Two Hearts Rosary: Holy Ghost FIRE

Continuing with some notes on the Two Hearts Rosary, let’s take a look at the third Glorious Mystery, fifty days after the triumphant Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We are witnessing to the Father and the Son sending the Holy Spirit upon us, that FIRE of Pentecost bringing us to be formed as members of the Body of Christ, that through Jesus, with Him and in Him we might be given by Mary’s Son as a gift to our Heavenly Father. We thus become tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, our very bodies becoming chaste sacrifices for this indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity. However much we are formed to members of the Body of Christ as He is now, risen from the dead, upon this earth we perceive to united with Him, to stand in solidarity with Him in His trials.

Jesus had already ascended to heaven, to His Father, ten days previous to Pentecost, forty days after greeting His dearest Immaculate Mother, following upon those darkest three days and nights when Jesus was making all things new in Himself. Let’s review:

• “It was the beauty and loveliness of the God-Man Christ which on the one hand made the crime so great, and on the other hand made the Divine forgiveness so final and so certain. That Figure on the Cross bore to the full not only the physical effects of sin which any man might suffer, and not only the mental effects of sin which all of us ought to feel, but the spiritual effects of sin which only He could feel because being sinless He was not part of it. Only the sinless know the horror of sin.” — (Father Fulton J Sheen, 22 March 1940, Good Friday Meditation)

What we say of Jesus we say of Mary:

• About Jesus: Jesus was the Standard of Good, of Truth, He being our Life, and, even as Viator, One walking upon this earth, had what we call, uniquely for Him, not the beatific vision, as if this had to happen to Him as an event, but continued always in the blessed vision of His Heavenly Father. In contrast, He could see all the horror of sin, from Adam and the last man is conceived, being vomited upon Him as we tortured Him to death.
• About Mary: Mary, Mother of Life because Mother of God, of Divine Jesus, was immaculate, and as such, had such purity of heart and agility of soul and clarity of vision and profundity of understanding that, in contrast to what was almost the beatific vision, could also see the entirety of our sin, from Adam until the last man is conceived, smashed down upon her Son as she stood in solidarity with Him in His trials. As Jesus, she was sinless, and because of that was immersed in the quagmire of sin, and therefore not blinded to the reality of sin. Knowing our need perfectly, she could and did intercede for us perfectly, our Advocate. It is so fitting in justice that there be one of us mere human beings to seek the justice consequent upon the perfect Sacrifice of her Son. For Mary to ask for us the graces of the redemption won for us by Jesus alone provides her with the title of Co-Redemptrix and, in this way, another title: Mediatrix of all Graces.

We are so callous, so dark, so steeped in this world of sin that we have really just about zero idea what it means for Immaculate Mary to have witnessed all sin wrecked upon her Son. All the suffering in the world is incomparable to her suffering. From the Book of Lamentations (1:12), as if Jeremiah was seeing Blessed Mary holding Jesus having been lowered from the Cross into her arms:

• “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted on the day of his fierce anger.”

That’s the Holy Ghost reprimanding us. When the Holy Ghost reprimands us, we have better take in what the Holy Ghost is saying to the Churches. But do we get it, finally? Are we still so scandalized that Saint Paul’s statement is shocking to us, that Jesus was made to be sin for us. And He did stand in our place, innocent for the guilty, so that He might in His own justice have the right to have mercy on us. In like manner, Mary was made to be sin for us. Look at her, they say, the mother of that criminal, as bad or worse than he was, they say. She was His Mother. It’s all her fault. She’s more of a criminal, a sinner, than Him.

Sigh… I lament all those who insist that Mary is and must remain a mere pious piffle, a fake niceness who is aloof from Jesus’ suffering, from the suffering of those who have returned with John to Calvary, so that Mary is a contrived safe-space for malicious sinners to continue sinning because she is so damned irrelevant in their eyes, so fake and nice is she to them, those malicious sinners who condemn to hell all those who bring the truth of the sufferings of Jesus and Mary because of our sins to the light of day. How very snarky we all are to pray the third Glorious Mystery, thus assisting those in danger of blaspheming the Holy Spirit, the Spouse of Mary. How snarky we are to insist on actually accompanying Mary in the Sacred Mysteries of the Rosary.

• “But Father George! Father George! You’re supposed to be talking about the spirit of Vatican II! The spirit is a movin’ among us! It’s the NEW Pentecost, Father George! Get with it! Do jumping jacks or something, you know, in the spirit!”

Here’s the deal: At Pentecost dearest Mary was still upon this earth, soul and body. She was still physically devastated by the three days and three nights of the passion, death and burial of her Son. Even if the actual sword of sorrow piercing her soul on Calvary had been removed some seven weeks previously by her now risen Son — note that it’s not the sword going into the heart which kills, but the removal — she was still suffering that mortal wound, the same, I dare I say, with which Jesus was mortally wounded in His agony in Gethsemane, as The Doctors of Calvary say, His Heart, His pericardium being sundered by a massive heart attack, not wanting in His human nature to see His Immaculate Mother having to see Him being tortured to death in front of her. In perfect solidarity with Him, did she not suffer in the same manner? “Father, not my will but thine be done” are also her words, this time about accepting the Father’s will regarding her Son, Jesus.

She would not survive long after Pentecost, the entire cycle of the economy of salvation being quite completed, we now being in the last times of purification and sanctification (that FIRE of Pentecost), we now awaiting the coming of the Lord Jesus once again to judge the living and the dead and world by that same FIRE. She died not because she was subject internally to the consequences of original sin, but because she was immaculate. The immensity of the absolute purity of her necessitated the mortal suffering she was to endure.

To be clear: The Holy Ghost was sent amongst us for the forgiveness of sin by way of sanctifying grace being brought to us, the indwelling of the Most Holy Trinity. There is no room for the guilt of sin upon this flooding in of divine grace. We are removed from eternal death by the granting of eternal life. All things being equal, you cannot pray the third Glorious Mystery without going to Confession.

Mary Immaculate is the Spouse of the Holy Ghost. Do you think she has nothing to say about who is to be forgiven all the outrageous sin against her Son? Jesus has something to say about this, and make no mistake, He is here speaking of the judgment of His Immaculate Mother about us:

• “Amen I say to you, that all sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and the blasphemies wherewith they shall blaspheme” (Mark 3:28).

Get that? Mary is the one interceding in solidarity with her Son that we be forgiven of ALL sin. But Mary does have something to say in defense, as it were, of her Spouse, the Holy Ghost, following reason:

• “But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, shall never have forgiveness, but shall be guilty of an everlasting sin” (Mark 3:29)

Jesus says that, but it is only right in justice that He says this while looking over to His Blessed Mother, saying this in her honor, confirming her righteousness, her reasonableness in her being the Spouse of the Holy Spirit. This is her judgment that He respects.

Our Heavenly Father and Jesus send the Holy Ghost amongst us for the forgiveness of all sin except for sin against the Holy Ghost. The Two Hearts of Jesus and Mary have suffered together. Jesus redeems us and should like also to save us. We must look to Mary for her maternal intercession that we be provided the grace to repent of our sin and so that we do not fall into the eternal sin of being presumptuous of forgiveness (for that is to hate the forgiveness itself). It’s good for us to ask Mary to pray that we receive the grace of final perseverance.