THE JOYFUL MYSTERIES
	An Angel Speaks
	Unborn Child
	Disappearing Star
	The Daring Saint
	In Her Heart
	First Joyful Mystery: An Angel Speaks
	As I find myself here in this church looking at that piece of white matter in the monstrance on the altar, perhaps my greatest difficulty, my greatest obstacle to realization that this white disc is Christ, living, complete, body, blood, soul and divinity, is not so much that I have difficulty believing that God could perform such a stupendous miracle, could change bread into himself. My greater obstacle is to accepting the fact that God could love me this much.
	Can God, who is infinite, who has created the world, who holds all things in his hand, love me so much that he wanted to be a prisoner, to be transubstantiated with common food stuff, so that he could be united to me as intimately as food itself, and as present to me as he is this moment before my eyes?
	Certainly the God who created the world could do this. Certainly the God who made my body with all of its complicated mechanisms, its eyes, its sensitiveness, its ability to coordinate hearing, touch, and sight into a single thought;, certainly this god could make himself present before me in any form he chose.
	But how could he love me this much?
	This is the greatest of all mysteries which has been chanted down the centuries in the words of psalmists: "What is man, O lord, that thou art mindful of him?"
	Could such a thought have crossed the mind of Mary when she heard the words of the angel, "hail Mary, full of grace, the lord is with thee?" Could such a thought have crossed the mind of Mary when she protested that she was not worthy, was not in the position to become the instrument of the incarnation?
	No, because Our Lady knew the greatness of God's love.
	Therefore, when she was certain she had been chosen, she was able, without a single moment of hesitation, to say to the angel: "be it done unto me according to thy word."
	And at that moment, for the first time, God became physically present on earth. God united himself with matter. Mary became the worlds first tabernacle.
	Where am I going to get the understanding that will enable me to see that there is no greater mystery in the host before me than in the speck in Mary's womb that was God? Where am I going to get the faith that God, Infinite Creator, though He be, loves me and loves me so much that He not only became a man, but then transubstantiated himself, with bread so that in the fullness of his humanity and divinity, He could be present to me in churches everywhere?
	This very night He called me aside, He gave me the special grace to be here in His presence. He has called me, in a sense, to be another Mary.
	I am not worthy of this privilege. How many temptations assailed me before I decided to come here for this night! How many times in the past I made excuses! With how many sins upon my soul do I find myself in His presence?
	O, yes, in his great mercy, my sins have been forgiven, because I have confessed them, and I have resolved to try not to commit them again. But they are there. I see the monstrous accumulation of their scars. I wonder how He can stand me in His sight; I, who have betrayed him so often; I, who thinks so much of myself; I, who am so sensitive to the good opinion of others, so ready to bury myself in the pleasures of the world around me, so ready to spend wasteful hours before a television set than precious minutes before Him.
	Yes, I will turn to Mary, my Mother. She knows how much God loves me. She can obtain for me the grace to understand.
	Certainly, when I understand, I will want to return that love. I will want these moments before Jesus, truly present as man and God, to go on and on and on. This night will never be long enough to say how much I wish to return His Love, and how much more and more and more I want to understand His relationship to me.
	Oh, already I feel an understanding-not of why He loves me, because that I could never understand-but that He does love me. He loves me not only enough to unite himself with my nature, but He loves me enough to endure all the passion, and then to transubstantiate Himself with bread to show the extent and depth of His infinite love.
	What return shall I make to him? Well, in my own day, His Mother, told me how. She has appeared repeatedly, lamenting with tears the lack of love in the world, and said that it is only because of this that terrible wars afflict us, that militant atheism was spreading to the whole world, and that only when men would respond to the neglected love of Christ in the tabernacle, will the atheists be converted and the world find peace.
	So, in these next 10 Hail Marys, dearest Mother, I turn to you not just for an understanding of the love that caused God to become man, and caused Him to be present here before me now, even as at the moment of incarnation, He became present in you. But I ask you above all, to give me the light and the grace to return this great love.
	God, who is all good and who is my creator, has given Himself to me. Won't you pray dearest Mother that I may know how to give my soiled self to Him? Just for this night lend me your Immaculate Heart. Lend me the fire of your love, the depth of your faith, the height of your hopes, and the strength of your heart to plead successfully for the conversion of a thousand sinners who would otherwise be lost.
