Rejoice!

Adapted from pfsgm Rosary Meditations

“Hail!” Unless we happen to be Shakespeare, or it’s followed by “Mary, full of grace,” this isn’t exactly a word that comes up in day-to-day conversations. As I have learned in the community, however, the “hail” of the “hail Mary” comes from the common Greek greeting Xaire which Gabriel uses in the Greek Gospel of Luke – and which literally means, rejoice.

This in itself provides us with abundant food for thought. Rejoice: we all long for joy in our lives, but how many of us have it? This first joyful mystery of the Rosary speaks directly to that deep desire, and suggests that we can receive the joy announced to Mary to the extent that we resemble Mary. Mary is the woman of silence and prayer, the woman of “pondering,” and above all the woman who says yes to God’s will. The more we make time to ponder God’s voice in our lives (especially in the Scriptures and the Mass, but also in our highs and lows, the sufferings that He permits, the “coincidences” of our daily lives, etc.), the better we will be able to understand His will and say yes to it as Mary did! And that is where fruitfulness comes about, and where joy is born: as Pope Francis says, “when our own spiritual lives bear fruit, we become filled with joy” (Lumen Fidei IV, 58).

How is God speaking to you today?

How is He inviting you to bear fruit spiritually, and so rejoice?

Sr. EMJ