Joyful Mysteries
One
Annunciation: the Joy of Meeting Christ
What do all the joyful mysteries have in common? What makes them all joyful? Well, first of all, we can ask, what is joy? And the answer is simple: Joy is the delight we experience in the presence of something good. So if people are joyful in the joyful mysteries, then they are responding to some good that is present. And that present good is Christ. In each of the joyful mysteries, somebody meets Jesus and rejoices.
And the very first person to meet Jesus is Mary. She meets Him where we all must ultimately meet Him, within ourselves. She meets Him first because she is holy, and we meet Him to the extent that we are holy. She meets Him because she has faith in God’s revelation and we meet Christ if we have faith in God’s revelation. She meets Him, and she loves Him.
And so the Joyful mysteries begin, and the Rosary begins, and the Church itself begins with Mary, the one who receives Jesus in our name and rejoices. Henceforth, it will always be from Mary that we receive Jesus and will always be she who will teach us how to delight, with faith, in Christ who is with us.
Two
Visitation: meeting Christ in Others
After Mary, the next people to meet Christ are Elizabeth and John the Baptist. They meet Christ through Mary. And they rejoice. And the reason Elizabeth and John the Baptist meet Jesus is because of Mary and Elizabeth’s love for one another. They were family. They were friends. They were two pregnant women who were excited about the other’s pregnancy. Mary’s desire to serve Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s hospitality towards Mary, this mutual generosity sparked an encounter with Christ that made both the mothers and their unborn sons celebrate.
What all this means is that if we want to be really happy, if we want to actually experience the joy of knowing Christ, then we have to work to encounter Him through a love of others. Serving family. Being hospitable towards friends. Just being interested in what’s going on with someone else.
It may sound hokey, but actually, that’s where the Spirit stirs up Christian joy. So, where are we getting the joy of seeing and serving Christ in others?
Three
Nativity: Meeting Christ through God’s Marvels
Again, in the Nativity, we see people meeting Christ through Mary. And we see people rejoicing. And all of them meet Jesus because God has done something miraculous. Joseph meets Jesus through the miracle of his wife’s virginal conception and childbearing. The Magi meet Jesus through the miracle of a star that moves, disappears, reappears, and finally rests over the dwelling of the Holy Family. The shepherds meet Jesus through the miracle of a sky suddenly filled with singing, proclaiming angels. And this is a source of incredible joy. It’s the joy of the extraordinary things God has done to bring Jesus to us and bring us to Jesus.
If you really want to experience Christian joy, think back on your life. Think back on the incredible convergence of circumstances that brought you to the faith or kept you in the faith. Think of the prayers that have been answered in astounding ways. Think of utterly unexpected gifts, the astonishing rescues from disaster. Think of the marvelous things God has done to bring you to Christ and bring Christ to you. And rejoice as Joseph and the Shepherds and the Magi rejoiced to meet Christ in the arms of Mary.
Four
The Presentation: Meeting Christ through Perseverance in Prayer and the Life of the Church
It’s not just through dramatic, extraordinary miracles that we meet Jesus. It’s through perseverance, and specifically perseverance in prayer and in the life of the Church. That’s the joy Simeon had in the fourth joyful mystery. He was a man who had dedicated his life to prayer in the temple. It wasn’t a very exciting life, externally. But it was regular, it was faithful, and it was holy. And his fidelity to prayer and to the liturgical life were rewarded one day. And the joy he experienced was so powerful that he longed for nothing more in life.
There is a joy, a Christian joy, that can only be found through this kind of fidelity. It’s the joy of the Christian who is faithful to prayer, who spends time, day after day, in the temple of your own soul and in the temple of Christ’s Church. It may feel tiresome, or tedious, or just repetitive. But one day, Christ will come to you in prayer, as He came to the old man in the temple. Christ will reward your constancy with Himself. And then you will be ready to die, because you will have found that supreme joy with which nothing else can compete.
Five
The Finding of Christ in the Temple: Meeting Christ Anew
The joy of meeting Christ is one that should characterize every Christian life. We should all be joyful, habitually and constantly joyful, because we all know Jesus. But the truth is, it’s not always like that. Not even for the saints. Not even for Mary Herself. There are times for all of us when we feel lost, we feel dry and empty, and we feel that Jesus is far away from us, and we’re not sure if we’ll ever see Him again. That’s what Mary and Joseph felt during the three days when Christ was missing in the temple. But they found Him again, because they didn’t stop seeking Him.
And there is an utterly distinctive joy when you again encounter the Christ you’d been missing so long. When you feel God’s love again. When you return to grace after mortal sin. Or when you realize in prayer, again, but as though it’s the first time, the presence and the goodness of God. Just as the shepherd gets more joy from finding the one lost sheep than from the ninety-nine that he’d never lost at all.
So too, Mary and Joseph experienced more joy, more gratitude at having found Christ again than they would have if he’d never gone missing at all. This, too, is part of the Christian joy that Mary models for us. It’s the joy not only of having met Jesus. It’s the even sharper joy of having met Him again after a long, dry spell when we worried He was gone forever.
Dear Mother, give us the courage to keep looking for Jesus, even when He hides from us for a while, so that we can delight in Him all the more when we finally find Him again.