The Rosary and the Spiritual Journey

By Glen Aitken

Understanding the works of the great Catholic mystics through mysteries of the rosary. Through the mysteries of the rosary, mystical doctrines such as St. John of the Cross's "Dark Night" and "Ascent of Mt. Carmel" can be better understood. This book links spiritual growth, as taught by the masters, to the practice of the rosary by viewing the mysteries as milestones in spriritual progress.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Glen Aitken
• Release date: Jan 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301493845

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The Rosary and the Spiritual Journey

The Rosary and the Spiritual Journey

Glen R. Aitken Jr.

Copyright Glen R. Aitken Jr. 2013

Published at Smashwords

Christian Mysticism

The Courtship of Caritas

Christ the Way

Suffering and the Movement of Love

The Purification of VirtueThe Three Purifications

The Freedom of God in the Perfecting of the Soul

Final Notes

The Joyful Mysteries, by which God does the work of purifying the senses

The Annunciation

The Visitation

The Nativity

The Presentation in the Temple

The Finding in the Temple

The Luminous Mysteries, by which God does the work of purifying the intellect

The Baptism of Jesus

The Wedding at Cana

The Preaching and Teaching of the Kingdom of God

The Transfiguration

The Institution of the Eucharist

The Sorrowful Mysteries, by which God does the work of purifying the will

The Agony in the Garden

The Scourging at the Pillar

The Crowing of Thorns

The Carrying of the Cross

The Crucifixion

The Glorious Mysteries in which the relationship between God and the soul is purified

The Resurrection

The Ascension

Pentecost

The Assumption

The Coronation

Conclusion

Endnotes

Christian Mysticism

The essence of Christian Mysticism is the mystery of sainthood, exemplified by the presence of heroic virtue. What this heroic virtue consists of and the process by which it is attained is little more than a foggy concept in the minds of many of the faithful. Many saints and theologians have penned out the various milestones that accompany life in Christ. Among these volumes are the works of St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila, and the work of Fr. Dubay. This mystery of sainthood hinges on the theological virtue of charity. It is by way of this particular virtue that a soul ascends the mountain of Carmel where union with our Lord awaits. In the process, the soul is purified of its loves until the virtue of charity, united with agape in the human heart, has ordered all of its efforts and faculties toward God.

Upon studying the lives of the saints, many are surprised to learn of their humanness. The saints laughed at jokes, cried at sorrow, struggled frequently, and suffered much. In short, they were and are human with the normal human experiences, yet somehow different. Their love for God and their faithfulness transformed a human experience into something divine. Through grace, they transcended their own humanity and united it to heavenly reality. They, having their fallen human natures healed to a great extent by grace, lived a more fully human life than anyone else. As a result, they are more fully themselves. They became the individuals that God created them to be. There is a great mystery of personhood in Christian mysticism that these saints experience where a person may be conformed to the likeness of Christ, yet retain his own identity. It is like a drop of water, absorbed in an ocean, yet retaining its own identity of drop-hood. It is a mystery too great to explain, and one can only begin to understand through experience. The saints’ experiences of the Divine transformed their experience of their own humanity.

It may also confound many who seek insight into the purification process when they read the works of the spiritual masters. For example, the works of St. John of the Cross are by no means light reading. It is clear that before he wrote his masterpieces he was fluent in the language of theology and philosophy. Combined with his poetic nature and lofty concepts, many are left in confusion when they read his works. Often, when neophytes to the spiritual life read St. John, they tend to omit the human element of spirituality and reduce spiritual growth solely to ecstatic and transcendent experience. Created in the image of God, we are meant to experience spiritual growth as both transcendent and imminent. As St. Thomas points out, grace perfects nature , and then transcends it. In other words, God works in a creature according to the nature He has given it, and then enables it to participate in the higher realities, specifically in the Divine Trinitarian life, through ordinary means united to sanctifying grace. Analogously, as Christ’s human nature was conformed to the Divine Nature, so is a saint’s natural virtue conformed to supernatural virtue: they are fused together in the theological virtues, especially in supernatural charity. The reason why St. Therese could assist an aged nun and at the same time be participating in mystical union is because God, perfecting and then transcending Therese’s human agape with the theological virtue of charity, united both heaven and earth in her heart and in her action. Since the nature of God is love, and all things subsist in God, then all things subsist in Divine Love—and the theological virtue of charity is that by which human persons participate most perfectly in that love.

The grace of Divine Union is transcendent of the human person because it goes far beyond him, yet also imminent because it is taking place within the human person. God works with our human nature—healing the wounds of sin, uniting the theological virtues with the human virtues, thus empowering us to be capable of actions united with the Divine Nature. St. John says, …God brings man to perfection according to the way of man’s own nature. Because Christ has assumed a human nature, the transcendent work of mysticism takes place imminently in the context of the human experience and in the mode of human nature. This point helps to make sense of St. John’s heavenly concepts by placing our feet firmly on the ground. When he writes the Ascent of Mount Carmel or the Dark Night of the Soul, St. John is not being metaphoric. He is actually being quite earthy in his explanations. They are real experiences of the human soul that each person, by virtue of his own personality and humanity, responds to differently. Given the same milestone or obstacle in spiritual growth, St. Pio will react differently than St. Therese. Each will respond in a way that reflects Divine Love, but that love is incarnated differently in each person simply because they are two different people. God created us all to be individuals; He does not