M a k e t h e Sign of the Cross 
a n d p r a y t h e Apostles' Creed 

P r a y t h e Glory be to the Father 

P r a y ten Hail Marys 

A n n o u n c e t h e fifth m y s t e r y ; £ 
t h e n p r a y t h e Our Father — — H p 

P r a y t h e Glory be to the Father • 

P r a y ten Hail Marys 

A n n o u n c e t h e f o u r t h m y s t e r y ; 
t h e n p r a y t h e Our Father 

P r a y t h e Glory be to the Father 

W h e n a group p r a y s t h e 
R o s a r y , a leader usually 
says t h e first Apostles' 
Creed, t h e Our Father, t h e 
Hail Mary, a n d t h e Glory 
be to the Father. T h e g r o u p answers with 
t h e second p a r t . 

W i t h t h e Glory be to the Father a f t e r t h e 
last decade, t h e R o s a r y is ended. H o w e v e r , 
Catholics c u s t o m a r i l y a d d t h e Hail, Holy 

Hail, H o l y Queen, M o t h e r of M e r c y , hail, 
o u r life, our sweetness, a n d o u r h o p e ! T o 
thee d o we cry, poor banished children of 
E v e ; t o t h e e we send u p our sighs, m o u r n -
ing a n d weeping in this vale of tears. 

P r a y t h e Our Father 

P r a y t h r e e Hail Marys 

P r a y t h e Glory be to the Fother 
A n n o u n c e t h e first m y s t e r y ; 

t h e n p r a y t h e Our Father 

P r a y ten Hail Marys 

— : P r a y t h e Glory be to the Father 

_ ' — A n n o u n c e t h e second m y s t e r y ; 
| t h e n p r a y t h e Our Father . 

P r a y ten Hail Marys 

,Pray t h e Glory be to the Father 

A n n o u n c e t h e t h i r d m y s t e r y ; 
t h e n p r a y t h e Our Father 

P r a y ten Hail Marys 

T u r n , t h e n , m o s t gracious 
A d v o c a t e , t h i n e eyes of 
mercy t o w a r d s us, a n d , 
a f t e r this o u r exile, show 
u n t o us t h e blessed f r u i t 
of t h y w o m b , Jesus. O 

clement, O pious, O sweet Virgin M a r y ! 
V. Queen of t h e most H o l y R o s a r y , p r a y 
for us: 
R . T h a t we m a y be m a d e w o r t h y of t h e 
promises of C h r i s t . 

L E T U S P R A Y 
O G o d , whose o n l y - b e g o t t e n "Son, by H i s 
life, d e a t h , a n d resurrection, h a s p u r c h a s e d 
for us t h e r e w a r d s of e t e r n a l life, g r a n t , we 
beseech T h e e , t h a t , m e d i t a t i n g upon these 
mysteries of t h e Holy R o s a r y of t h e Blessed 
Virgin M a r y , we m a y i m i t a t e w h a t t h e y 
c o n t a i n , a n d o b t a i n w h a t t h e y promise, 
t h r o u g h t h e s a m e C h r i s t , our Lord. Amen. 



MEDITATIONS 
FOR THE 

BY JOSEPH A.BREIG 

N I H I L OBSTAT : 

J O H N A . 8 C H U L I E N , S . T . D , 

CENSOR L I D R O R U M 

I M P R I M A T U R : 

® MOYSES E . KELEY 

ARCHBISHOP O P M I L W A U K E E 

D E C E M B E R 3 1 , 1 9 5 2 

COVER PAINTING BY M I M I KORACH 

C A T E C H E T I C A ! GUILD EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY 

ST. PAUL, M I N N E S O T A 



COVER C O P Y R I G H T 1 9 5 3 B T ARTISTS A N D W R I T E R S G U I L D , I N C . , 

A N D C A T E C H E T I C A L G U I L D E D U C A T I O N A L S O C I E T Y . 

A L L R I G H T S R E S E R V E D T H R O U G H O U T T H E W O R L D . 

D E S I G N E D A N D P R O D U C E D BY ARTISTS A N D W R I T E R S G U I L D , I N C . 

P R I N T E D I N T H E U . S . A . BY 

W E S T E R N P R I N T I N G A N D L I T H O G R A P H I N G C O M P A N Y . 

P U B L I S H E D S I M U L T A N E O U S L Y I N CANADA BY P A L M P U B L I S H E R S , 

M O N T R E A L . 



(Sonienls 
T o A L L FAMILIES 

1 T H E ANNUNCIATION 

2 T H E VISITATION 

3 . T H E BIRTH OF O U R LORD 

4 T H E PRESENTATION OF O U R LORD 
I N THE T E M P L E 

5 T H E FINDING OF O U R LORD 
I N THE T E M P L E 

6 T H E AGONY OF O U R LORD 
I N THE GARDEN 

7 . T H E SCOURGING AT THE PILLAR 

8 T H E CROWNING WITH THORNS 

9 T H E CARRYING OF THE CROSS 

10 T H E CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH 
OF O U R LORD 

1 1 T H E RESURRECTION OF O U R LORD 

1 2 T H E ASCENSION O F O U R LORD 
INTO HEAVEN 

1 3 T H E DESCENT OF THE HOLY GHOST 
UPON THE APOSTLES 

1 4 T H E ASSUMPTION OF O U R BLESSED 
MOTHER INTO HEAVEN 

15 T H E CORONATION OF O U R BLESSED 
MOTHER IN HEAVEN 

PAGE 

4 

9 

1 4 

18 

22 

2 5 

2 9 

3 3 

3 6 

3 9 

4 2 

4 5 

4 9 

5 3 

5 6 

60 



< T o I f y l l (families 

PEACE IS W H A T W E W A N T . We can get it—and keep 
it—by saying the Rosary. Our Lady has given us her 
word on that. But even if she hadn't, common sense 
should tell us the same thing. 

Peace demands harmony and unity and strength 
in civilization. Those things depend on the unity of 
families. For that unity, an excellent cement is the 
Family Rosary. 

What a family does together is done easily. For 
that reason, the easiest of all prayers is the Family 
Rosary. It is also among the most effective of prayers. 

Christ said that, where two or three are gathered 
in His Name, He will be in the midst of them. 

My wife and I know, and our children know, that 
the Family Rosary has made our home one of the 
happiest on earth. It has filled our house with bless-
ings, not the least of which is a truly amazing family 
harmony. 

How do you go about saying the Family Rosary ? 



TO ALL F A M I L I E S 5 

Perhaps the best answer I can give is to tell how we 
do it. 

For one thing, we let the smaller children grow 
into the Rosary. We do not begin by demanding that 
they kneel, or even that they join in the whole 
Rosary. 

The little ones go about their play in the living 
room while the rest of us march from bead to bead, 
from prayer to prayer, from meditation to medita-
tion. 

Do the youngsters interfere with our meditations ? 
No; not since we learned to make them part of the 
meditations. It is easy to meditate upon the stable at 
Bethlehem, or the Holy Home at Nazareth, while 
watching your own innocent children at their inno-
cent prayer. It is easy to understand the agony of 
Mary at the Cross if you ask yourself how you would 
feel watching one of your little ones being crucified. 

As the small ones grow older, gradually they learn 
the prayers, and gradually they begin saying them 
with us—at first, perhaps, only two or three Hail 

v Marys. We should not expect much of small chil-
dren. But little by little they grow into the prayers 
and at last into the entire Rosary. 

Is it necessary to kneel? No; if it is not irreverent 
to sit in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, it is 
not irreverent to sit while praying the Rosary. With 

J . 



- 6 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

children, we think, sitting is better. The small ones 
quickly grow tired while kneeling. It is the purpose 
of the Family Rosary not to tire children but to teach 
them to pray; to make prayer as normal a part of 
their lives as play. 

Through the Family Rosary, children—and adults, 
too—become as naturally a part of the family of God 
as of their'own family. God the Father, God the Son, 
God the Holy Spirit—did not Chesterton^ say that 
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity makes even God 
Himself a Holy Family ? Into that Holy Family the 
Family Rosary draws us. We become at home with 
the Holy Trinity, at home with Jesus, at home with 
the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. 

The Family Rosary is at the heart of world peace, 
because the Family is at the heart of world peace. 
Convert and harmonize families, and you convert 
and harmonize nations. 

The Rosary begins its work in the furthest depths 
of each of us. It puts us at peace with ourselves, with 
God, with our families and with our neighbors. You 
can't pray with others and continue to quarrel with 
them. Neither can you pray sincerely without bring-
ing down from God, through Christ and Mary, the 
graces that will heal our world. 

Are you weak ? Who isn't ? If you can't start with 
the Family Rosary, start with one decade a day. You 



TO ALL F A M I L I E S 7 

will find that the march of prayer will carry you 
along, give you strength, transform you, make you 
and your family new, bring you closer to God. And 
you will graduate soon enough from a decade to five 
decades. 