	Let your Immaculate Heart take the place of my heart, so that just for these passing minutes, at least He may find a worthy return of love, and all mankind may be lifted closer to the realization of the great promise you made at Fatima. If enough of your children would pray in this way, you promised that the world would find unity and peace.
	In a word, dearest Mother, somehow let me take your place in the house in Nazareth as I now repeat the words the angel spoke to you so that once again God may intimately enter the world.
	Optional - Decade Prayer to the Father
	1) Dear Father, thank You for sending Your angel to ask Our Lady to become the Mother of Your Son and, at that same moment, our own Mother. Help us to understand this great mystery of Your Love.
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	Second Joyful Mystery: Unborn Child
	Have you ever wondered why God chose to come to the world in the way He did--- 9 months in Mary's womb, and then born in a stable?
	Would it have required a greater miracle for Christ to have appeared as a man of 30 full of wisdom and knowledge, no one knowing from whence he had come? Would he have not been accepted much more readily had he come as a full grown man? Was not the greatest stumbling block for the Jews that they could not say over and over again, "is this not the son of Joseph, the carpenter? Is this man not from Nazareth?"
	There may be many reasons why God chose to become man by first becoming a tiny, almost invisible speck in the womb of Mary. But certainly one of the greatest of these reasons is that he was to emphasize the tremendous dignity of parenthood.
	Is there any dignity to men, outside of the other sacraments, than the dignity of parenthood, the exalted power and right to bring new human life into the world, to be a procreator with God? O, how many sin against this tremendous dignity! How many times during my own life have I sinned against it!
	As I see Our Lady now taking the arduous journey from Nazareth to Ein Karim, a journey of several days, I marvel at the mystery of God having become man and dwelled in her all-pure womb. I marvel at Mary becoming the worlds first Christopher, bearing Christ from the moment that He has come forth to the world, forth to a new mystery, the mystery of her cousin who has been childless for years and now beyond the years of childbearing has been miraculously blessed.
	As Our Lady finally comes to the house of Elizabeth, the saintly cousin is struck with faith and cries out, "Whence it is that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" At that moment she felt the sixth month infant in her womb leap with joy, and in that moment, Christ performed his miracle: the miracle of the pre-sanctification of St. John in the womb of Elizabeth.
	Once again, I witness the emphasis that God gives from the first moment of his coming into the world to the dignity of parenthood. I marvel that the very first miracle of Christ, as Mary bore him on his first journey in the world, should be the pre-sanctification of an unborn child, and I think of all the sins of abortion, all the sins of the prevention of the birth of children that are taking place this very night all over this globe.
	I myself have been guilty of these or similar sins. It is my brothers, my fellow men, who are committing these sins now, at this very moment, outrages upon the greatest dignity of man.
	Why am I here tonight in the presence of the same Christ whom Mary bore to Elizabeth?
	I am here to make reparation. I am here to repair the offenses against this great dignity of man. I am here to tell Our Lord that I deplore the flaunting, and the degrading, and the abuse of this dignity which fills my world at this moment. I can't wipe it all away. I can't snatch all of the improper books and magazines from the stands. I can not close the theaters that are showing improper pictures. I can not enter the homes and argue with thousands of individuals who don't understand or who don't care to understand. But I can kneel here before him as one member of the human race and, enclosed with the faith, love and trust of Mary, I can try to make up in some small measure for the sins around me.
	St. Alphonsus asked, "Why did Elizabeth say, 'whence is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?' Why didn't she say, "whence is it that the incarnate God has come to me?'" St. Alphonsus answers his own question by saying that Elizabeth knew that in welcoming the Mother, she was welcoming the Son.
	This, too, I vaguely understand as I choose to say this decade of the Rosary in the presence of the Incarnate God. I know that in finding Mary I find Him, and that in addressing Mary I am reaching His heart with the greatness of Her love. I know that somehow He will no longer see my unworthiness, my accumulation of neglect and wrong doing, but rather will behold my desire to use only Her Immaculate Heart to love Him now at this moment, to make reparation.
	Therefore, dearest Mother, as I see You hastening along the road and coming to the house of Elizabeth, bearing the Incarnate God, I plead with You in these next ten Hail Marys to give me the love that I need at this moment to repair for the sins around me, and for all my own sins in the past, as Our Lord intended I should, when He chose to bring me here tonight.
