04/12/2022 – Tuesday of Holy Week

It is Tuesday of Holy Week and Jesus has come to the Temple in Jerusalem for the last time. All day He had been questioned by His enemies who were trying to trap Him. Leaving the temple, Jesus draws the apostles attention to the poor widow who had put all she has, two little coins in the temple collection. It is the last teaching of His public ministry, the end of the Third Luminous Mystery of the Rosary, the Proclamation of the Kingdom.

Now the time has come for Jesus’ passion and death. It is at this moment, as Jesus leaves “His Father’s House” that He prays “Father Save me from this hour But for this cause I came unto this hour, Father Glorify Thy name.” To which the heavens open and a voice rings out. “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”

The voice of the Father is an important theme in two more of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, a “detail” often overlooked.

In the first Luminous Mystery, the Baptism of Our Lord, the first act of Jesus public life, the heavens opened and “Behold a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son In whom I am well pleased”

In the Fourth Luminous Mystery, the Transfiguration, the voice of the Father said, “This is my beloved Son In whom I am well pleased. Hear ye Him!”

These manifestations of God the Father’s constant Presence are important to ponder as we pray the Gospel in our daily Rosary. But equally it is important that we remember that we gaze on the Father when we gaze on the Babe of Bethlehem or the bruised and bleeding face of Jesus on the Cross. As Jesus told Philip “If you see Me you see the Father”