Do not concentrate exclusively on any five mys-
teries. What you want is the full Catholic balance. 
On Mondays and Thursdays, meditate on the Joy-
ful Mysteries; on Tuesdays and Fridays, on the Sor-
rowful Mysteries; on Wednesdays, Saturdays and 
Sundays, on the Glorious Mysteries. 

For the children, announce the meditations in a 
way they can understand. Thus, for the Joyful Mys-
teries, say something like this: 

K Hie Annunciation: The Angel Gabriel tells the 
Virgin Mary that God wants her to be the Mother 
of the Saviour. 

2. The Visitation: The Blessed Mother goes to visit 
her cousin Elizabeth, mother of St. John the Baptist. 

S . The Nativity: The Baby Jesus is born in the 
stable at Bethlehem. 

4. The Presentation: Our Lady and St. Joseph 
take the Baby Jesus to the Temple, to offer Him to 
God. 

5. The Finding: Mary and Joseph find the Boy 
Jesus in the temple after searching for Him for three 
days. 



- 8 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

And so with the other mysteries. Fathers and 
mothers can make up their own words, because they 
know their own children best, and they have a spe-
cial grace to help them. 

Let me close with this thought: We fathers and 
mothers have as much'duty to provide for the souls 
of our children as for their bodies. God demands of 
us that we rear the little ones as good Christians. 

That is a big responsibility—but the Family Rosary 
makes it comparatively easy. The Family Rosary 
points the family straight toward heaven—which is 
what God makes families for. 

J. A. B. 



I/hnnunciallon 

To EACH MOTHER comes in some way an annuncia-
tion. We do not detract in any way from the unique 
dignity of the Virgin Mary when we say this. In 
many cases the mother, prompted by grace, has con-
sented in advance, as Mary consented, to receive and 
to cherish the child whom God wills to send. More 
of us than most of us imagine came into the world 
because we were greatly desired. More of us than 
most of us realize were answers to fervent prayer. 
Our mothers keep in their own hearts their own 
counsels; and in those hearts there are depths not 
often revealed. 

What is true of mothers is true of fathers, too. To 
Zachary, the father of John the Baptist, came an 
angel saying, "Do not be afraid, for thy petition has 
been heard, and thy wife Elizabeth shall bear thee 
a son." 

To the virgin Joseph, as to his virgin wife, came 
an annunciation, also. To him in a dream appeared 
an angel, telling him not to be afraid, for the 

SPSCM 



- 1 0 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

begotten in Mary was begotten of the Holy Spirit. 
"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call 
his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from 
their sins." 

From Mary and Joseph to my wife and me, who 
were named for them, is a vecy far cry; and yet we, 
too, like other men and women united in the sacra-
ment, of matrimony, have had our annunciations. 
More often than not, the messenger who has brought 
the tidifigs has been one of our own children; and I 
cannot think of anything more divinely appropriate. 
The little ones, like the angels, are innocent; the little 
ones, like the angels, have come from God to earth; 
the little ones, like the angels, put their trust in God. 

I remember our then only child, Mary, whom we 
called Bussie to distinguish her from her mother, 
coming to me asking for a baby brother. But we had 
been wanting a baby brother—or a baby sister—for 
some time; and Bussie was now past four years of 
age. 

"I can't give you a baby brother," I told her. 
"Then I'll ask the doctor, Daddy/' 
"He can't give you a baby brother, either." 
"Can the hospital give me one?" 
"Nobody but God can." 
"Then I'll ask God. Come on, Daddy." 
And she seized my hand and tugged. 



I 
THE ANNUNCIATION I I 

"Where do you want to go?" I asked her. 
"To church, to ask God for a brother." 
"Wait until after dinner." 
"No. Now!" 
My wife smiled. "Go on. I'll keep dinner warm." 
Bussie and I knelt at the Communion railing and 

asked for a baby brother. On the way home I cau-
tioned her: "You may have to wait. Maybe God 
won't send a baby right away." 

She stopped in the street and stared at me. "I as\ed 
Him, didn't I?" 

I was silent. 
Each evening thereafter we went to church and 

prayed for a baby brother. But one day she leaned 
closer to me in church and whispered, "Daddy, I 
changed my mind. I'm asking God for a baby sister." 

My face must have fallen a bit, for she added com-
fortingly, "That's all right. You can go on asking for 
a brother." 

When I came home from the'hospital one early 
morning and woke her to tell her that the baby sister 
had arrived, she sobbed for joy. 

The baby sister was Betty; and it was Betty's child-. 
ish prayers which in due time brought the first baby 
brother, Joe. 

Joe, it seems to me, is much as I imagine his patron 
| saint to have been. He is quiet, reflective, gentle, 



- 1 2 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

obedient, protective. Joe's prayers, l a m sure, brought 
Jimmy into our family. 
i "Dad," said Joe one day, "I want a baby brother." 

"You'll have to ask God, Joe." 
"Okay. Let's ask Him." 
We walked to our parish church under a sky glori-

fied by a magnificent sunset. I knelt at the middle of 
the Communion railing, but six-year-old Joe marched 
on to the St. Joseph altar. I heard him whispering 
rapidly. He made the Sign of the Cross, rose from his 
knees, came to me, and said, "Done." 

I do not expect ever to see more business-like and 
trustful praying. Not only did it bring Jimmy into 
our family and into the family of the Church, but it 
brought him on Father's Day, which that year fell 
on the feast of the Holy Trinity. 

As for our fifth child, Regina, what can we make 
of the circumstances of her arrival but a special cour-
tesy from God? Long before she was born, we 
agreed that if she were a girl she would be named 
for my two sisters, Regina and Sister Regina. And 
she put in her appearance on the feast of St. Regina. 
Was not that sufficient annunciation? 

"Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was 
sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, 
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the 
house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. 



T H E ANNUNCIATION 1 3 

And when the angel had come to her, he said, Hail, 
full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou 
among women'." 

I know of no word in the English language which 
can carry the weight of the full name of the Virgin. 
The angel did not call her Mary. He addressed her 
as "Full of Grace." Her name should be Mary Grace-
ful, if the term graceful were as rich in spiritual as in 
physical meaning. But there is food for profound 
meditation in the fact that she was spiritually most 
graceful, most beautiful in the eyes of God and His 
angels, at the time when she consented to give her 
body to ungainliness in order to form a living tem-
ple for the Son of God to dwell in. 

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to 
me according to thy word." 

Before and since that time, millions of mothers 
have consented to cooperate with God in the work 
of creating immortal beings, destined to live with 
God forever. In prayer and in union of their wills 
with God's, they have found their own small annun-
ciations. If sometimes we wonder that God has never 
ceased to love us in spite of our sins, we may remem-
ber that each of us has had a mother; and perhaps it 
is for our mothers that He loves us most. For He, 
too, has a mother. And to every good mother He 
will some day say, as the angel said to His Mother, 



- 1 4 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

"Blessed art thou among w o m e n . . . Thou has found 
grace with God." How can it be otherwise with 
those who are the mothers of His little ones, the 
mothers of the brothers and sisters of His Only Be-
gotten Son? 

2 

tf^he Q^isUaiton 

You M I G H T SAY that the first thing Christ did on 
this earth was to visit His relatives. He visited them 
before He was born. He willed that He be carried, in 
the womb of His Mother, to the home of their cousin 
Elizabeth, who bore under her heart another cousin, 
John the Baptist. 

It was as if Christ could not wait to begin to give 
presents to His folks out of His store of infinite 
riches. It was as if He loved His family so much that 
He was impatient to start being good to them. To 
Elizabeth and John He must at once give Himself, 
give His Mother, and give the Holy Spirit. 

Upon the approach of Mary, Elizabeth was in-
spired. Suddenly she knew that this girl who em-



T H E VISITATION 1 5 

braced her was the woman God had chosen to be 
Mother of Himself Incarnate. She knew that she 
stood in the presence of the new and living Temple, 
the new and living Tabernacle, the beautiful, breath-
ing, speaking House of God. 

And John the Baptist, not yet born, somehow 
knew, too. In his mother's womb he leapt for joy be-
cause suddenly he was made holy. Suddenly he was 
delivered from the influence of Satan, from the sad 
inheritance of the sin of Adam Suddenly he was 
free with the rollicking freedom of the sons of God. 
Without water, Christ had baptized him, because he 
was Christ's relative, and because he was to be the 
messenger who would announce Christ's mission to 
mankind. From his cousin Christ, John had re-
ceived, before birth, the greatest of all birthday gifts 
—the gift of supernatural life. 

In all history there is hardly a more touching or a 
more natural family scene than this which we call 
the Visitation. What is more natural or more heart-
touching than that a younger woman should visit 
an older woman, a relative, when each is with child ? 
At such a time, women need each other. 

From the younger, the elder draws optimism, 
strength, joy. From the older, the younger receives 
courage and wise counsel. There are a thousand ques-
tions to be asked and answered; there are ten thou-



- 1 6 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

sand dreams to be shared. This is a moment when 
the gulf between youth and age is bridged; and the 
first act of Christ the Pontiff, Christ the builder of 
bridges between God and man, was to bridge the 
years between Mary and Elizabeth. 

