The Sorrow within the Joy, and Vice-Versa
Originally posted at The Way of the Rose 54-Day Novena Facebook group August 17, 2020
Novena Day 5
The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today is my dead son’s 18th birthday, and we’re praying the Sorrowful Mysteries.
Wednesday is the 18th anniversary of his death when we’re praying the Joyful Mysteries.
That, in a nutshell, is the story of my life.
The joy always comes mixed with sorrow—and glorious potential.
I talked about the third joyful mystery, the Nativity, a birth like my son’s, yesterday, and the third glorious mystery, what I call “Receiving the Mother” on day 3. And I wrote about the thread I see connecting the three second mysteries on day 2. Is there a similar thread connecting the three third mysteries?
The third sorrowful mystery, the Crown of Thorns, is the central mystery of the rosary. Mary’s son Jesus—her beloved creation—is “crowned” with a wreath of thorns and mocked by Roman soldiers and the public.
The rosary itself is symbolized by a wreath of roses, so a crown of thorns sitting at its center has to be important symbolically.
Crowning Jesus, a spiritual teacher on a level the world had never seen, with thorns, rather than the roses he certainly deserves, seems an almost willful rejection of all that is good, and perhaps even an elevation of that which isn’t—an inversion of the way things should be. Even if we don’t think in terms of “good” and “bad,” after all the thorns serve an important function for the plant, it is certainly symbolic of an imbalance in need of righting, an imbalance that inevitably leads to death and destruction.
Mary’s joy in creation has come to this. If such a thing can happen to her creation, what of our creations? How do we keep joyfully creating, knowing that sometime in the future the world may completely misinterpret our creation and do its best to destroy it? How do we find the courage to will ourselves forward when our hearts know how easily our creations can be crushed—even crucified?
We could keep them secret, protect them by holding them close to our chests and not letting the world in. But that’s not what we’re called to do, is it? The very next mystery after the Nativity, the creation, is the Presentation, where Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the Temple. Our creations have to go public if they are to fulfill their purpose and destiny.
After the first blush of innocence is gone—and you know that train left the station long ago for me—the only way to keep going is to step back and remember the long story. In the long story, the crucifixions are redeemed by resurrections, and the antidote for the destruction caused by fear-based thinking is in the third glorious mystery, receiving our Mother’s love.
So, in those moments of fear and—let’s face it—paralysis, I try to remember to call Mama Mary. She will hold my hand if I ask her to.
