Day 74: Beloved of the Father

Hey, I'm Fr. Mark Murray with Franciscan Friars of the 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.
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If you haven't already, please consider supporting us at ascensionpress.com forward slash support. Today we'll be doing our Lectio Divina with the first luminous mystery, which is the baptism of Jesus, Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 through 17.

And our theme we'll be focusing on is begin as the beloved.

To begin with Lectio.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.

John would have prevented him saying, I need to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him saying,

I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?

But Jesus answered him,

Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he consented.

And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water,

Thank you. all righteousness.
Then he consented. And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
And behold, a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. Let's now engage the scripture here for our time of meditatio.
And we come in the context of reflecting on the baptism of Jesus as a luminous mystery, which we've discussed as mysteries of light, mysteries that are revealing something of Jesus. So the overall narrative, the luminous sort of arc here, is revealing Jesus as the anointed one, as the Messiah.
What else do we see? We see a glimpse of the Trinity, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. And we hear the Father.
And we're also given an introduction, like the veil is torn back a little bit, to the nature of the relationship between Father and Son. The Father's voice saying, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
Continuing with our Lectio in this theme of begin as the beloved, we have here the transition where Jesus is moving from his hidden years in Nazareth to what will become his public ministry. And how does it begin? By revealing the true nature of who he is.
He is the beloved. He is the beloved in whom the Father is pleased.
And so often we're going to be coming back to this, like the grace, the good news, is going to come from our living as beloved. What I'm going to offer for us in our ongoing meditation here is, like, how much do you desire this? Do you dare to desire to know,

to experience yourself as beloved?

And I think there is a little distinction here is that Jesus is the beloved son

with whom the father is well-pleased.

And as by our baptism,

as we become children of God,

we become beloved sons and daughters.

And that's just something a good father is going to feel towards their children. They are beloved.
At the same time, we can sin and we can choose to act in a way which is not pleasing to the father. And Jesus, particularly in his obedience, is always pleasing to the father.
In ourselves, we are always beloved and the father always wants the best for us but at the same time we're able to sin and to reject him and if we do reject him it's not he's not necessarily going to be pleased with us right as we as we sin so it's just going to like sit here for a moment and we're going to we're going to just going of revisit it again in a deeper level just the father's voice it'll encourage you to continue to reflect on like the beauty of it the beauty of the love that the father has for the son but also that this is what jesus comes to reveal and to bring us into is his own relationship with the Father so that we may be and experience being beloved of the father and also living lives that are pleasing to the father.

Okay, let's go one more time.

And behold, a voice from heaven saying,

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.

So now we're going to really transition to focusing on your own heart,

and your own desire to hear the Father say this.

You are my beloved son, you are my beloved daughter. And Christianity and our Lord doesn't just invite us to a set of rules, a best way to live life, to interact with one another.
At its height, Christianity brings us into this relationship. It reveals to us that our God is Father and a loving Father and that we are beloved.
And so we want to begin here as being beloved and to build our lives upon this rock. Our faith, our hope, our confidence comes from knowing God is Father, and we are His beloved.
Therefore, we can trust Him. And in trusting Him and being obedient to Him, we will also be pleasing to him.

So the question, like, do you believe this? Do you believe that you are beloved of God, beloved of the Father? The last time of Lectio before going into our Oratio. Behold a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.
We'll transition to our oratsio. Following the template, receive, respond, request, rejoice.
What is the good news that's being offered, the good news that we are here to receive? God is Father. We notice the love between the Father and the Son.
This love doesn't wane. We have to know that throughout Jesus' life, even through His passion, He experiences it.
He builds upon this rock that He is beloved of the Father. We have here being offered to us, revealed again, the rock on which to build our lives, the source of our hope, our strength, our perseverance.

And all of the baptized share in Jesus' own relationship with the Father as beloved.

How do we respond?

What's the invitation?

We begin with praise.

We thank you, Jesus, for your baptism.

We thank you for revealing to us the true nature of the Father, the true rock on which to build our lives, that we can begin and build upon being beloved sons and daughters of the best of fathers. And we thank you, Jesus, for inviting us into your own relationship and showing us the way to be beloved and pleasing of the Father, for showing us the way where we can come to a place where we can hear and experience ourselves the Father's voice saying, you are beloved beloved.
And what is our subjective response here towards this gift? Jesus, help us, Jesus, to follow you with a greater zeal, a greater desire, knowing that you are the way to the Father. Help us to build, Lord, with this as the foundation of our lives.
To experience all things in the context of knowing that God is God, that God is Father, that God is good and we are his beloved. Now we move to request.

Let us ask for the grace to continue to remain here

and to believe and to hope when life is most difficult.

We see how Jesus persevered in relationship and in obedience

and being rooted in his identity as beloved Son of the Father

through his passion,

through his rejection, through his condemnation, through his scourging. He still trusts the father.
So Jesus is like, we're just going to ask for the grace to be able to trust you and to remain firm in this foundation of being beloved sons and daughters of the best of fathers.

As life unfolds, we can't do it by ourselves, but we have the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Come, come Holy Spirit, and a light upon us.

Come Holy Spirit, and fill us again with your supernatural grace, your supernatural hope,

that we may stay rooted and abide and persevere in this good news when life is most difficult.

And now let's end with the rejoicing.

We thank you again, Lord, for your revelation.

We thank you for the gift of inviting us through baptism into your own relationship with the

Father.

We thank you for speaking to us.

We thank you for this moment of prayer. We thank you for the peace that we have received, the grace that we have received.
And we'll conclude our Lectio Divina with our time of contemplatio, receiving deeply of this grace as we pray a decade the rosary, 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. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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

Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen hail mary full of grace the lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb jesus holy mary mother of god pray for us sinners now and at the hour of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

All right, so that's going to conclude our time of doing Lectio Divina.

Certainly, if the Lord has been moving and speaking to your heart,

and you'd like to continue in silent prayer,

I'd very much encourage you to continue to pray, and to allow the Lord to speak into your heart. But for us, that will be the end of our time here today.
Thank you so much for

joining me and praying with me today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you

again tomorrow. All right, Poco Poco friends.
God bless y'all.