Transcript
Mark Murray (0:00)
Foreign Mark Murray with Franciscan Friars of Renewal and this is the Rosary in Year podcast where through prayer and meditation, the Rosary brings us deeper into relationship.
Franciscan Friar (0:11)
With Jesus and Mary and becomes a.
Mark Murray (0:13)
Source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. This is day 114. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a year, visit ascensionpress.com rosaryinayear or text R I Y to 33777. You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month and it's a great way to track your progress. The best place to listen to the podcast is in the Ascension app. There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full Rosary with myself and other friars. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the Rosary in a Year Prayer Guide, a book published by Ascension that was designed to complement this podcast. You'll find all the daily readings from Scripture, Saint reflections and beautiful full page images of the sacred art we'll be reflecting on today. We'll be meditating upon and praying with the first luminous mystery, the Baptism of Jesus, with help from St. Gregory of Naziensis and his work oration 39. The point of emphasis of our meditation is going to be our salvation is in Jesus. All right, we got a new author. So a little introduction to St. Gregory of Naziensis. Born in 329, died in the year 374. He is part of what are called the Cappadocian fathers along with St. Basil the Great or some call it St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa. St. Basil the Great and St Gregory of Nyssa were brothers and St. Basil and our St. Gregory, St. Gregory of Naziensis were very close friends. Which brings us to if you'll let me, one of my very all time favorite stories of seminary is when we were talking about the Cappadocian Fathers and we just learned that you know, Basil and Gregory of Nyssa were brothers and then Basil and Gregory of Nazienzas were really good friends and one of the New York seminarians was like oh, so professor, so you're saying that they were boys and him not aware of this slang gets very serious and very literal and says like boys, no, they were men, they were men. They were not boys. Anyway, it was very funny. So anyway, in that class we learned about the Cappadocian Fathers and our professor Monsignor learned that boys in common parlance these days can also mean bros or very close friends. So I'll always remember the Cappadocian Fathers, more importantly about St. Gregory of Naziensis and really the Cappadocian Fathers, is that their writings and their work were profoundly, profoundly influential, especially on offering us some of the language and the understanding necessary for proper, properly understanding the most Holy Trinity and some of the language of one one God, like one divine nature and three divine persons, and also particularly St. Gregory of Naziensis. He did a great job at helping us to understand and really to teach the true nature of the Holy Spirit as sharing in this divine nature, as being a divine person. St. Gregory is a doctor of the church, as I said, a member of the Cappadocian Fathers. At times he's been called Gregory the Theologian, and at other times he's called one of the boys with St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory of Nyssa. So now our reading from St. Gregory of Naziensis and his oration. 39 Christ is illumined. Let us shine forth with him. Christ is baptized. Let us descend with him, that we may also ascend with him. But John baptizes Jesus comes to him perhaps to sanctify the Baptist himself, but certainly to bury the whole of the old Adam in the water, and before this, and for the sake of this, to sanctify Jordan. For as he is spirit and flesh, so he consecrate to us by Spirit and water. I have no need to be baptized by you, says the voice to the word, the friend to the bridegroom, he that is above all among them that are born of women, to him who is the firstborn of every creature, he who was and is to be the forerunner to him who was and is to be manifested. I have need to be baptized by you. Add to this and for you for he knew that he would be baptized by martyrdom. But what says Jesus? Allow it to be so now. For this is the time of his incarnation, for he knew that yet a little while and he should baptize the Baptist. And what is the fire, the consuming of the chaff, and the heat of the Spirit? Jesus goes up out of the water, for with himself he carries up the world, and sees the heaven opened, which Adam had shut against himself and all his posterity, as the gates of paradise by the flaming sword. And the Spirit bears witness to his Godhead, for he descends upon one that is like him, as does the voice from heaven. For he to whom the witness is born came from thence and like a dove, for he honors the body for this also was God, through its union with God by being seen in a bodily form. And moreover the dove has from distant Ages been want to proclaim the end of the deluge, the end of the reading. Thanks be to God. What we'll see Here is, right, St. Gary, Gary's particular awareness and his commitment to a proper understanding, a true understanding of the most Holy Trinity. And this writing offers us a couple of really beautiful images from Scripture.