Even in the merely human aspect, Elizabeth*and 
Mary needed each other then. Elizabeth, so aged that 
only by a miracle had she conceived, needed rest and 
care. She needed the'bubbling energy of Mary's 
youth, not only for her daily tasks, but also for her 
spirits. The arrival of this young relative was, even 
on the natural level, aside from the supernatural, a 
godsend. 

But the giving went both ways. For Mary, Eliza-
beth provided what age and experience had taught. 
Here was a girl, not only tenderly young and im-
maculately pure, but also pledged to virginity. Mary 
had sacrificed to God the dearest right of a Jewish 
woman, the right to bear children. In her humility 
she had given up (as she thought) the possibility of 
being the mother of the Redeemer. Now, having 
sacrificed all that, having put motherhood out of her 
mind, she was a mother. She was The Mother. She 
needed Elizabeth's guidance. 

In the Visitation, then, we have a mystery small 
and intimate, and yet immense, as all divine mys-
teries are. And it is a family mystery. It is a mystery 



T H E VISITATION - 1 7 

of God's entrance into the human family; of His 
having, not only a mother, but also cousins and 
cousins-in-law, and of not only having them, but also 
wanting to visit them and to bring gifts to them. It 
is a mystery, too, that brings angels, as well as God, 
into the familiarity of the human home and the 
human race. 

The holy oneness of the Holy Trinity expanded 
and embraced all. In the Holy of Holies, the priest 
Zachary beseeched God that he might have a son to 
complete his family. From the company of angels 
came a messenger to assure him that his prayer was 
granted. From Nazareth, also at the bidding of an 
angel, came Mary and Mary's Son to be with Zachary 
and Elizabeth in the great months of waiting. 

Thus were God and angels and men and women 
and children brought together in happy home life, 
under a humble roof, before a glowing hearth, 
around a family table; united in prayer, united in 
work, united in recreation, united in joy and laugh-
ter. Thus did God listen, and angels listen, and a 
silent man, soon to be a father, listen, while two 
women" exchanged the sacred confidences of ap-
proaching motherhood and dreamed together the 
dreams that mothers alone know. In the Visitation, 
the community of all that exists is placed before us 
for contemplation. All life is family life, even the life 



- 1 8 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

of God; and heaven and earth are two rooms in the 
same home. 

3 

¿BiAk of Our J>ord 

E V E R Y C H I L D who comes into the world is free to 
accept or not to accept, sooner or later, membership 
in the family into which he is born. He can ratify 
that membership by loving his father and mother, 
his brothers and sisters, his uncles, aunts and cousins; 
or he can repudiate it by refusing to love them. In 
each human being there is this wonderful and awful, 
this frightening and yet consoling, freedom of 
choice. 

God made men and women for God, first to serve 
Him, then to be His sons and daughters and to live 
with Him, sharing His infinite goods. But man, by 
an imperious act of his free will, decreed otherwise. 
Man chose to go his own way. He selected for him-
self the role of Prodigal Son. He imagined that men 
would be like gods, although in fact they became 
like swine. And God, were He not God, might have 



TOE BIRTH OF OUR LORD 1 9 

said, "So be it. Have your way. The catastrophe is of 
your making; live with it." 

But God is God, and out of evil He is able to bring 
good. The fall of man, wicked though it was, opened 
the way for God to become, in the eyes of mankind, 
what Chesterton has called, in a marvelous poem, 
"God beyond God." The missal, with a similar holy 
daring, tries to express the same stunning mystery 
in the statement about the fortunate fall that brought 
so great a Redeemer. Francis Thompson, too, felt 
the shattering impact of God's goodness: He wrote 
of Christ as a hound pursuing him down the laby-
rinthine ways of his own mind and bringing him at 
last to bay. 

"Blessed is he," said Jesus Christ, "who shall not 
be scandalized in Me." The goodness of God, as 
shown forth in the Incarnation, is a scandal, a stum-
bling-block, to the intellect of fallen and sinful man. 
Chesterton has been criticized for saying that faith is 
believing the incredible. But the mysteries of the 
Faith, and above all the Incarnation, are frankly in-
credible. To the eyes of our natural minds, they are 
too good to be true. Only by a supernatural gift of 
God do we believe them as they demand to be be-
lieved—firmly and constantly, without the shadow 
of a passing doubt, without questioning. Only by the 
gift of God do we become as little children who, be-



- 2 0 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

cause they are innocent, can stand wide-eyed in the 
stable under the Star and not be crushed under the 
measureless weight of the goodness of God. 

The story is as simple as a child's tale, and yet too 
profound for anyone but God Himself completely 
to understand. It goes like this: The Three Persons 
of the Blessed Trinity would not abandon man to his 
self-chosen and unspeakably dreadful fate. In justice 
to the Divine Nature that is Theirs, They insisted 
upon a divine reparation for man's sin against 
God. But the sin was man's, and there had to be a 
human reparation, too. To man, human reparation 
was possible; divine reparation impossible. Very 
well; the Second Person of the Trinity, God Him-
self, would become man, would take a human na-
ture. In that nature He, the Divine Person, would 
make the divine and human reparation. He would 
reunite man with God, and He would do so by do-
ing for man something that is impossible even to 
God in His own nature and is infinitely abhorrent 
to Him. He would die for man—even the unspeak-
able death of the Cross. 

Now to say that the very thought of this makes the 
mind reel is still to fail to come within an infinity of 
expressing the awful reality. Yet such is the grace 
which was poured forth from the Cross that mere 
men and women, millions of them, have died dread-



T H E B I R T H O F OUR LORD 2 1 

ful deaths as martyrs in Christ and for Christ. We 
have almost become accustomed to such Christian 
heroism. We can even see ourselves, if necessary, ris-
ing to such heights through God's grace. We can go 
through life with a constant determination to die 
any death rather than deny Christ. 

Thus it is that somehow we feel at home in the 
company—in the very family—of Him whose awful 
holiness would otherwise crush us. He is our Infant, 
our Child, our Brother, our Father. True, He is our 
Creator and will be our Judge; but we think of Him 
chiefly as our Beloved. He is our God, but neverthe-
less He is thevnoblest and most loved member of our 
human family. He died for us, but now He lives for 
us, and with us, and in us; and we live by His life 
flowing through us. 

It is, then, when we are most like children cluster-
- • * 

ing around a Maiden and her Baby in a hidden cave 
among the animals, that we perhaps come closest to 
knowing God in this life. At Christmas time, on the 
feast of the Nativity, we feel something of the joy 
that is to be ours, and something of the eternal secur-
ity and at-homeness for which we wait. For God is 
Good, families are good, a home is good, and 
humility and love and laughter are good. Christmas 
is the festival of the Holy Family, and, of that family, 
all are members who know God, love God, and serve 



- 2 2 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

God. Heaven is where God is, angels are, and good 
people are; and a stable could serve for heaven, as it 
did the night the Eternal was born into our f a m i l y 
in order that we might be reborn into His. 

T H E P R E S E N T A T I O N seems to me to be especially a 
"St. Joseph mystery"; that is, a mystery especially 
pointing to the mysterious holiness and the immense 
importance of fatherhopd. 

In my meditations on the Presentation I always 
feel a hope that this occasion, if no other, brought 
Joseph forward for a little while out of the obscurity 
which he invariably chose for himself. I like to thinlc 
that he may have carried the Christ Child to the 
Temple. I see him heading a little procession of rela-
tives and friends. I imagine them taking his hand 
and congratulating h i m 

Possibly, this once, he stood in the forefront, rather 
than in the background, as the Little One was offered 

4 



T H E PRESENTATION OF OCR LORD I N T H E T E M P L E 2 3 

for the first time, formally and publicly, as the one 
Sacrifice worthy of God. That would be fitting. We 
do not sufficiently realize that St. Joseph stood in the 
place of God with respect to God's incarnate Son. 
This is a dignity overwhelming to contemplate. 

It is an overwhelming thought, but it is a plain 
fact. God Incarnate bound himself to obey St. Joseph. 
He bound Himself to honor Joseph as His father. 
The authority of God over the human Christ was 
exercised through St. Joseph, just as God's authority 
over other children is exercised through their fathers. 

To put it quite simply, Joseph was the head of the 
Holy Family. He was the perfect father. Through 
him, God's providence operated with respect to Jesus 
and Mary. 

It was through Joseph, then, that God presented 
His only begotten Son in the Temple, to be offered 
by the high priest for the service of God and the 
service of mankind. The Presentation was a Holy 
Sacrifice before the Mass. It was a pledge of the Sacri-
fice of Calvary and a pledge of the Sacrifice of the 
Mass. The decision for that sacrifice came through 
St. Joseph. 

Not until we have understood St. Joseph's great 
fatherhood can we have a proper philosophy of fa-
therhood and familyhood—of ourselves as fathers or 
mothers or sons or daughters. 