	Optional - Decade Prayer to the Father
	2) Dear Father, urged by the words of Your angel that nothing is impossible to You, Our Lady hastened to Her cousin Elizabeth. Grant, Father, that we, too, may live in the realization that to You nothing is impossible; that we, like St. John the Baptist, may be sanctified at the sound of Our Lady's greeting.
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	Third Sorrowful Mystery: Disappearing Star
	The three kings, who had the special privilege of being chosen out of all the world to be led to Bethlehem on the night Christ was born, had to travel a great distance. Some of us here in the presence of Christ now, also have had to come from a distance. But no matter from where we have come, we had to arrange things at home, we had to arrange transportation, we had to organize our time. This alone was the first great step. Even were I not to complete this night as gloriously full of faith and as wide awake and energetic as I would want to be, I thank Our Lord for the grace first, of having been called to be here, and secondly, for the strength to overcome, the many temptations that would have prevented my answering that call.
	What was the star that led me? Someone who participated in many all night vigils and holy hours made it a point to inquire of different ones what devotions in their lives might have given them the grace to participate in such a holy exercise, and he found that in every instance the persons who were there had a very special devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and almost all of them had the practice of saying the daily Rosary!
	So, Mary, even though I may not have known it, is my Star. She is the Star that God has set into the darkness of the human night, so that even when men are lost in the darkness of sine they can look up, they can know that the night will pass, they can find a guidance that will see them through until the dawn.
	It is not mere tradition that the three kings came from the area of Persia, which would mean that they had to travel about a thousand miles. When St. Helena cam to the Holy Land in the early part of the fourth century, the Basilica that she built over the place of the birth of Our Lord was filled with Persian inscriptions to honor the kings; and in the seventh century when the Persians invaded the Holy Land, this was the only church that they did not destroy---because of the Persian symbols honoring the kings who had followed the star to the birth of Christ.
	Along their journey how many times these good men must have been tempted to turn back! Could they ever have foreseen that their journey would be so long? Even before they set out, were they not tempted in many ways to avoid this unknown journey?
	But certainly they became a comfort to one another. When one might be discouraged, then perhaps at that moment another might have the right word to say. Could this not be the reason why God chose three men to come from a distance and to follow the star together?
	How many of us would be here tonight if it were not for some friend who called us on the telephone , who dropped us a note, who offered to come with us? If other travelers are to follow this road to find Jesus, then I, too, must have the fortitude and the charity to help. For together at the end of our road we shall appear before Christ in the Eucharist and have the great joy that must have filled the hearts of the kings when, as scripture summarizes the climax of their journey, "entering in they found the Child with Mary, Hi Mother."
	Yes, I have believed before in the true presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist. I often have knelt in His presence. But tonight I feel a special love, a special faith. Tonight as I pray this Rosary and ask Our Lady to make me a repairer of the sins of the world around me as of my own sins in the past, I feel a new depth of understanding of the presence of Christ. I feel a new appreciation of the love of God that caused Him to take this form to unite Himself to me, to be present to me. With every passing minute of this vigil I somehow feel ever more deeply the joy of those kings: "Finding the Child with Mary, His Mother."
	Dearest Mother, I do not envy the shepherds who were summoned by the song of an angel to the cave in Bethlehem. I do not even envy Joseph who stood beside You. I do not envy the kings who had this star to lead them that night and who were the first of the Gentiles to know of the incarnation. For the very day not only have I knelt here in His presence---beholding Him with new yes of faith, experiencing in a special way the depth of His love, but I have the enormous grace of Communion, the grace of being present at Calvary, the grace of communing with Him as intimately as did the apostles at the Last Supper. Oh, what return shall I make for the great grace that is mine?
	Sometimes, dearest Mother, the star goes out , as it did for the kings when they arrived at Jerusalem. Sometimes I feel nothing. But I know that I do not need tangible feeling to carry me on. I can reason, I can ask. My faith tells me that even though I don't feel or see, I have been truly called, and that the desire of my heart to be with God came truly from Him, and therefore cannot be false. It will lead me to Him.
	Whether or not the star shines for me at this moment, I ask You in these next ten Hail Marys to give this moment to Him...and all the moments of my life, as You were pleased to accept the incense, the gold and the myrrh.
	The gold I offer is my faith, even when the star doesn't shine. The incense I offer is my trust in the mercy of God, even though I cannot see the star shining. The myrrh I offer is my love.
