Why I DO Pray the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary

A response to the article “Why I Won’t Use  John Paul II’s Luminous Mysteries”.

When the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Dominic, she offered him a way for devout Catholics to contemplate and meditate upon the Rosary through three sets of Mysteries that we could use to better understand and imitate the life of Jesus Christ. Additionally, a piece of Salvation History was given us by Mary. Salvation History is the process God has used to get us to Heaven.  Whether this is a pious legend without anything but oral tradition, or whether the Rosary was the Church’s way of getting laypeople to pray an equivalent of the monastic Divine Office (now called Liturgy of the Hours) does not matter.

The Rosary was prayed countless number of times by hundreds of thousands of people individually and in families and groups for almost eight hundred years. Then Pope St. John Paul the Great came along and widened our view of the life of Jesus by giving us the Luminous Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary. These five new Mysteries gave each devotee of the Rosary the opportunity to contemplate and pray on the ministry of Jesus, what he did between his being found in the Temple by his parents (5th Joyous Mystery) and the Agony in the Garden (1st Sorrowful Mystery).

Salvation History begins with the Creation and the Fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis) and ends with us joining in the celebration of the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (see the Book of Revelation).  In between, there are many Old Testament stories that foretell the New Testament of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine did say that the Old is in the New, after all.

But the piece of Salvation History that is the life of Jesus Christ is replete with many wonderful happenings that show His Majesty, His Godliness, and His Love for His creation – us.  Those happenings, those stories, are highlighted in the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. They were given us as a development of our understanding of Salvation History. Pope St. John Paul wanted mankind to have access to a regularized contemplation of the ministry of Jesus Christ from his baptism to the Last Supper.

I note here for the reader that Bishop William A. Wack, CSC, of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee has further broadened our Rosary contemplations by promulgating for his diocese (and others outside who want it) the Hopeful Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary. These mysteries contemplate Salvation History from the Creation of the Universe and Fall of Mankind through the Great Flood, Abraham’s Sacrifice, the Passover happening, and finally the penultimate act of the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of God.  These new mysteries add another set of events in Salvation History to contemplate in God’s plan for His beloved creation – humankind. These new mysteries are just another development in teaching of a successor of the Apostles, another way to broaden and deepen the faith of those who pray the Rosary.

As for popes called “Great” and Pope St. John Paul and his worthiness or not for the title, consider the following, please. First, he conquered Soviet communism and kept it out of Western Europe, just like Leo the Great kept the Huns out of Rome.  St. John Paul gave us such a large body of writings that it will take at least another century to unpack them all, like Gregory the Great’s own accomplishments. And like Pope St. Nicholas the Great, John Paul kept the Church largely together after many troubles and threats of split within the Church by “reformers” after the Second Vatican Council, namely through the reform of Canon Law, the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and maybe most of all, by his Theology of the Body teaching that has revolutionized Church teachings on family, sexuality, procreation, pro-life issues, and the sacredness of the human body.

As for the priestly sexual abuse scandal, Pope St. John Paul said himself that he could not understand why a priest would want to rape a boy. Pope John Paul was so holy himself that his life of service was severely upset with a threat of overturning due to this new scandal. Please remember, he did not know how to properly deal with this problem (nobody did) and we are still trying to figure solutions to this nasty problem.  St. John Paul should not be faulted for not being able to solve a worldwide problem with just the few short years at the end of his pontificate.  No one pope, no one person, can combat such a wide-ranging issue so fast. But what St. John Paul started, popes Benedict XVI and Francis continued, and we pray Pope Leo XIV will complete by finding a true solution to this terrible worldwide problem. The issues of priests and bishops raping children, teens, and adults may take generations to fully understand and combat.

I think that Pope St. John Paul should be called “the Great” and that will be determined in the next generation, or maybe even a few after that.  Pope St. Leo the Great was not called “the Great” until centuries later when his biographers gave him the title.  The same is true for St. Gregory and St. Nicholas.

The Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary are a weekly reminder that Jesus Christ brought to Earth the means for our Salvation, and that was done not just by Heavenly decree, but by Heavenly action in the three year public ministry of Jesus Christ. These mysteries we contemplate every Thursday are a further development of our continuing journey to God.