2 4 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

St. Joseph's fatherhood was spiritual, not physical. 
Yet, precisely because of that, it was the truest father-
hood on earth. Exactly because of his virginity and 
chastity, Joseph was father of the Christ Child in the 
noblest, highest, and most real sense. 

For fatherhood—true fatherhood—is enormously 
more spiritual than it is physical. Mere physical 
fatherhood is relatively as unimportant as mere 
physical sonship. What would we think of a son who 
said that his duty toward his father was done the 
moment he was born? What kind of father would 
hold that he owed nothing to his children beyond 
their conception? 

No; it is in loving his children, caring for them, 
educating them, rearing them for eternal life, that 
the father earns title to his fatherhood—to his associa-
tion with God, not only in creating, but also in all 
that the fatherhood of God implies, including re-
demption and salvation. That is what makes a father 
truly a father; and in that St. Joseph was pre-emi-
nent. In that, he was more truly and more perfectly 
the father of the Christ Child than we are fathers of 
our children. That is why, more than any other man 
who ever lived or will live, he owns the title of father. 

Where we are imperfect fathers, he was the perfect 
father. His was, in the highest degree, the father-
hood of the will, the fatherhood of self-sacrifice, the 



T H E FINDING OF OUR LORD I N T H E T E M P L E 27 

fatherhood of purest and most unselfish love. If we 
are proud of our children on their baptismal day, was 
he not vastly prouder of the Christ Child on the day 
of the Presentation? If we are happy when there is 
placed in our arms a new Christian, was he not in-
comparably happier to receive from the high priest 
the Christian of Christians, the Child who at that 
moment had pledged Himself to the Supreme Sacri-
fice for the redemption and salvation of souls? 
The Presentation, to me, is a "St. Joseph mystery." 
I see it as moving us, who likewise are fathers, to 
consecrate our children, in union with him, to the 
service of God, as he consecrated the Christ Child. 

No L O V E is R I G H T L O V E that does not put God first. 
Unless God be foremost, even the love of a mother 
for her son has something profoundly wrong with it. 
Such is the lesson set forth for us in the mystery of 
the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. 

5 



- 2 6 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

It is a mystery with depths beyond depths. Why 
did this divine Boy let Mary and Joseph depart from 
Jerusalem without Him, each supposing that He was 
with the other in the caravan ? Why did He not tell 
them that He was staying behind ? 

"Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing," 
said Mary to Jesus when they found Him in the tem-
ple amid the doctors of the Jewish law. Not lightly 
did this bravest and most patient of women use the 
term "sorrow." 

Why did the young Christ, when he could have 
prevented it with a word, allow these two whom He 
most loved to search for Him, sorrowing, three days 
in the ways and byways of the Holy City?* 

He did so, I think, because the salvation of souls 
was involved. Whatever the cost in sorrow to Him-
self and the others—for we may be sure that He sor-
rowed far more than they—a great example had to 
be set before all the Christian families of future ages. 

The lesson had to be driven home that we are 
made to know God, to love God, to serve God; that 
that is the reason for our existence, and that every-
thing else must yield. Nothing, not even the love of 
mother and son, must be permitted to stand in the 
way. 

A great story is told of St. Francis Xavier. When 
he set forth, after a long absence from his family, to 



T H E FINDING O F OUR LORD I N T H E T E M P L E 2 7 

convert the Orient, he came to a crossroad not far 
from where his parents lived. He reined-in his horse 
for a moment and sat staring along the road that led 
to home. Then he urged his horse the other way, to-
ward the port where he would set sail His holy pru-
dence told him that he loved his parents so very 
much that, if he paused for a visit with them, he 
might give up his great calling. St. Francis Xavier 
knew the lesson that is set forth for us in the mystery 
of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple. 

"Did you not know," the young Christ asked His 
Mother, "that I must be about My Father's business ?" 

Of course she knew. It was not for herself alone 
that she sorrowed, nor was it for himself alone that 
Joseph sorrowed. They sorrowed for our benefit. They 
sorrowed in order that we might have it impressed 
upon us that God comes first, that no love is a good 
love unless it includes God, puts God foremost, and is 
directed ultimately to God's service and His glory. 

Not many are called upon for sacrifices as heroic 
as that of St. Francis Xavier. But of each of us some 
sacrifice is asked. Of each of us it is demanded that 
love—even the most natural and good love—be ulti-
mately unselfish and ultimately divine if it is to be 
true love and right love. For unless love is unselfish, 
it is not really love at all; or at least it is a misdirected 

. and a self-destroying love. 



- 2 8 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

Every father and mother, every child, every family 
wishing to be true to God must learn sooner or later 
the lesson of this mystery of the Finding. Everyone 
who would save his soul must come to the decision 
that is expressed in the words, "Did you not know 
that I must be about My Father's business?" 

Every boy and girl called to a vocation—whether it 
be the religious vocation, or the vocation of marriage 
and thé founding of a new Christian family, or the 
vocation of single life in the world—every boy and 
girl ought to be prepared to address that question, if 
necessary, to his father and mother: "Must I not be 
about My Father's business?" 

But no parent should ever make it necessary for " 
any child to ask that question. On the contrary, every 
father and mother should address it, on proper occa-
sions, to their children: "Do you not know, son (or 
daughter), that you must in due time be about your 
Father's business—God's business ? Do you not know 
what you were made for? Don't you understand that 
you exist to serve God? Do you not see that you can-
not be false to Him without being false to your very 
being? It is your business to be about His business. 
It is not for you to decide whether you should serve 
Him. It is for you only to determine in what way of 
life you can best serve Him. Now—off with you and 
be at i t " 



T H E AGONY OF OUR LORD I N T H E GARDEN 2 9 

That is the attitude that parents should take to-
ward the futures of their children. Any other atti-
tude is a fool's attitude. Love that does -not want 
children to serve God is false love and wicked love. 
And it was to teach us this that Joseph and Mary 
walked sorrowing about Jerusalem, and that the Boy 
Christ, secretly sorrowing also, allowed them to 
search for Him through the anxious hours. 

6 

<Q. of ®ur cRord 

in lite garden 

I N T H E G A R D E N of family life, there are bound to be 
some agonies. Even if they are agonies only of the 
imagination, nevertheless they hurt. Sometimes they 
are all the more dreadful for the fact that they grow 
out of unreal and unreasonable fears. 

What child, lying awake at night, has not known at 
some time the terrible fear that his parents might die, 
or might leave him? Or that he might become lost 
from them? Or that the house might burn, or Father 
lose his job ? Who has never been afraid of the dark, 



- 3 0 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

or afraid of animals, or afraid of illness? Who has 
grown up without enduring a thousand little transi-
tory agonies—and some that were neither small nor 
quickly passing? Which of us has never suffered 
pain, either of the mind or of the body? The ear-
aches, the toothaches, the headaches, the stomach-
aches, the growing pains, the misunderstandings, the 
quarrels with brothers or sisters or playmates, the dis-
appointments, the troubles over school work—has 
anybody ever lived through childhood without sup-
porting one or more of these agonies? 

And no sooner have we grown into adulthood, and 
married, and begun to have our own children than 
we begin to suffer these things all over again, now 
not in ourselves but in our little ones; not in our bod-
ies but in our minds, in our love—and they seem 
now more insupportable than ever. But we support 
them. We endure. 

All these things are spiritually precious beyond 
price, if only we will unite ourselves in our troubles 
with Christ in His Passion, Christ in His agony in 
the garden. That is why it is tremendously important 
that we say, each day, the Morning Offering—even if 
we say it in the evening. That is why it is surpassingly 
vital that we keep ourselves in the state of grace and 
in the state of a union of our wills with God's will. It 
would not do to suffer these things to no purpose. To 



T H E AGONY OF OUR LORD I N T H E GARDEN 3 1 

do so would be foolish, wasteful, neglectful of one of 
our greatest sources of riches. 

Not for no purpose, but for a very great purpose 
do we suffer. Not for nothing does a mother sacrifice 
sleep for an ailing child, or a husband pace a hospital 
corridor, accompanied by spectres of fear, while his 
wife is bringing forth a new life. For very high, 
sacred and divine reasons is life a struggle, a combat, 
a challenge, a practice of small and large heroisms, 
a thing calling for courage, but .a thing leading to 
rewards and happiness far beyond the most wonder-
ful hopes and dreams. There is nothing but sin that 
has not its splendid purpose for our eternal success. 

For God is our Great Spiritual Director. With in-
finitely more wisdom than that of the greatest the-
ologian He leads us surely heavenward, or sees that 
we are led—if only we are willing to go, if only we 
do not refuse Him. Not easily will He allow us to 
escape from His love—not He who had the agony in 
the garden for us, He who died for us and rose for 
us and ascended for us, He who sent the Holy Spirit 
to dwell in us and sanctify us. 

