Day 44: Glorified Reality

Hi, I'm Fr. Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in the 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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And if you haven't already, please consider supporting us at ascensionpress.com forward slash support. The first glorious mystery is the resurrection.
Matthew chapter 28 verses 1 through 10. Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.
And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it.

His appearance was like lightning and his clothing white as snow.

And for fear of him, the guards trembled and became like dead men.

But the angel said to the women, Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who is crucified.

He is not here, for he has risen as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.
Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him.
Behold, I have told you. So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy and ran to tell his disciples.
And behold, Jesus met them and said, Hail. And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshipped him.
Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brethren to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.
Today we begin looking at the first of the five glorious mysteries. And what we'll notice is these are mysteries of a new creation, of glorified realities.
And we'll get into that in just a second, seeing the elevated reality, the glorified reality that is the fruit of the resurrection of our Lord. But first, a couple of notes from the scriptures.
Matthew's account begins with the signs, images, consistent with a theophany, a manifestation of God. We have the descent of an angel, we have a great earthquake earthquake and this angel, his appearance is like lightning and his clothing white as snow.
And so it's clear, God is here and God is going to be revealing himself. A note which is particularly moving to me, and I offer this to you for your prayer in the future, is this, is the resurrection's already happened.
Jesus isn't rising from the dead in the context of the earthquake and the appearance of the angel. He's already risen, but no insight is offered to us of that experience.
And consistently in the gospels, we do have insights. If you will, the veil is open beyond particularly intimate realities, like when the angel Gabriel comes to Mary at the Annunciation.
We even have Jesus' exchange with his father in the Garden of Gethsemane. Father, if it is possible, you'll let this cup pass.
Not my will, but your will be done. But before the mystery itself of the resurrection, there's silence, and the veil.
And it's as if to say, this is just for the father and the son. We've shared so much.
We've given so much. We let you into so much, but what happened here is just between us.
I think there's something particularly moving and beautiful there, but let us continue on here. Jesus is risen.
The angel says he is not here for he has risen. And a few verses later, and behold, Jesus met them and said, hail.
And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him. Pulling from Pope Benedict XVI's writings on the resurrection of our Lord in his book, Jesus of Nazareth.
We're going to look at first of all, like what this resurrection means by first looking at what it is not. So Jesus Christ being risen from the dead, his resurrection, it's not simply Jesus returning to a normal biological life.
It's one who by the laws of biology would eventually have to die again. It's not what happened to Lazarus.
Lazarus came back to life, but he would die again. So it's not just coming back to the same type of life, the same biological life that Jesus had before his death.
Number two, Jesus is not a ghost or he's not a spirit. In other words, it's not that he belongs to the realm of the dead, but is somehow able to reveal himself in the realm of the living.
And it's not just a mystical experience. In a mystical experience, the human spirit is momentarily drawn aloft out of itself and perceives the realm of the divine and external only to return to the normal horizon of existence.
Mystical experience is a temporary removal of the soul's spatial and cognitive limitations. So what's happening here in the resurrection of the dead is not Jesus returning to his previous biological state.
It's not him as a ghost in the realm of the living, but making himself manifest in the place of the dead. And it's not just some sort of mystical experience in which the first witnesses of the resurrection are brought into a particular

mystical encounter with the divine.

It is Jesus in a new reality, a glorified reality.

The Holy Father, he uses the term again and again, somewhat analogously, while recognizing

that it can be misunderstood, that in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

an evolutionary leap has happened.

He says, it is a historical event that nevertheless bursts open the dimensions of history

and transcends it.

It is an evolutionary leap

in which a new dimension of life emerges,

a new dimension of human existence.

It happens in history, but it transcends history.

It is a brand new, entirely new form of life

that is no longer subject to the law of dying and becoming,

but lies beyond it.

And it affects everyone and opens up a new kind of future for mankind. And so as you hear this, you might kind of be joining with those first witnesses of the resurrection.
And what we'll see in the variety of the counts is there's a wrestling with the new reality and the trying to understand it, which makes sense because there's no analogy. It's a brand new mode, brand new form of existence, which Jesus is going to invite us to share in.
And this is part of the beauty of the resurrection accounts is it's something new. It's something beyond understanding without precedent, yet it is happening.
The disciples can't deny that Jesus is there before him. And so their invitation is an invitation of faith into receptivity, into discipleship, into hope.
Okay, I don't understand this, but I can't deny its reality. And so the journey begins of re-looking at scripture with the new fresh lens that is offered to us through the grace of the resurrection and looking at all of reality.
We look at all of reality newly differently as we experience the resurrection, which shows us a new dimension,

which already is a foretaste

of the future eternal new creation

that we are invited to share in.

The resurrection,

it's not just about a corpse coming back to life.

It's a change which touches,

if we could say glorifies all of reality. What it means for us is this.
Jesus didn't just merely exist. It's not that he was, it's that he is for all eternity.
He is risen. He is God.
He is not just a leader among leaders. He is the Son of God.
The Word became flesh. The one in whom we place all of our hope.
The one who already experiences now in his resurrection, what we, what we are called and invited to share in for all of eternity, a share in this ontological leap, our own share in his resurrection, our own share in eternal life, our own share in the new creation that we call heaven, where every tear will be wiped away. So my brothers and sisters, as we pray today, we come humbly, we come in our poverty before the mysterious new creation, before the glorious reality of Jesus' resurrected body.
And in it, we see both our destiny and our hope, the cause of our faith, the cause of our joy, that he is risen, that he is already experiencing the fullness of the new creation and that he invites us to share in his new life. 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. 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 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, everybody, thanks for joining me and praying with me again today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow.

All right.

Poco Poco, friends.

God bless y'all.