The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames) - Day 5: A Garden of Rest

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

When we’re with Mary,  we don't have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. Fr. Mark-Mary looks into the history of the Rosary and shares a meditation to help us rest with Mary in the garden of the Rosary. Today’s focus is “Mary, mother inviolate,” and we will be praying one Our Father, three Hail Marys, and one Glory Be. For the complete prayer plan, visit https://ascensionpress.com/riy.

Hi, I'm Father Mark Mary with Franciscan. For hours of renewal, 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 5. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a Year, visit ascensionpress.com forward slash rosary in a year or text R-I-Y to 33777.

You'll get an outline of how we're going to preach a 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. So the more time I've been spending here with the litany of Loretto and studying the various titles in preparation, the more time I want to spend doing just that. In preparing these episodes, you'd say like really in live time, my eyes are being opened to a treasure of meditation that I'm just

now discovering. The name of that podcast however is in the Litany of Loretto in a year. So today we're going to pick our second and last of the Marian titles or invocations from the Litany of Loretto to focus on, but it does touch on a number of others from the litany, including Queen of Peace, Mystical Rose, Mother Most Pure, and Gate of Heaven. Today's Marian title is Mary, Mother in Violet. So I looked up in violet, and violet means free or safe from injury. Untouched, unflod, unprofaned, virgin, pure, pristine, whole. Catholic tradition and many of our great saints have seen Mary, mother and violet, as being spoken of in the Song of Songs. The Song of Songs, chapter 2 verse 1 it says, I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. Mary is seen as this rose, as the rose of Sharon. One of her titles is the mystical rose

and this is where it goes back to song of songs chapter 2. More specifically to our current title, Mother in Violet, Song of Songs chapter 4 verse 12 says, A garden locked is my sister, my bride, A garden locked, a fountain sealed. Mary is the garden locked in the fountain sealed, In violet, unprofined, pure, pristine, safe. One of the great champions of seeing the Rose Garden as the symbol of Mary's beauty and wisdom was St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who popularized this with his preaching in the 12th century.

And here we're getting close to the backstory of why the rosary is called the Rosary in general. Mary was associated with the Rose Garden. And the Maryan Salter, which was a form of prayer, which preceded the modern day beaded rosary as we have it, it was called a rosarium or a garden of roses. And so praying the rosary can be seen as spending time with Mary, the garden locked and the fountain sealed. It can also be seen

as sewing together a crown of roses to offer to Mary. Or it can be seen and understood to be walking in the garden of Jesus with Mary. My prayer with the litany of Loretto has been really nourished by my reading of a book called Our Lady's Titles by a Jesuit priest called Father Albert Power. I think it was published in the 1930s. And regarding this last image, he writes this.

Mary's garden of roses is all fragrant with the breath of heaven. Jesus, the God man with the light of heaven in his eyes and the sweetness of divinity permeating his being is the subject of our contemplation in this garden. Hence day by day, she invites us to this blessed garden to rest by its fountains and running brooks and breathe the scent of its flowers.

We go there to learn breathe the scent of its flowers. We go there to learn about the soul of Jesus. I think that's strikingly beautiful. Mary's garden of roses all fragrant with the breath of heaven. All right, so just to take a step back, tomorrow we're going to talk about the rosary as a weapon. Right, so many great things. Talked about the rosary as a weapon

and we're going to look at its role in the spiritual battle that we're all involved in. We're going to go there tomorrow. But today, today, we're just going to remain with Mary in the garden, in her rose garden. Now in Mary's garden, we say in the presence of Mary, we are safe. It is a garden enclosed.

It has high walls like it is safe. The world and its anxieties and its dangers have no place in this garden. They can't get in. And so in the presence of Mary in this garden, with Mary, Mother, and Violet, we can put down our weapons, our defense mechanisms, our masks, our ongoing labor of constantly presenting our best selves, of performing. Of hiding. We can just stop scheming and trying to solve all of our problems and all of the world's problems. In other words, like with Mary

in the garden of her presence, the garden of her heart. We can breathe. We can quiet down. We can be still. We can be free. We can be filled with God's peace. We can simply be. Because in this garden, we are safe. In your imagination and your prayer now, I invite you to go to a beautiful garden with Mary.

Place yourself with her in the scene. Breathe deeply. Be still. If you're weighed down by anxieties and fears, speak them to her. See how she makes your anxieties, your fears her own, how she takes it upon herself. Allow her to take these from you. So many of us, right, we go through life experiencing fear, and so we can almost constantly be in some state of fight or flight, our brows are furrowed, our fists slightly clenched, like uneasy on edge.

But now, like uneasy on edge. But now, like look at Mary. Look at this beautiful, protected and safe garden. Allow the tension to be surrendered to be released. And allow it to be replaced by the peace of Christ. by the peace of Christ. And now if we can allow just these walls, these means of protecting ourselves, our hearts to come down,

instead of the toughness and the worldly vigilance needed as men or women at war in this world, as we often experience the world as a literal battleground, let our hearts become softened in this garden in her presence. Let her take from us our hearts of stone, and with the Holy Spirit gives us hearts of flesh. May we become softened. May our hearts become tender as we receive the tender love of Mary's own heart.

And now let her speak to you, you as an individual in your particular state, in all of your present realities, let her speak to you the same words she spoke to Saint Juan Diego. Am I not here? I who am your mother. Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle?

In the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more? Let nothing else worry you or disturb you. Brothers and sisters, I am convinced, I deeply believe that praying the rosary can be a real mystical experience of walking the most pristine and lush and safe of gardens with Mary, Mother in Violet, the Queen of Peace, Mother most pure, mystical rose, the rosary, the rosary of Mary's garden. It's not just prayers to be completed. It is a mystical garden in which we can find rest, safety, and the deep, unwavering peace of God. And as we go there each day and make it a habit of going there, what we'll notice is that with Mary, like the battleground of life

is transformed into a garden enclosed. And we don't have to pick back up our weapons of the world. We don't have to put the walls back up. We don't have to put the whole weight of the world on our shoulders. But we can live freely, safely, and tenderly as is right of the children of God and as is right of the children of Mary. As we conclude today's episode in prayer, my invitation is that you find this garden, that you find Mary in this garden.

Again, with the help of grace and your imagination, enter into this scene so that we can visit it today, that we can visit each time we pray the rosary. And more and more, again, as it becomes a habit of prayer. We can be taken to this garden. No matter what we're doing, wherever we are. And so let us pray in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art Thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning,

is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right. Thank you so much for joining me and praying with me today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you tomorrow. All right. Poco Poco, friends. God bless you all.