cross.” And He did not listen to Peter. The Scribes and the Pharisees, they try to tell Jesus Christ what to do and He didn’t listen to them either. The Devil tried to tell Him what to do when He was in the desert and he didn’t listen to Satan. He was not motivated by fear or fame. It was the Father’s Love. It was the Father’s delight.
And you and I, we are the body of Jesus Christ. We are the body of Jesus Christ. Those same words that God the Father spoke to Jesus Christ over 2000 years ago, God the Father, He looks at you and he looks at me saying the same words.
Do you know that when Jesus Christ was baptized he had not done any public miracles. He had not participated in any ministry. And yet the Father said, You’re My Son. And I delight in You. I am pleased with You.
The Father delights in you and me, not for what we have done or will do, but who we are. He wants for His delight to be enough for us. He doesn’t want us to be motivated by other people and by their acceptance or rejection of us. He wants us to be motivated by His word, His voice, His gaze of love, Him.
So I invite you to join me in listening to the Father say to us again and again and again, you are my beloved and I delight in you.
two
When Jesus was at the wedding of Cana, the couple, their wine ran short and Mary noticed it. She was attentive.
She went to Jesus and she told Jesus about it. And she turned to the servers and said, “Do whatever He tells you.”
He told them, he said, “Go fill those jugs with water.” And so they went to go fill the jugs with water. But what I love about this particular passage is that the servants filled these jugs with water and they filled them to the brim. They didn’t have to fill the jugs to the brim. They’re already heavy jugs. It was a difficult task to take these heavy jugs down to pick up the water, put the water in the jugs, carry the jugs back up to the top where the wedding feast was happening, and they filled them to the brim. Then Jesus Christ worked the miracle, He turned the water into wine, but notice what He did. He worked the miracle with their participation.
And there was an even greater miracle, there was even more wine available because they filled the jugs to the brim. Because of their participation, more people were able to benefit from the supernatural grace that comes from Jesus Christ. And God, He is inviting us to participate. He wants to work miracles in our lives. He wants to work miracles in the lives of our loved ones. But He also wants for us to participate. He wants for us to give Him a fiat, to say yes, to not be mediocre with our yes, to not be half hearted. To imitate those servants and give more. To give more because the more we give, the more miracle we’re gonna be able to experience in our walk with the Lord, not only for our good but for the good of our loved ones.
God wants us to give Him more time. He wants us to give Him more of our relationships and more of our heart and more of our mind.
There might be things right now that we’re invited to decrease the amount of time we’re spending with, whether it’s certain TV shows, certain radio stations, or certain kinds of books that we’re reading, and to increase even more time with His presence in His Word, in His blessed sacrament. To maybe decrease some of the time we’re spending with some friends that might not really be good for us right now (and maybe they’ll be good for us later in life or we could be better for them later in life) but He’s inviting us to invest in the poorest of the poor. To spend more time at the soup kitchen or in the nursing home or with other people who are destitute, who are marginalized.
The more that we give, the more we will be able to experience the miracle that is available to us by the grace of God.
There are saints that have the capacity of being formed in the geographical boundaries of our community, in our workplace environment and our neighborhoods, our classrooms and even in our homes.
But we must also do the work of not just expecting God to do a miracle without our participation.
It’s like losing weight. If I’m really serious about losing weight then I’ve gotta stop eating potato chips all day long. I’ve gotta say, “Alright, I’ve gotta turn the TV off. And I’ve gotta put the chips away.” I’ve gotta cut back on the carbs. I can’t just keep praying, “God please help me get healthy,” No, I’ve gotta do the work as well. I’ve gotta do the work of evangelization. I’ve gotta do the work of prayer. I’ve gotta do the work of cultivating my relationship.
And as I do my part, the Lord will show up. And He will do more for me and for my loved ones than I could ever expect in my imagination.
And so I invite us to imitate those servants and to do whatever He tells us and to give Him more.
three
Jesus proclaims His teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.
Before He preached, Jesus spent intentional and consistent time in prayer being ministered to by the angels. He fasted and He prayed before He preached. And this is the mode of operations throughout the gospels. Before He did anything big, He always spent the entire night in prayer, before He called the apostles, He spent the entire night in prayer.
Before He went into His Passion, Death, and Resurrection, He spent the entire night in prayer.
And here, before He preached, before He taught people, before He proclaimed the good news, He spent time in prayer and fasting.
Jesus was a busy, busy man.
And if He can make time for prayer then so can we.
If we’re too busy to pray, then we’re too busy.
And not only did He pray before everything He did, but He also fasted as well. He prioritized the price of fasting. This is one of the very first commandments that God gave in the Old Testament, in the Book of Genesis, to Adam and Eve in the Garden. He told them to fast from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They disobeyed Him, they did not fast.
And we see the fruit of their lack of fasting. But Moses, he did fast and he did pray. We see the fruit of that, the ten commandments.
In the Gospels, Jesus says to His followers, “When you pray and when you fast…” Not “If you pray and if you fast.”
