Latest / Into the Mysteries of the Rosary / An Amazing Presentation | Into the Mysteries of the Rosary Ep 5 | Fr. James Brent, O.P.

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An Amazing Presentation | Into the Mysteries of the Rosary Ep 5 | Fr. James Brent, O.P. · Into the Mysteries of the Rosary

• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, welcome to Into the Mysteries of the Rosary, a miniseries of the podcast contemplata.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: The mysteries of the Rosary tell the story of God's plan for our world.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: God has a plan to adopt us by grace, and the mysteries of the rosary tell us how He accomplishes this great work.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We come now to a turning point in the story, the fourth joyful mystery, the presentation.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: In the fourth chapter of his letter to the Galatians, Saint Paul says When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The third joyful mystery, the Nativity of the Lord, emphasized that Jesus was born of a woman.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the fourth joyful mystery, the presentation, emphasizes that Jesus was born under the law.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ was born under the old law in order to fulfill all its precepts and commands.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that not one jot or tittle of the law would pass away until all had been accomplished.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said so because he knew that he would fulfill the whole law, even to the point of offering himself in sacrifice on the cross.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yet his work of fulfilling the law began much earlier, even shortly after he was born.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke's gospel tells of three distinct events immediately following the birth of Jesus the circumcision of Jesus, the purification of Mary, and the presentation of Jesus in the temple.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke tells of all three in a briefly combined way, but each is worth considering separately.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke tells us first that the child was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: The circumcision was the first fulfillment of the old law.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: But Saint Luke immediately tells of a second, the purification of Mary.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Her purification took place forty days after the birth of Jesus.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: For the law of Moses declared that every woman of Israel who gave birth was ritually unclean for forty days.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ritual uncleanness was not a matter of moral fault or sin, but simply a temporary cessation from participation in public worship.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Some have called it a sacred pause for the mother, excusing her from the obligation to be present at worship, so that she might be fully present to her newborn.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: The law prescribed a rite of purification for the mother at the end of the forty days, and the rite of purification called for a specific offering, either a lamb and a pigeon, or turtled, or for those who were poor, two turtled and two pigeons.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke tells us specifically that Mary and Joseph offered the two turtledoves and two pigeons.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mary and Joseph, we must conclude, were among the poor.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Saint Luke also describes a third fulfillment of the law, distinct from both the circumcision of Jesus and the purification of Mary.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is the presentation of Jesus.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Exodus, chapter 13, says that every firstborn son of Israel belongs to God, and is to be dedicated to his service.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: The same chapter of Exodus says the parents are to ransom or buy back the firstborn, and the book of Numbers, chapter 18, tells us how the ransom was to be paid, by laying down five shekels of silver.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pope Benedict XVI pointed out something striking about Saint Luke's account of all this in the life of Jesus.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke refers to the passage of Exodus regarding the dedication of the firstborn son, but Saint Luke does not describe the redemption ceremony in any detail.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, Saint Luke says simply they came to do for him according to the custom of the law.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: More specifically, Saint Luke says they presented him to God.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: When he said they presented him to God, Saint Luke used a Greek verb commonly used for presenting sacrificial offerings.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Paul used the same verb in Romans 12, 1, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, Mary and Joseph dedicated Jesus to God, to the work of God, to the work of sacrifice, even to be a sacrifice.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Saint Luke gives us the impression that it was not so much Joseph and Mary who redeemed Jesus back, as much as it would be Jesus who would redeem us back from our sins and slavery to the devil.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The presentation of Jesus in the temple was a prefiguration of a later moment in his life, when he would present himself, present his body yet again in Jerusalem as the sacrifice for our redemption.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Simeon and Anna are not on the scene by chance.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: They are led by the Spirit to offer a prophetic commentary on what is really going on in the presentation of this child.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Simeon foretells the future sacrifice of Christ.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: The child is a sign from God, yet he will be spoken against.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: The soul of Mary too shall be pierced.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Anna also spoke prophetically of the child, to all who were looking for redemption.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: She spoke to all who were looking to God to buy them back to Himself.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: In this child Jesus, God is preparing a sacrifice to redeem his people.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why all these acts of fulfilling the law, the circumcision, the purification, and the presentation of the child Jesus to God?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Once again, as Saint Paul says in Galatians 4, Jesus was born under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: The point of our Lord's coming into the world, the point of his birth, his circumcision, his presentation, his death on the cross, all of it was so that you and I might be adopted into his house in the heavenly places, the Father's house.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, many people might ask why we need to be adopted by God at all.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: After all, isn't everyone a child of God?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in one sense, yes, everyone is a child of God.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is a child of God in the sense that everyone is a creature of God.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Every human being is a work and a wonder of the Most High and much loved by God.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: However, when Jesus Christ came into this world, when he carried out the law to the full, when he died on the cross for us, it was not so that you and I might become children of God in that sense, for everyone was already a child of God in that sense.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was already a creature of God.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: No one needed Jesus Christ to fulfill the law and die on the cross in order to make them a child of God in that sense.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, Jesus Christ came to make us children of God in a very different sense.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in what sense?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus Christ came into this world so that you and I might come to share and participate in His own personal divine sonship as the second person of the Holy Trinity.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: As the second person of the Holy Trinity, His sonship is a higher form of sonship than anything found in this world.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is sonship with a capital S.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: His sonship with a capital S is uncreated.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: His sonship is eternal.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: His sonship is divine.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Within the Holy Trinity, He has the Eternal Father as His Father, and He has the Holy Spirit bonding and uniting him personally with the Father in love.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Sonship He enjoys within the Holy Trinity is incomprehensibly good.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is sublime.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is so good that no one could possibly describe it.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: God alone can reveal it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was for this purpose that Jesus Christ came into this world, and it was for this purpose that he fulfilled all the just requirements of the law, in order to reveal to us the meaning of his eternal sonship within the Trinity, and to show the depths of his love for his eternal Father.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was also to obtain for us the Spirit of Adoption, or the grace of adoption.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: You and I receive the grace of adoption in our baptism.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: When we do, the grace of adoption unites us with the eternal Son of God.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: The grace of adoption establishes us in contact with Him personally in the depths of our hearts through faith.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: The grace of adoption gives us the power to live the life of the second person of the Holy Trinity, at least insofar as it is possible for a creature to do so.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: The grace of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Adoption, causes us to share or participate in the sonship of the eternal Son within the Holy Trinity.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: In this way, God makes us his children in a whole new way.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: He makes us his sons and daughters by making us one with his eternal Son.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our union with Him by grace is mysterious but real.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am the vine, you are the branches.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: In our baptism, you and I are grafted onto the vine of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: As branches on the vine, we live a life that is altogether out of our reach except by His grace.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: By His grace we live the divine life of Jesus.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: All who live by grace can say His life is mine.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you want to know practically speaking, how to grow in the grace of your adoption, and how to live it out to the full, well, stay tuned for more episodes.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: For the rest of the mysteries of the Rosary show us the way.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, thank you for listening to this episode of Contemplata.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends wherever you listen to podcasts.