Day 186: Power From On High

July 05, 2025 14m

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In anticipation of Pentecost, Jesus tells his disciples to wait until the Father sends them power from on high. Fr. Mark-Mary tells us, considering the painting of Pentecost, attributed to Simone Peterzano, that we can trust and wait on the Lord. We may be in a place of poverty, but our strength is found in waiting for God’s power and graces. Today’s focus is the mystery of the Descent of the Holy Spirit and we will be praying one decade of the Rosary.

All of the Sacred Art we’ll be meditating with can be found in the Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide, for free linked in the complete prayer plan, or in the Ascension App. For the complete prayer plan, visit https://ascensionpress.com/riy.

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I'm Father Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars of Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast where through prayer and meditation.

The Rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world.

The Rosary in a Year is brought to you by Ascension.

This is day 186.

To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a Year, visit AscensionPress.com forward slash Rosary in a Year or text RIY to 3377.

You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month and it's a great way to track your progress.

The best place to listen to the podcast is in the Ascension app.

There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full rosary with myself and other friars.

I encourage you to pick up a copy of the Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide, a book published by Ascension that was designed to complement this podcast.

You'll find all the daily readings of scripture, saint reflections, and beautiful images of the sacred art we'll be reflecting on.

Today we will be meditating upon and praying with the third glorious mystery, the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, with help from a painting of Pentecost, of the descent of the Holy Spirit by the artist Simone Peterzano.

This painting is found in the Basilica Santa Euphemia.

Now a brief introduction to our artist and artwork.

Simone Peterzano, born in the year 1535, died in the year 1599.

He was an Italian Mannerist painter born in Bergamo.

He trained in Venice, possibly under Titian,

though his style more closely aligns with Tintoretto and Veronici.

He's active in Milan from the 1570s, and he became known for religious frescoes and altarpieces.

His most famous pupil was Caravaggio, whose chiarascuro technique may derive from Peterzano's experiments.

And the painting we're going to be looking at today was done in the year 1580.

And some artistic style notes as you'll notice: Venetian roots, warm, luminous palette, and dynamic brushwork,

manners, drama, for example, through the elongated figures, theatrical gestures, and the counter-Reformation rigor, like simplified compositions to avoid censure, which heightened decorum.

And now, a description of our painting:

the Virgin Mary, clothed in robes of blue and red, seated on a central elevated block, folds her arms across her chest

and closes her eyes as light from above shines on her and her companions.

Above her, a white dove, the radiant epicenter of golden light, sends out bright beams through the darkness in all directions towards each person present.

Cherubangels gather at the top of the scene, facing the Holy Spirit in the form of a a dove, with focus and adoration.

The light casts shadow down Mary's defined features.

She is joined by women in violet garments to her right and left.

They are closely surrounded by the eleven disciples who gather around her,

standing on a marble floor.

The richly clothed crowd gazes at the dove in awe and silence.

A single pillar of orange flame hovers above each of their heads

I have long been fascinated by

how good we are as Catholics at Lent

particularly in contrast to

what we do for Easter

I guess what I mean by this is I'm just interested in like how excited right and how much buy-in catholics give to Lent

even like non-practicing catholics are going to do something for Lent.

And in like, you know, Catholic media spaces, like it's probably the busiest time of the year.

Like everyone's got their Lenten devotionals and programs, like, et cetera.

And Catholics, like, we're, we're kind of awesome at it.

Like, we really get into it and we take it serious and we really step up.

But then we have Easter

and the Easter season.

And not to be like flippant, but for Easter and the Easter season, for like Catholics, it's kind of like crickets.

Like, there's, there's just not a lot out there.

And anecdotally, right?

If you ask a Catholic, hey, what are you doing for Lent?

They will almost always have an answer.

If you ask a Catholic, hey, like, what are you doing for Easter?

Uh, they're probably going to look at you a little bit confused.

But

we are

an Easter people, right?

And Alleluia is our song, as Pope John Paul II said at his Angelus.

And I don't want to make too big of a deal of it.