No; He will hardly take no for an answer. Accur-
ately did Francis Thompson, with his poetic mysti-
cism, see Christ as a relentless Hound of love, pursu-
ing us down the labyrinthine ways of our own selves, 
taking us at last captives of everlasting joys. 



- 3 2 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

I once heard it expressed in a far less poetic way, 
perhaps even in what may seem a crude and almost 
shocking way, but in a most forceful way that is al-
most impossible to forget. "God," said a diamond-in-
the-rough friend to me, "will pull a gun on you, if 
necessary, to make you behave and save your soul." 
Well, that sounds jolting, but did not my friend have 
the same right to say it in his way as Francis Thomp-
son had to say it in his? And were there not those 
who, when Thompson first said it, thought that he 
was being irreverent in calling Our Lord the Hound 
of Heaven ? 

My friend had told me how he had been brought 
by family misfortunes, family troubles, and family 
sufferings to his senses—to the adoration and'the 
thanksgiving he owed God. The God of Hosts, the 
God of Battles, the God of Abraham's sacrificial 
knife and of Moses' wrath, the God of the punishing 
angels in the desert—yes, He will, rather than let us 
go down the road to perdition, "pull a gun on us," 
hold us tip, hold us back, turn us away from the way 
of destruction. It may be by the illness or death of a 
child; it may be by some disaster, financial or physi-
cal or other; it may be by some agony hidden deep 
within our souls where God alone can see. But God 
will not have us damned; He will-have us saved. 
And the greatest family wisdom is to put the hand of 



T H E SCOURGING AT T H E PILLAR 3 3 

the father, the mother, and all the children in His, 
and let Him lead the way gently, rather than vio-
lently. For violent He will be if that is the only way 
to rescue us from eternal death. He loves us, remem-
ber, infinitely. 

g 

^Ore cJcourging at ike (^Pillar 

I N M A N Y A H O M E , Christ is rescourged again and 
again by the very people who meditate sorrowfully 
on His first scourging in Jerusalem It should not be 
so. But it is. , 

Christ is scourged in the person of the wife who is 
shouted down, or struck, by an angry husband. He 
is scourged in the husband who is nagged almost be-
yond endurance by a complaining wife. He is 
scourged in bewildered children who are slapped or 
screamed at by impatient, irritated fathers and 
mothers. 

There should be no place in the home for these 
scourgings of Christ in His brethren. The home is no 
place for sharp words. It is no place for recrimina-



3 4 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

tions. It is no place for quarrelings, for name-call-
ings, for jealousies, for angers, for slappings and 
whippings, for selfishnesses, for greeds and grab-
bings, for envies and hatreds. 

The home is a place for love. It is a place for char-
ity. It is a center for kindliness. It is, or should be, the 
very heart and symbol of unity. 

A family should look upon its home much as it 
looks upon a church. For is not the hom<? the first 
church? Do not the roots of the Church run back to 
the holy home at Nazareth? No family would dream 
of carrying on a family quarrel in the parish church, 
before the Blessed Sacrament. Neither should any 
family dream of carrying on a family quarrel at 
home, under the eye of God Who sent each member 
of that family to all the others. 

There is no husband, no wife, who will not say 
that world peace is wanted and needed. The place 
for husbands and wives to establish world peace is in 
their own homes. We must recapture, if we are to 
rebuild the world, the strong sense that the home is 
sacred, like the church. We must come to see in our 
family a holy institution, directly created by the Crea-
tor, redeemed by the Saviour, sanctified by the Holy 
Spirit 

We must throw out the scourges. We must stop 
lashing Christ in one another. His heart is hurt by 



T H E SCOURGING AT T H E PILLAR. - 3 5 

every bitter, cutting word spoken in any home; by 
every denial or violation of the love that ought to 
unite fathers and mothers and children. If it were 
not so, He would not have appeared to St. Margaret 
Mary. If it were not so, He would not have asked 
that the image of His Sacred Heart be exposed in 
every household. He did ask that. But He asked 
more. He asked not only that His image be placed 
in the home but also that It be honored. And He 
gave His promise—the promise of God Incarnate— 
that in homes where His Sacred Heart is honored 
He will establish a reign of peace and love. That He 
does precisely that, I can testify from experience. 
The home where the Sacred Heart of Jesus is hon-
ored becomes a happy little anteroom to heaven, 
filled with holiness and rollicking joys. 

But honoring means honoring. Honoring Christ 
does not mean hiding His image where only mem-
bers of the family can see it. That means being 
ashamed of Christ. Honoring Hiiri means giving 
Him the place of honor in the most conspicuous spot 
in the living room. And it means praying to Him, 
and living as He would have us live. 

The best way to honor Him—the best way to earn 
His promises—is to enthrone the Sacred Heart for-
mally, according to the method urged by the En-
thronement of the Sacred Heart movement. Do that 



- 3 6 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

if possible. Otherwise, enthrone the Sacred Heart 
with your own ceremony. Then there will come 
upon the family the graces that will stop the scourg-
ings of Christ in the persons of His children. 

It is well to meditate upon the mystery of the 
Scourging. It is even better to carry that meditation 
into practice, in the bosom of the family, upon which 
depends all civilization. 

8 

tf^he (frowning tvi i l <n or tut 

F O R E V E R Y H U S B A N D and wife there are thorns at 
some time. But the thorns, worn patiently, bring 
forth roses of grace and of great happiness. 

Of every joy, the greatest part is knowing that the 
joy was earned. And in marriage, men and women 
earn their joys. A wife must often wear the thorns 
of worry over her husband's health, his success, or his 
safety. She must wear the thorns of fear for her chil-
dren. And there is no husband and father who is 
ever entirely free of the thorns of providing for the 
future; of meeting the expenses of his growing fam-



T H E CROWNING W I T H THORNS 3 7 

ily; of seeing to their feeding, their clothing, their 
education, their setting forth to found their own 
families or to devote themselves to God's service in 
the religious vocation. 

There are thorns by the hundreds—thorns of ill-
ness, of injury, of youthful disobedience, of the prob-
lem of trying to get young people to see the wisdom 
of the laws of God and the directions of parents. You 
might almost say that the good father and mother 
are never without their crowns of anxiety or at least 
of responsibility, planning, contriving, making ends 
meet, deciding what is best for this child or that 
child, selecting a doctor, selecting a dentist, meeting 
the thousand and one problems of the home and the 
family. But the strange fact is that out of these pain-
ful crowns grow the finest flowers of joy. 

"Mary," I said to my wife one day, "I would go 
through everything we have gone through for the 
past twenty-two years, merely for the privilege of do-
ing what I did this morning—taking our son Joe to 
church to serve the 8:15 Mass." 

That was true. But only other fathers who have 
seen their boys at-the altar will understand how pro-
foundly true it was. Only such fathers have known 
the encompassing happiness that comes to man from 
seeing his own son serving Mass. Only such fathers 
can realize that at such moments their joy is so im-



- 3 8 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

mense that it more than repays them for every 
thought, every labor, every anxiety, every word and 
gesture and deed which they have invested in rear-
ing a son. It does repay. Repayment is something 
that we must not lose sight of. The reward we must 
not forget, lest we falter. 

Christ, we must remember, the human Christ, is 
repaid and will be repaid for eternity for His suffer-
ings, for the crown of thorns He wore on His heart 
throughout His life and on His head at the time of 
His passion. Mary His Mother is repaid, and will be 
everlastingly repaid. There are no words to express 
the repayments of God. 

There is no way in which we can realize the colos-
sal happiness of Christ and of His Mother- and of 
their saints. Neither can we know now what joys are 
reserved for us if we will but be good husbands and 
wives, good fathers and mothers. 

But we can at least guess. We can understand that 
the rejoicing which lifts the hearts of a father and 
mother almost out of their bodies when they look 
upon their children is but a faint foretaste of what is 
laid up for them in heaven. 

A man or a woman can almost go into an ecstasy 
over a baby's first toddling steps, over the first word 
spoken by the little one, or over a daughter or a son 
going forward to receive a diploma or a degree. If 



T H E CARRYING OF T H E CROSS 3 9 

you are a father or a mother, you have known such 
joys—or will soon know them. And you know that 
they repay you a thousand fold for every labor, for 
every sorrow, for every worry, for every thorn that 
pierced your mind or your heart during your mar-
riage. 

Wear a crown of thorns? All good husbands and 
wives do that. That is one of the reasons they are so 
happy. 

9 

e (Partying of ilie @ross 

T H E CROSS THAT C H R I S T carried was a family cross. 
Not until that fact is better understood will the 
world's peoples have the peace for which they long. 

The people of the world must come to see that 
they are a family. The human race is not a race; it is 
a brotherhood and sisterhood under the fatherhood 
of God. 

No one has the right to be merely an individual. 
Every last one of us is responsible to some extent for 
the happiness, prosperity and salvation of all the rest 
of us. 



- 4 0 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

And each and every one of us is utterly dependent 
upon God. Physically and spiritually, we all are 
linked upon the chain of His providence. 

