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Foreign Mark Mary with Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast, where through prayer and meditation, the Rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. This is day 168. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a year, visit ascensionpress.com forward/rosaryinayear or text RIY 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 images of the sacred art will be reflecting on Today. We'll be meditating upon and praying with the fifth glorious mystery, the coronation of Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth, with help from a painting entitled Glory of Mary in Heaven by the artist Giuseppe Mattia Borginis. Now a little word on our artist and artwork. Giuseppe Mattia Borgenis was born in the year 1701. He died in the year 1761. He was an Italian painter and architect. He was born to a family of limited means, but he would become an apprentice with a painter from the year 1710 to 1716. He was then sent to Bologna, then Venice, and from 1752 to 1755 he searched for work in Paris and London. Soon after, in 1761, he died in London of unknown causes. This particular piece of art, which is a fresco, was probably done around the year 1725. This fresco is located in the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta and it's situated in the central dome of the church, making it a focal point of the interior decoration. Now a description of our painting. Among blue and silver clouds, with thick clusters and rows of angels, the Virgin Mary beams a wide smile to God, depicted as the Holy Trinity, with Jesus as a youthful man in God the Father as an older man and a dove of the Holy Spirit, who together lower a crown onto the joyful Mother of God. In semicircles around her are heavenly attendees eagerly watching, including her spouse, St. Joseph Holding Lilies, St. John the Baptist, her nephew, St. Anne, her mother, who look back to others to point them to the coronation the family of saints rejoices among the luminous clouds of heaven. With the symmetry of the Godhead, the ordered rows of angels, and the placement of the saintly family. The harmonious composition conveys a sense of divine order and holiness as the spiritual and earthly realms beautifully intertwine. So I am quite excited about our painting today, and we're not going to spend a ton of time here. But first, we do have to note Mary's smile. Just take it in. And I do love the idea that she is smiling as she's being crowned. But now let's go ahead and, like, look around the edges of the painting. And who do we see there? We see John the Baptist. We see a woman presumed to be St. Anne, her mother. And then we see St. Joseph. And I'd like us to begin by spending some extra time with St. Joseph here and in a sense, bring our meditation that we did with St. Joseph through the joyful mysteries to completion. Now, I really do believe that St. Joseph was there present at the visitation. And therefore I do believe that St. Joseph both witnessed Mary's Magnificat, right?
