Miracles Are Mine

Originally posted at The Way of the Rose 54-Day Novena Facebook group August 13, 2020

Novena Day 1

The Joyful Mysteries

Day 1 of a new novena, and my petition is “help me to know that miracles are mine.”

When I started praying the rosary, I asked for my heart’s desire—the big, impossible ask, the one I hardly dared think about.

Of course, I didn’t get it—right away. What I got was the next step illuminated before me.

One petition led to another. I’ve asked for help with healing, for more joy, and for a starter miracle.

My conversations with Mama Mary have shown me how my petitions are linked, how opening to joy is the key to unblocking the flow of miracles, paving the way not only for my own good, but for that of the planet as well.

But how do I clear the way for joy?

From a rosary perspective, the answer should be in the Joyful Mysteries, shouldn’t it?

I’ve written about the Joyful Mysteries before, how each one requires a great deal of courage and seems to come packaged with the potential for so many emotions other than joy—to the extent that it’s really easy to lose sight of the joy.

For mothers, nowhere is that clearer than in the fifth joyful mystery: The Finding in the Temple. After Mary and Joseph leave Jerusalem, they discover their young son is not traveling with the other children as they thought. He’s missing. Every mother in the world knows what must be going through Mary’s mind at this point. Lost children are vulnerable in so many ways, and all those ways cross a mother’s mind as she searches frantically for her child. Mary and Joseph rush back to Jerusalem to look for Jesus.

This dynamic is extra-reinforced in my friend circle. I have many personal friends with children who are severely affected by autism. Many of these children “wander” when they are overwhelmed. Their parents are often traumatized by it, some of them repeatedly.

Most of my friends find their children before they come to lasting harm, as Mary and Joseph do when they find Jesus holding forth in the Temple of Jerusalem. But their memories of the experience are inextricably linked to trauma—trauma that may be reinforced by PTSD flashbacks.

Yet the Finding in the Temple is a joyful mystery. (Perdita has mentioned that there is an alternate version of the rosary where this one is both joyful and sorrowful.) What this means to me is that the most important emotional aspect of the event—for Mary, Jesus’s mother—is joy.

Where does Mary’s joy come from? Obviously, she is relieved to find her son and be reunited with him. But I know from experience that while relief can be powerful, it isn’t enough to be classified as “joy” all by itself. There has to be something deeper than relief going on.

I think Mary must have watched her son in action, knowing that he was doing what he was born to do, and doing it brilliantly—and that made her heart sing. That’s a joy I know well, but not one I’m certain I would be open to in Mary’s circumstances.

What if Mary had been stuck in the trauma? What if all she could think of when she found Jesus was scolding him when she got the chance? “You are so grounded when we get home, young man!” Would she even have noticed her son’s brilliance? Would she have felt the joy that is emphasized in the mystery?

I don’t think so.

I think the only way she could experience that joy—comprehend the full miracle that was her son—was to let go of the trauma.

How often have we missed glorious experiences, glorious possibilities because we’re clinging tightly to our traumas? We all know people who feed their traumas and magnify them with constant rehearsal. “Victim consciousness” we call it. (This is not the same as acknowledging and owning traumas, nor is it the same as identifying the perpetrators and calling for justice. These are often important steps in healing.) We can see the potential for joy that these people are missing. Perhaps we have gotten caught up in the drama of trauma ourselves. What we are missing?

Mama Mary is calling me to heal. She wants me to experience joy and miracles; she’s sending me a constant flow! But I can’t receive that flow without clearing the blocks in the way. And I am by no means the only one.

We, as a people, need healing, healing so deep trauma is released forever from our DNA—healing ancestors and descendants alike. Healing so deep the planet is released from the traumas we humans have induced.

Healing that clears the way for the ongoing stream of love, joy, and miracles that is ours.