No one can be successful alone. Success means, 
sanctity; without sanctity there is no success. And 
there is no such thing as holiness in a vacuum 

No one even exists except by the will of God. And 
in God's plan we owe our existence not only to Him; 
we owe it also to our parents and to a succession of 
ancestors back to Adam. There is not one of us who 
is not the product of the travail of hundreds of thou-
sands of mothers. We live and breathe because they 
carried for us the multitudinous crosses of child-bear-
ing and childbirth through uncounted centuries. 

The Orientals are perfectly right to venerate their 
ancestors. We should learn from them to venerate 
our own ancestors more than we do. Somewhere 
along the line, our ancestors and their ancestors are 
the same men and women. Every last one of us is 
related and interrelated. We are all members of the 
family. We lose track of the genealogy in the mists 
of time, but the relationship remains. 

Now this is true not only physically but spiritually, 
too. Everyone who goes to heaven will be able to 
spend a great deal of eternity—if one can so speak of 
time in timelessness—thanking those to whom we 
owe our salvation. 



T H E CARRYING OF T H E CROSS 4 1 

The cross which Christ carried was a family cross 
because it was the cross of the sins of all of us. He car-
ried it for us because He was sinless, and He was 
God. We could not carry it for ourselves. Not that 
cross. Not the cross of redemption—of the reunion of 
mankind with God after Adam's disastrous breach. 
Christ, our elder brother, the new Adam who fa-
thered our souls in the supernatural life—Christ car-
ried for us the Crucial Cross. 

But He did not take from us the opportunity to do 
our bit. "Follow Me," He said. He left for each of us 
some important work to do, some smaller cross or 
crosses to carry, some harmony to contribute to the 
everlasting symphony of those who will live forever 
with God. 

Thus Christ bound us together with Him and 
with one another in a spiritual unity closer and more 
intimate by far than our physical relationship. 

We cannot save our souls, for instance, without the 
help of His Mother. For He ordained that all His 
graces would be distributed through her. 

And what of the part that Joseph plays in our sal-
vation? What of the part played by the angels and 
saints—and even by the Holy Souls in Purgatory? 

No; we cannot make the journey alone. We are 
helped by innumerable other souls, all carrying their 
crosses with Christ. 



4 2 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

This truth extends through all things on earth. 
We would have better government if all realized that 
the ultimate purpose of government is to serve God 
and to make it easier for human beings to go to God. 
We would have better schools if all realized that the 
.right purpose of schools is to save souls. The right 
ultimate purpose of every person and of everything 
is to glorify God. For this we are made; for this we 
ought to exist. For each of us there is some small 
Cross of the Human Family which we are ordained 
to carry in union with Christ's Crucial Family Cross. 
And when enough of us carry them—the crosses of 
good parenthood, the crosses of good government, or 
whatever crosses they may be—then we will have the 
kind of world we need. 

10 

<CL (Srucijixion and CDeaih 

of (Q)ur cJ2ord 

U N L E S S W E BE CRUCIFIED with Christ, we shall not 
rise with Him. What does that mean? Well, it does 
not mean anything too dreadful for endurance. For 
the vast majority of us, in fact, it does not mean any-
thing dreadful at all. 



T H E CRUCIFIXION AND DEATH OF OUR LORD 4 3 

For most of us, being crucified with Christ means 
simply doing our duty. Few are called upon for the 
heroic charity that endures intolerable things with 
joy and leads on to the highest sanctity. In any case, 
God asks nothing of anybody without providing 
abundant graces which make the doing of the thing, 
I would not say easy, but joyful. Joyful with the joy 
of the athlete who, seeing his goal, forces his muscles 
to difficult exertions. 

But, for most of us, to carry the cross with Christ 
means to keep the Commandments. It means to be 
good sons and daughters, good sisters and brothers, 
good fathers and mothers. It means being good 
Christians in whatever we do. 

Seldom does it mean suffering terribly, either in 
body or in soul. For the most part it means patient 
and happy discharge of the jobs that we have to do 
on this earth. 

It may mean a thing as small as weeding a garden, 
or a thing as large as being President of the United 
States. In either case, it is not the task that is im-
portant in the eyes of Christ; it is the doing of the 
job in a Christ-like way that matters. 

Getting up in the morning when the alarm rings 
: . . going to work if you are a father . . . getting the 
children off to school if you are a mother . . . paying 
attention to your studies if you are a school boy or 



- 4 4 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

g i r l . . . keeping the house reasonably neat, but not so 
neat that nobody can be comfortable in i t . . . doing a 
good job in the office or the factory or field, but not 
such a good job that you forget to be human ..,.. bal-
ancing work and play so that both your employer 
and your children are happy with you—these are 
some of the ways in which we are crucified with 
Christ in order that we may rise with Him. 

For the crucifixion that is necessary is not a literal 
crucifixion. Our crucifixion is not a hanging upon a 
brutal wooden cross. The thing that we must crucify 
is our' selfishness. That is all. 

That we must kill. But we kill it only in order that 
we may be what we were made to be; in order that 
we may have the happiness, both here and hereafter, 
that God Wants us to have. The only thing that ever 
stands between anybody and happiness is selfishness. 

Christ is on the Cross not only for our redemption 
but also for our attention. He would draw us away 
from contemplation of ourselves and into contempla-
tion of God and the things of God. And that means 
crucifying our self-centeredness. It means looking 
out of the prison of self and seeing ourselves for what 
we are—beings made, precisely made, specifically 
made, expressly designed, for certain purposes. 

Let us set down those purposes: 
To know God. 



T H E RESURRECTION OF OUR LORD 45 
To love God. 
To serve God. 
To be happy with God forever. 
That's what life is all about. That's where happi-

ness can be found. It cannot be found anywhere else. 
And that's what is meant by the saying that unless 

we are crucified with Christ we shall not risejvith 
Him. He was crucified because that was the thing 
He was sent to do in the service of God. The rest of 
us are sent to do other things—likewise in the service 
of God. 

If we do them we shall rise with Christ. It is as 
simple as that. And with God's grace, it is not diffi-
cult. Only our selfishness tries to delude us into be-
lieving that it is not only difficult but impossible. 
That's why selfishness must be crucified. 

11 

^Ote C^tesurreciion of (¿)ur cJ^ord 

T H E FIRST C H R I S T I A N family reunion was the re-
union of Christ and His Mother after His resurrec-
tion. Across this, perhaps the most touching episode 
in history, the Scriptures have drawn the veil of si-
lence. Nowhere is the story told of that first meeting 



- 4 6 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

of eyes, that first touching of hands, that first utter-
ance of words after the separation of death. 

If all true love is, as it is, too deep to be described, 
what of this love? On Calvary Jesus and Mary had 
shared an agony beyond our comprehension. 
Through the period of the tomb, she had waited and 
suffered as mothers alone wait and suffer. Now they 
had their reunion and their triumph; and they had it 
alone. The inspired word of God is silent. 

We all know that great love and great joy and 
great good pride are beyond-expression. There are 
only exclamations and gestures and delighted sounds. 
The father who would attempt-to put into words his 
love for his son would pass beyond melodrama into 
something like farce. The mother meeting her son 
after a separation can only pat his cheek aimlessly 
and then busy herself preparing some delicacy for 
him. Love is a thing so gigantic as to embarrass us 
and to strike us dumb. 

It will not be so, I think, after we, like Christ, shall 
have risen from the grave; after we, like Mary, shall 
have earned our heaven. For heaven is a state where 
love finds full expression. Heaven is a place where 
all barriers to love are down. Heaven is an endless 
life where total love is the prevailing climate; where 
no love, however ecstatic, can seem extravagant or 
overdramatic. Heaven is love, and love is heaven. 



T H E RESURRECTION O F OUR LORD _ 4 7 

There will be a rollicking joy that no one can now 
imagine in the great Christian family reunion which 
we call the general resurrection. It will be a reunion 
of many families and a reunion of one family. For 
the human race is one family. It is bone of bone and 
flesh of flesh from Adam. It is spirit of spirit and one 
in God through Christ and Mary for those who em-
brace the redemption that leads on to resurrection. 

There will be deeper things in that resurrection 
than the reunions of fathers and sons, mothers and 
daughters, brothers and sisters. No one saves his soul 
alone. And on that last day there will be revealed, in 
a great glow of light, the interplay of love and prayer 
and sacrifice which makes of all the redeemed one 
spiritual family. We shall find ourselves directly re-
lated in salvation, not alone with Jesus and His 
Mother, but with one another. Each of us will be 
either the debter or the creditor, spiritually, of each 
of us. Under God, we will owe our happiness to one 
another. 

Surely this will be true" o£ those who were related 
on earth. Within the family, in the Sacrament of 
Matrimony, there is a lifelong interflow of graces. 
Does one member seem to be falling into spiritual 
troubles? The others hasten to his rescue with prayer 
and sacrifice, with Masses and Communions. Does 
one rise high in sanctity and God's friendship ? Then 



- 4 8 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

the others begin to lean spiritually upon that one, as 
an aged mother leans on the strong arm of her son. 