	I ask You in these next ten Hail Marys to be my Mother in a special way. Be my Star. Even when I cannot feel You near me, but especially at this moment when I kneel in the divine presence of Your Son, fill me with the sentiments that filled the hearts of You and St. Joseph on that holy night, that I may repair for the thoughtlessness of the world around me, as Your love repaired for the thoughtlessness of the town of Bethlehem.
	Optional - Decade Prayer to the Father
	3) Dear Father, Your Provident Power moved the head of the great Roman Empire to issue an edict to fulfill Your Will that Jesus be born in Bethlehem as foretold and You sent a miraculous star to lead kings from afar. Lead us, O loving Father, and all the nations of the world, to Him, Who came to us in a manger to reveal to us that You are Love.
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	Fourth Joyful Mystery: The Daring Saint
	Our Lady was not bound by the law of purification. Why then did She and St. Joseph make the long trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem? Was it just because of human respect? No, this could not be, because they could have set out on the road and no one ever would have known whether or not they had come to Jerusalem.
	Another question: Why did they not go merely to the local synagogue rather than going all the way into Jerusalem?
	As in all the great mysteries of the Rosary (the mysteries of the life of Christ) there are many reasons, there are many depths to explore. But one mystery here is particularly challenging to me as I am spending this vigil here in the presence of my Eucharistic Christ.
	There was a man in that Temple who had a daring faith. Indeed, in all the annals of history we would have difficulty in finding a man of greater daring.
	While his ancestors before him, and millions of his contemporaries, prayed merely for the coming of the Messiah, this man dared to pray that he would live to see the Messiah in his own lifetime! He did not pray as others did that the Savior of the world would come soon, or one day. He dared to pray consistently, day after day, month after month, year after year, that the Savior of the world would come now.
	An old many, weighted by many years of service in the Temple, still he prayed as he had always, "Lord, that I may live to see the Savior of the world!"
	Oh, wonder of wonders! Mary and Joseph, carrying the child, made the long journey to Jerusalem and came that day into the Temple. Many round in the corridors and passages of the great Temple saw only a young couple bringing a child for purification, even as many around us in this very city see only a white Host in the box before us. But the holy Simeon, the man of faith, beheld much more. There in that babe in the arms of Mary and Joseph he beheld the answer to his prayers, the Savior of the world! Going forth he took the Child from Mary's arms and raising his eyes to heaven broke forth in that magnificent canticle: "Now, O Lord, dismiss your servant in peace. My eyes have beheld the salvation of the world."
	What a glorious fulfillment of prayer!
	What was my intention to coming here tonight, coming here where I, too, can take the Child from Mary's arms, where by Holy Communion, I can be more deeply united to Him even than Simeon could experience, and where I can kneel before Him and gaze upon Him and bathe myself in His love? How great is the daring of my prayer in these precious moments?
	Am I praying for a child, a relative, a friend? Am I praying for some material want? Oh, what small things these are! Didn't Our Lord tell me: "All these things will be added to you!"?
	Our Lady has come to our world a number of times, recently at Fatima, Akita, and other places, to ask me to pray for something else. At each one of her comings, She asked over and over this very same thing. She asked me to pray for the conversion of sinners.
	How much have I prayed for them? How many sinners have I saved by my sacrifice and prayer? How many do I hope to save by this vigil tonight? Am I praying just that "some souls" will be saved? Am I praying just that the world may be "better?"
	Let me pause for a moment and consider just how daring my prayer might be.
	What do I feel would do most in my city to help sinners? For example, what about the theaters? What about the pornographic literature? What about the many public locations of sin? What about persons who are actually supporting laws for putting obstacles in my way of overcoming these locations of sin? Would I dare to pray for the absolute complete removal of such obstacles?
	If I am going to pray for the individual conversion of sinners, which is perhaps the most practical and direct way to apply my daring, then for how many sinners might I dare to pray? Might I hope that this vigil might obtain enough grace to give final contrition to one sinner? To ten? To a hundred?
	St. Alphonsus Ligouri tells us of a Sister whom he knew who once dared to make a novena for the conversion of a thousand sinners. She prayed that before the end of her novena a thousand souls, who otherwise would have died in the state of mortal sin, would die in the state of Grace.
	About half way through the novena Saint Alphonsus tells us that the good Sister realized that she was asking a great deal, so she decided to reduce the number to a fraction of one thousand. But hardly had she done so than Our Lady appeared to her, chided her for lack of faith, and said that already because of that novena a thousand souls, who otherwise would have been damned, had the grace of final contrition!