Prayer and fasting are not optional practices for disciples. They’re necessary. And He is not asking us to do something He did not participate in, that He Himself did not practice. He prayed and He fasted.
So we’re invited right now to just examine our life. To examine our ministries before we do the things that we do in our parish, do we actually spend time in prayer? Or do we think, because I’ve done this so much, I can literally do this good deed without relying on the grace of God? Without opening myself up to the wisdom of the Lord. Do we enter into worship without prayer? Do we go to Mass, without taking time to pray? Do we serve the poor without spending time in prayer? Do we facilitate bible studies or rosary groups without actually sitting with the Lord before doing the ministry and just praying?
The way we fast before Communion at Mass, we’re invited to fast as well from things of this world, even good things so that we can be more disposed to the voice of God in the practice of prayer.
So we are invited to imitate the model of the disciple maker Jesus Christ. And before we do anything, before we say anything, before we go anywhere, to actually take time to pray and to fast.
four
The Transfiguration of Christ on the top of Mount Tabor
Jesus was so good and He allowed Moses to see His face in the Transfiguration.
Moses, he led the people into freedom while they were slaves but he didn’t make it to the Promised Land. But his story wasn’t over. He got to see Jesus face to face on the top of Mount Tabor, with Elijar there, as Peter, James, and John looked on.
As they looked on in amazement at this apparition, which they were privileged to witness they experienced the locution, where they heard the Father speak. And God the Father said to them. Again, “This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him.”
Listen to Him.
Listen to Him.
The Father is inviting you and me to listen to the voice of Jesus. The voice of Jesus is just as available to you and me as His voice was available to St. Faustina in Poland, as it was available to Moses, as it was to so many of the people who proceed us to eternity, and to Padre Pio and to so many others.
God’s voice is available to you and to me as well.
We can hear Him speak and listen to Him and concretely know “I heard God talk to me today,” not, “I think He said something,” but “I heard Him talk.”
His voice is available to us in the Bible, in the sacred scriptures.
How many of us have a bible at home and we don’t even open it sometimes? We’ll pick up a nice spiritual book and we’ll read a nice theological writing on the life of a saint or mystic. And those are all good, they all have their place in our formation.
But that which takes precedence, that which is above and beyond all those good writings, is the great gift that God has given us in scripture.
Ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. That’s what St. Jerome taught us. St. John Chrysostom said, he said every form of discord that happens in the Church happens because of a lack of knowledge and an ignorance of scripture.
There was a monk by the name of St. Ignatius, not Ignatius of Loyola, and he said his biggest problem in the monastery was trying to get his monks to read the bible. They wanted to read about the mystics and they wanted to read about saints but they did not want to take time to read the infallible inspired Word of God.
This ought not be so. The Word of God ought to be our first love.
God the Father invites us to listen to His Son. Any time we read scripture we are hearing the voice of God speak directly to us.
So take time. Take fifteen to twenty minutes, thirty, maybe an hour. Open up the bible, go to one of the four Gospels, pick up and read. And do as the Father says.
Listen to Him.
five
The Institution of the Eucharist
At the Last Supper Jesus is so good to us. He loves us so well and we can learn so much about how we should love each other based on the way that He loves us.
At the Last Supper, He knew that the Apostles were going to abandon Him and He ordained them anyways. He told them, “You’re all going to abandon Me.” He told Peter, “You’re going to deny Me three times.” And He still said, “This is My Body given up for you.”
What kind of a love is that?
That’s how God is inviting us to love each other.
St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as willing the greatest good for the other. The greatest good for the other is, ultimately, their salvation.
Now there are people in our lives that are going to be difficult to love, there are people who are going to be hard to be around and they’re going to abandon us the way that the Apostles abandoned Jesus. They’re going to deny us the way that Peter denied Christ. Yet Jesus still poured Himself out for them, He gave Himself over to them.
He invited them to discipleship. He invited them to walk with Him.
What He did for them 2000 years ago, we’re invited to do for others now. To see other people in their mess, in their brokenness, in their imperfections, and to still fast for them. To still pray for them. To still offer up reparations for their conversion. To still have Masses said for them. To still smile when we look at them and be patient and bless them
Jesus Christ knew that they were going to abandon Him and He still ordained them and He still gave them the Eucharist. He knew that Peter was going to deny Him and He still gave Himself over to Peter and invited Peter to spend time with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane immediately after they share the Eucharist.
This is what God is inviting us to do right now.
There might be someone in your life you’re struggling with today, someone you know who’s gonna gossip about you or stab you in the back. Someone you know who’s gonna abandon or betray you. But you are the Body of Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. How He responded to people then is how He wants us to respond to people today.
He wants to love them into conversion because Jesus Christ desires for them like the Apostles, to become saints, just as the Apostles are now saints.
So remind me who I am God. I am the Body of Jesus Christ. The Body of Jesus Christ loves others well. No matter their disposition, no matter whether or not they’re ever going to apologize for their mistakes, He wants to love them into conversion. So that we can, together, abide in relationship with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit on Earth as it is in Heaven