But even outside the immediate family, there is 
this unity in the spiritual life. Not one of us can ever 
estimate here how much of his hoped-for salvation 
he owes to nameless and forgotten ancestors who 
held to the Faith through whatever difficulties. None 
of us can guess to what extent he is indebted to mil-
lions praying, millions suffering, millions assisting 
at Mass, millions receiving Communion, millions of-
fering everything to God through the Morning 
Offering. 

The risen shall be one great family. I know that if 
I am among those rising to eternal life I shall owe it 
in great part to my wife and my children; and I trust 
that in some small part they shall owe their presence 
to me. But I think that I shall find there also other 
sons and daughters, and unknown brothers and sis-
ters, whose merits lifted me up when otherwise I 
should have fallen. I think that I shall need an eter-
nity in which not only t6 thank God but to thank 
God's children, too. 

Among the joys for which I shall look will be the 
joy of seeing boys and girls, stricken in this life with 
polio, rising from their wheelchairs, tall and young 
and exhaustlessly vigorous in their risen bodies. I 
shall wish to see lepers cleansed, the blind seeing, the 



T H E ASCENSION O F OUR LORD I N T O HEAVEN 4 9 

deaf hearing, and limbs restored to amputees. But 
among my greatest joys, I am sure, will be the joy of 
the gigantic gratitude I shall feel—and shall be able 
then to express—when I discover that it was the pa-
tient suffering of these that lifted me over many an 
obstacle, and drew me out of many a pit, and warded 
off from me devils without number. For the risen 
shall be one family because the Church Militant on 
earth is one family, living together and guarding and 
helping one another in this great family mansion 
which moves from season to season and from genera-
tion to generation in its journey around the sun and 
toward eternity. 

n 

tf^lte %J\sceti8xon of K*)ur cJ^ord 

(0nto fffeaven 

S O M E T I M E S T H E B U R D E N is laid on the woman. 
Sometimes the family future is placed in the hands 
of the mother. A strong husband and father may fall 
ill, may die. A tall elder son may be called away to 
war. A mother or a daughter—a woman or a girl 



5 0 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

normally entitled to protection—may find herself 
suddenly, not only the Lady of the House, but also 
the Head of the House. 

I have often wondered what Jesus said to Mary 
when He told her that He must ascend into heaven, 
but that He wished her to remain on earth for a time 
to mother and to nurse His infant Church even as 
she had nursed and mothered His own infancy. Did 
He say, "Mother, I must leave you for awhile; can 
you bear it?" And did she answer as she had an-
swered the angel of the Annunciation, "Behold the 
handmaid of the Lord." 

I have occasionally encountered in Women the feel-
ing that in the eyes of the Church they are the in-
ferior sex because it is not given to them to stand 
before the altar, to offer the Holy Sacrifice, to ad-
minister the Sacraments, to govern the Kingdom of 
God on earth. They forget, I think, the divine para-
dox that the first shall be last and the last first. They 
forget the mighty inversion by which God has bal-
anced all things. And of that paradox and that inver-
sion the Virgin Mary is the very type. 

To her, and not to any other creature—not even to 
the greatest of the angels—was it given to work 
hand in hand and heart in heart with the Son of God 
in the work of redeeming mankind. Upon her, and 
upon no other creature, was conferred the glory of 



T H È ASCENSION OF OUR LORD I N T O HEAVEN 5 1 

co-operating with God in the Incarnation, of giving 
entrance into the world to Christ our Saviour, of 
being Mother of the Son Whose Father is God. 
Alone among created beings, she mothered and still 
mothers the Church as she mothered its Head. She 
only is Queen forever of heaven and earth, ruling 
with her God-man Son over angels and saints. 

As she had walked with Christ to Calvary, so now 
she walked with Him to the place of the Ascension. 
As she had seen Him lifted in shame on the Cross, 
she now saw Him rising in glory heavenward. And, 
when the cloud hid Him from their eyes, the apostles 
and disciples turned to her. Upon her they must lean 
in this moment. Her gigantic spiritual strength, the 
graces and guidance flowing through her from 
Christ, upheld the Church, upheld all the future of 
Christianity. Through her the Holy Spirit would 
come. She was the Lady of the House of God. Al-
though Jesus had named St. Peter as His Vicar and 
the Head of that House, we know to whom Peter 
must have turned in every perplexity and in all dis-
couragements. For Peter, compared with Mary, was 
spiritually a boy. 

The mother or the wife today upon whom falls the 
burden of home and family is not really left alone. 
What troubles us, truly, in all our disappointments, 
in all our sorrows, is time. That trickster tells us that 



5 2 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

we are lonely, that we are unprotected. But we know 
that the beloved who has gone before us is but a 
breath distant. We know that we, no less than he, are 
in God's hands. We know that God is our Father. 
We know that He proved on the Cross that His love 
and His care for us are beyond imagination, beyond 
thought Time is a hidden corridor along which we 
must move toward our timeless home, where forever 
we shall be with all who love us, where we shall be 
with God. We shall feel the clasp of Christ's hand; 
we shall know the warmth of Mary's smile. 

Mary's temporary separation from Jesus after the 
Ascension was a corridor that led on to the Assump-
tion. Our temporary separations lead on to resurrec-
tion and reunion. Those who have gone before us are 
waiting for us. Faith and courage—these carry us 
forward, these lift us upward, these lighten our bur-
dens and teach us to go smiling through. There is no 
heart more crushed than that of a wife deprived of 
her husband, or mother deprived of her son. Still, 
Mary our mother has our hand in hers. Still, Christ 
in His Church guards us, comforts us, strengthens us. 
Every soul that ascends into heaven means a separa-
tion and a sorrow on earth; but it means also a re-
union at last, a rollicking together forever, and an 
eternal reward for burdens bravely borne. 



13 
tfZke (Descent of lite 0(oly Qhost 

ufton ike ffit> osiles 

T H E DOCTRINE OF THE T R I N I T Y , according to Ches-
terton, reveals even God Himself as a Holy Family.. 
There is a family relationship that runs through all 
of God's dealings with mankind and through all the 
operations of the Church. This same oneness runs 
also through all the mysteries of the Rosary—through 
the mystery of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, along 
with all the others. 

God alone made Adam, but even in this first hu-
man creation there was a family aspect. "Let Us 
make man to Our image and likeness." The creature 
was to resemble the Creator as a son his father. And 
God, with the tongue of Christ, was to teach us in 
due time to pray to Him as Our Father. Speaking to 
us through Moses from the burning bush, He was to 
call Himself "I Am Who Am." But speaking in the 
person of the Word, and in the human nature of His 
only-begotten Son, our Brother, He was to reveal to 
us that we are His children; that the Name by which 



- 5 4 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

He wished to be addressed was the beloved, the inti-
mate, the family name—"Father." 

God alone made Adam; but thereafter He made 
no one, not even His Own Son, without the co-opera-
tion of one of us; without a family relationship be-
tween Him and the human family. 

Concerning the exact meaning of the statement 
that God took Adam's rib and made Eve, there can 
be question. But there can be no doubt that it was 
given to Adam to co-operate in some sense in Eve's 
creation. And from that day to the end of time, 
human beings were to share in God's creative act. 
Men were to be God's Associate Fathers; women 
were to be Associate Mothers. Children were to ap-
pear on earth through the interaction of God and 
their parents. 

Not even when the Second Person of the Blessed 
Trinity became incarnate was this relationship be-
tween God and mankind to be destroyed. Christ 
came into the human family by taking His human 
nature from a human mother. He came related to 
us in flesh and blood and bone; and, since He was 
both true God and true man, the unity of God and 
the human race was made incomparably perfect and 
intimate. 

This oneness is complete. It is spiritual, as well as 
physical. Christ is our Redeemer. To Him we owe 



T H E DESCENT OF T H E HOLY GHOST U P O N T H E APOSTLES 5 5 

our hope of salvation, and Mary is the mother of 
our redeemed souls. We are her spiritual sons. 
Through her, we are members of the Holy Family at 
Bethlehem. We are Christ's flesh-and-blood .brothers 
and Christ's spiritual brothers. The Church is Bethle-
hem expanded. The Church is the family of God, 
Christ, and Mary, a family of which we are members. 
- As in Creation, so in Salvation, the unity persists. 
God does not adopt us directly into His family, 
which is called the Church. He acts in Baptism 
through human agents, so that, not alone to Him, 
but to His associates in Christianity also, we owe tiur 
hope of eternal life. Through all the Sacraments, 
through all the sacramentals, through all the means 
of sanctification, this family unity runs." It was so 
manifested on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit, 
through the intercession of Mary, the mother of 
Christian souls, descended upon the Apostles. 

Thereafter, the descent was to be through the 
Apostles to us. Peter and James and John and the 
others were to be Associate Fathers with God of the 
souls of the saved, as fathers and mothers are asso-
ciates with God in physical parenthood. Henceforth, 
we were to have a double parentage: the parentage 
of our own fathers and mothers, and the spiritual 
parentage of the Church. The integration between 
God and mankind was complete. 



