Rosary Redux

The prayers of the rosary circle around themselves, as the beads encircle the medallion.  From the first physical act of crossing oneself to the final physical act of making a little cross at each of the locations we ask for God's guidance (thoughts, utterances, feelings), this is an act of prayer.

Maybe that's why my favorite way to pray the rosary is when I'm walking, hell-for-leather, in God's natural places.  There is a rhythm to the words, a rhythm to the prayers themselves, that fits my stride.

Today being Monday, I contemplated the Joyful Mysteries as I walked.  No matter how I look at this set of events in Mary's life, I am moved more by compassion and admiration than by joy.  I admire Mary's grit, her jutting jaw as she faces the knowing smirks and crass comments aimed at her growing girth.  I admire her open heart, allowing her to welcome the angel and accept his announcement.  I admire her grace.  But I can't help but see that jaw quivering behind the defiance, the tear stealing out unbidden from behind the eyes she refuses to lower.

It is this that draws me back, again and again, to Mary.  I know the art works that feature Mary with beatific smile and blue cloak.  Yet to me, Mary's unruly teenager hair is not lit up with a halo, it is lit up with the beauty of youth, of hope, of promise.  Her face, to my mind's eye, is a little wary; but her sassy attitude, her verve, her vibrant courage--these traits shine through the Joyful Mysteries.  The angel comes to her and drops his bombshell; a few months later, Mary visits her much older relative Elizabeth, also mysteriously with child; a few months later, the young bride gives birth in a barn, in a strange town too crowded to offer decent lodging, far from home and the comforts of her mother's experience, with only the husband she barely knows to help her.  A few days later, as her religion dictates, she dedicates the baby in the Temple, against rather doomsaying prophecies of further turmoil (joy, too, but also turmoil).  Finally, her life settles into normalcy, for a few years anyway.  Twelve of them, according to the Scriptures.  Now, Jesus blows off the family deadline for loading up after Passover and stays behind--and when Mary goes after him, he smarts off to her, blathering about his father's business.  While the elders may have been impressed with the boy's knowledge and maturity, I'm betting his mother was emphatically NOT.

These are the Joyful Mysteries?  That poor girl.  I always come back to that:  the poor girl.  And yet, when I consider her gracious, open spirit in the face of the life-changing prophecy and its realization, I am awed.  There is joy here, indeed.

Like life:  Joy commingled with fear, hurt, loss.  But joy, nonetheless.