And I'm not going to pretend that I have all this 100% figured out.

But I believe one of the major contributing factors of why we do so well at Lent,

and again, I don't want this to cause us to not take Lent serious, but in Lent, particularly versus Easter, there's just a lot of space for

control.

Here's, you know, like the one or two or three things that I'm going to do for Lent, that I'm going to do to grow, that I'm going going to do for my prayer, my fasting, my almsgiving.

And humans,

we like control, we like goals, we like taking steps towards those goals.

We like being able to measure our progress or to feel the burn.

And 100%, like God uses that.

But Easter and the Easter season are harder.

It's like, like, what do I do?

And there's a reality to the joy joy of Easter, like

resurrection from the dead, that we have to receive.

Yeah, we do penance,

but like, we receive resurrection.

We receive paschal joy.

And so I think we can struggle to get excited because we're limited in like what we can do.

But I do believe it is an impoverished like Christian worldview, which focuses more on

what we can do for Jesus

than what he can do for us.

And of course, like, this doesn't mean we don't have role to play.

As we talked about our mission yesterday, we have real duty, real role to play, and there's real human effort in growing in virtue and in these doing these penance and things like that.

But like Sabbath, it's about like receiving from God.

resurrection, heaven.

It's about this place of like

the wedding feast of the banquet that we don't throw for God, but that he throws like for us.

So now I'm going to tie this into Pentecost in our painting today.

In Luke, Jesus says, and behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

What does Jesus tell his disciples?

Essentially wait.

Like wait and I will send the promise of the father and you will be clothed with power from on high.

Like you're not going to clothe yourself with power.

I am going to clothe you with power and a higher power than you can clothe yourself with.

You need to wait and you need to receive it.

And so what do Mary and the disciples do?

They're obedient.

They wait on the Lord.

They pray.

They wait.

They remain in a place of this like hope-filled dependence.

And then they receive the Holy Spirit.

And I like to contrast this just a bit from our conversation about power that came up as we were reflecting on the sorrowful mysteries.

Like you see with Pilate, you see at the scourge, you know, or at the crowning of thorns.

Like, there's a worldly approach to power, which wants to conquer,

which wants to make a name for oneself, that leans on one's own abilities, our own ideas, at the end of like winning our own inheritance to fulfill ourselves, to glorify ourselves, even to save ourselves.

But Christian power,

namely the very power of God being at work in us and through us, is something that we receive.

It is a gift that must be given by God that we participate in, but we can't earn or win it for ourselves.

So there's a space of what we call poverty.

There's a space of dependence.

There's a space of waiting where all we can do is like Mary and the disciples leading up to Pentecost is wait.

for the intervention of God.

This is the nature of the Beatitudes.

They all include a waiting for God to act, for God to fulfill a promise.

They all include some form of surrendering control and letting God be God.

So, this can include sins or struggles in our own lives that we just can't uproot by ourselves.

What do we do?

We bring it to the Lord and we wait to be clothed with power from on high.

This includes sufferings that we're undergoing that we can't alleviate and that we also can't find hope in.

This can include dryness and prayer, like where we're hitting walls and it's just not like fun anymore.

It's part of the Christian life.

And I recognize the reasons it can feel unsatisfactory to us.

Like control is a very difficult idol to destroy,

but it must be destroyed.

The good news is that we have access to the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, who clothes us with power from on high, but also we have to wait.

We have to wait on the Lord, his timing, his strength, and ultimately his gift of sharing and the resurrection.

Today, as we pray,

we're not just going to commit to being better at waiting

or to being better at patience or hope.

Today, we're going to go to Jesus.

We're going to say, Jesus, waiting is hard.

Patience is hard.

Giving up control is hard.

Hope can be hard.

So help me, Jesus.

Give me the gift of your Holy Spirit.

Live your life in me.

Give me the grace to like Mary and the apostles to wait on you,

to find security, not in my own control.

Not in my own power,

but in you and your promises.

Now, with Mary, let us pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.