5 6 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

Pentecost was our adoption into a new family— 
the universal family of the Church, which transcends 
individual families and transcends even the great hu-
man family descended from Adam With the De-
scent of the Holy Ghost there was manifested among 
Christian men and women a new and higher rela-
tionship, new and higher brotherhood and sister-
hood, a new and higher family loyalty. To this new 
familyhood all other familyhoods must hencefor-
ward either conform or yield. We remain sons and 
daughters of our fathers and mothers; we remain 
brothers and sisters of all men; but, above and be-
yond all that, we now are children of God, children 
of the Church, heirs to the eternal family life in 
heaven. * 

U 

ton 

er of @ur Slessed Qflolk 

into m leaven 

T H E R E IS H U M A N FAMILY L I F E in eternity as a conse-
quence of the Assumption of Mary. One might say 
that a home was translated from earth to heaven. 



T H E ASSUMPTION OF OUR BLESSED MOTHER I N T O HEAVEN 5 7 

But of this family God is a member; in this home 
God is entirely at home. The divine and the human 
are intimately intermingled. Through Jesus and 
Mary, God has become one of us, and we have be-
come God's. And we are to dwell together forever 
as one family in one home. God and we are the 
closest of kin. 

The Son wanted His Mother and called her to 
Him. The Son, shall we say, wanted His home. 
Heaven is Christ's home, and yet His home was not 
complete without His Mother. For Christ is human, 
as well as divine. He was an infant, He was a boy, 
He was a young man, He was a mature man. Like 
any other man—more than any other man—He 
wanted His Mother. More than any other man, He 
remembered her love, the hundred thousand beauti-
ful associations of His life with her, and her care for 
Him. 

In the Jesus and Mary home in heaven, the mother 
is a woman. She is all that a woman can possibly be; 
she is all that any creature could possibly be. She is 
the Daughter of the Eternal Father. She is the 
Mother of the Eternal Son. She is the Bride of the 
Eternal Spirit. She is as intimately related to the 
Blessed Trinity as it is possible for a creature to be. 
With God, who is God, and with Christ, who is both 
God and man, she forms a family that is both per-



5 8 M E D I T A T I O N S F O R T H E F A M I L Y ROSARY 

fectly divine and perfectly human. There is f a m i l y 
life in heaven. 

But before Mary was taken to heaven, she had 
formed another family on earth, another family both 
human and divine. It is sometimes called a society; it 
is sometimes called the Church; it is sometimes 
called the Kingdom of God. But perhaps the most 
perfect description of it is to call it a family. God is 
its Father; Christ is its Head; Mary is its Mother; 
we are the children—the brothers and sisters. It is by 
an exactly right instinct that we have called the Pope 
Father, called our priests Father, and called our 
Brothers and Sisters Brothers and Sisters. Well might 
we all call one another Brother and Sister, as the 
writers of the Epistles called us Brethren. 

This divine, and human family which the Virgin 
mothered in its infancy before being assumed into 
heaven is related in the most intimate and family 
way with the Holy Family and, through the Holy 
Family, with God. Of the family life in heaven of 
God and Jesus and Mary, we are already partakers. 
Of that home we already are members, even though 
for our little time we are physically separated from i t 
Through grace, through the Mass, through the Sac-
raments and all the activities of the Church, that 
family life lives in us. We are being prepared for the 
great family reunion of God with all His children, 



T H E ASSUMPTION OF OUR BLESSED MOTHER I N T O HEAVEN 5 9 

of Mary our mother with all her spiritual sons and 
daughters. 

The gentle sleep that came to Mary after her work 
on earth was done was a family death. Clustered 
about her, united in prayer, were those of whose 
souls she was mother, those co-redeemed by her, the 
children of her spiritual maternity. They laid her 
gently to rest, sorrowing because of their separation 
from her, rejoicing because her time had come to 
receive the reward that "eye hath not seen, ear hath 
not heard, neither hath it entered into the mind of 
man." The moment of her Assumption was at hand. 
The work that she had come to do was done. Her 
spiritual f a m i l y , the Church, was now strong enough, 
now tall enough, to stand on its own feet, to move 
forward across the world, secure in the assurances of 
Christ's promises and of her maternal protection. 

Death in the Christian family should be like that. 
Sorrow should not be the deadly and despairing 
thing that it is among those who know not God. 
Sorrow should be mixed with, and mitigated by, 
joy. For, if a mother or a father or a child dies hold-
ing to the hand of the Church, which is the nail-
pierced hand of Christ, then that is not defeat but 
victory. That is not the end but the beginning. The 
Christian soul in death finds the corridor that leads 
upward, the opening into eternity, the way to its 



- 62 
MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

own assumption into heaven. And even these as-
sumptions, small as they are in comparison with 
Mary's, are glorious mysteries, too. In each of them 
the Christian f a m i l y , here and in eternity, glories. 

E V E R Y G O O D M O T H E R , it seems to me, shares in the 
coronation of the Virgin Mary. Mary is queen of the 
family of all angels and saints, both in heaven and 
on earth, because she first proved herself as queen of 
the Holy Family's home at Nazareth, and as queen 
even amid the horror and the agony of Gethsemane 
and Calvary. She was queenly in the Annunciation, 
queenly at Bjethlehem, queenly amid the apostles 
and disciples, queenly in death, and queenly in the 
victory over death which was given to her in the 
Assumption. Above all was she queenly in her preser-
vation from original sin and in the mastery of Satan 
thus given to her. She was a queen on earth; she is 

is 

9 2 



T H E ASSUMPTION OF OUR BLESSED MOTHER INTO HEAVEN 6 1 

Queen forever. She is the Queen of the Eternal King. 
Her royalty is everlasting and universal. 

About every mother who bears and rears children 
for God there is something of this queenliness and 
this royalty. Even more of it clings to those who are 
virgins for Christ. But mothers there must be, and 
families there must be; and the mother of each good 
family, the lady of each good house, is queen over a 
little kingdom of God on earth. Rightly did St. Au-
gustine call the home a little church, for without 
homes there would be no Church; without fathers 
and mothers and families there would have been no 
human family to be spiritually nurtured and moth-
ered by Mary. 

I like to think that among the joys which God has 
reserved for those who love Him there may be in-
cluded a coronation in heaven for each good mother. 
I think of her children and her children's children 
rising up to call her blessed, clustering around her to 
place on her head her own eternal crown while they 
hail her as queen. As they owe to Mary their spiritual 
life, so they owe to their mother their physical life 
and their opportunity to earn life without end. It is 
perhaps difficult for us sometimes, in the hot and 
heedless days of childhood and youth, to honor our 
fathers and mothers as we ought. It is not difficult in 
later years, when time and experience and thought 



- 6 2 MEDITATIONS FOR T H E FAMILY ROSARY 

have opened our eyes to our colossal debt to them, 
when we have realized that without them we would 
not have existed. It is then that we know them for 
what they were—king and queen of a kingdom 
small but inexpressibly important, the kingdom we 
call our home. 

All royalty on earth is, after all, but a reflection of 
the original royalty of parenthood. The king is king, 
the president is president, the premier is premier, 
only because many little family kingdoms came to-
gether to form one nation. Even, the spiritual pater-
nity of the priest, the paternity that makes him father 
of souls, is an image of the first paternity and the 
primal authority of fathers and mothers. For the 
family is the original reflection of the creative pater-
nity and the divine authority of God- It is from Him 
that families come, and His first sharing of authority 
is with parents. 

But in another and even wider sense, the coronation 
of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a family affair. For if 
she is queen she is mother also. It is from the womb 
of her heart that we are spiritually born; it is at the 
breasts of her mediation of all grace that our souls 
are nourished. God has willed that through her we 
are reborn; and through her, reared to be saints. It is 
our mother, then, who is crowned queen not only by 
her divine Son, but by each of us clustering around 



T H E ASSUMPTION OF OUR BLESSED M O T H E R INTO HEAVEN 6 3 

her in gratitude. We are not made her children with-
out our consent. She was appointed queen by God; 
she was elected queen by us. Individually and in 
family council, we have selected her and pledged 
our fealty. She is our queen-mother because we wish 
her to be; and, as the crown is placed on her head, 
each of us touches it symbolically, uniting with 
Christ in love for her. 

We do love Mary. We love her as our sister, our 
princess, our queen, Our Lady, our mother. It. was 
from our own mothers that we learned to love like 
that. About each of our mothers there was some-
thing of the beautiful romance of the princess, some-
thing of the royalty of the queen, something of the 
nobility of the great lady, something of the mother-

- liness of the mother. Never again, as we grow from 
childhood into adulthood, do we know a love quite 
the same—not until we find Mary. Then we recover 
that pure and selfless love, embellished and enhanced 
more than words can say. The coronation of Our 
Lady is a glorious mystery, but of all mysteries it is 
perhaps the easiest to understand. 







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