	If one novena to Our Lad could obtain a thousand souls even before it was over, then why should I not dare to pray that just because of this vigil a thousand souls otherwise would have died tonight in the state of mortal sin, would be given the Grace of final contrition?
	Is this too daring? Oh, yes, it would be too daring for me because I am not a Simeon. But would it be too daring for Our Lady?
	Oh---if I had the Immaculate Heart of Mary with which to pray---if I had her faith, her hope, her love, then here in thepresence of Our Lord I might dare to ask certainly even for more than a thousand sinners!
	Why did Our Lady appear at Fatima and hold out Her Immaculate Heart? Why did She ask us to take the Scapular and be consecrated to Her in a special way, if it was not that She wanted us to clothe our hearts with Her heart? Indeed, why did God give us this Mother if it was not that we should find Him through Her?
	As the Protestant poet Wordsworth said: "She is our tainted nature's solitary boast." If I cannot boast of my own goodness, certainly I can boast that this Mother is my Mother. I can beg Her in these next ten Hail Marys as I see Her going up to the Temple to giver Her child to Simeon, the daring saint, to lend me Her heart for this night, that I, too, might have the daring to pray for that which She begged of me at Fatima: the conversion of sinners...many sinners.
	Optional - Decade Prayer to the Father
	4) Dear Father, as Your daughter Mary and Her spouse St. Joseph presented Your Incarnate Word in the temple, You sent Your Holy Spirit upon Simeon and Anna to recognize Him, and to see into Mary's Immaculate Heart. Grant us the light of that same Holy Spirit.
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	Fifth Joyful Mystery: In Her Heart
	How can we think of the loss of Our Lord, for three days as Joyful Mystery?
	It was joyful for many reasons. It was joyful because it is a mystery of the sorrow of loss turned into the joy of finding; it is joyful because Our Lord, even at this early age, was giving an intimation that He was going to live, not only in Palestine, but would one day be found in every church in the world, about His Father's business: it isjoyful because, as St. John said when Jesus left Jerusalem with Mary and Joseph who went down to Nazareth to be "subject" to them for the next eighteen years, "Mary kept all these things, pondering them in Her Heart."
	In our day, Our Lady came and revealed her Immaculate Heart at Fatima. It seems that now, more than ever, She wants to share with the world all the mysteries which She gathered up during the life of Our Lord, all the fullness of Grace that God has chosen to pour into this vessel of love, Her Immaculate Heart.
	The heart is a symbol of love. That is why Our Lord chose this symbol when He came out of the Blessed Sacrament to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and pleaded for reparation to Him in the Blessed Sacrament. He showed her a Heart flaming with love and said: "Behold the Heart which has loved men."
	So is it any wonder in our time, when the world has for too long ignored the Sacred Heart and plunged itself to the verge of atomic destruction, that Our Lady should offer Her Immaculate Heart, that as St. John Eudes said: "Children may have but one heart with their mother, and thus have a heart worthy of returning the love of the Heart of Christ.
	If I have not found Jesus so far in my life, is it not because I have been looking for Him all by myself?
	Oh, of course I have found Him to some degree. Otherwise I would be be here for this night. But have I really found him? Does my heart burn within me as I kneel here before His Sacred heart? Am I aware of Him every moment during the day, no matter where I am? Do my thoughts instinctively turn toward the nearest tabernacle where He is truly present? Do I know that He is to be found in the nearest church "about His Father's business" every moment of the day? Do I long constantly to be with Him?
	No, I must admit that truly I have not found Him in the deepest and fullest sense. Therefore, it also must be true that I have not found Mary. I have not clothed my heart with Her Immaculate Heart. I have not brought the fire and purity and depth of faith which fills Her Heart into mine.
	Where shall I turn for help? How shall I place my heart into Her Immaculate Heart? How can I make the heart of my Mother my own?
	First, I know that I have the devotion of the Scapular---the devotion Our Lady gave me so many centuries ago that has been so enriched with indulgences, the sign which She held in Her hands in the miracle of the sun in Her final appearance at Fatima. I know that this is a sign belonging to Her in a special way, and when my heart beats beneath this sign, then I know that it is beating close to Hers. Saint Claude, the great apostle of the Sacred heart, said that while so many holy people through the centuries had longed to be near Mary, he had only to reach out and touch his hand upon the Scapular and he knew that Mary was near, he knew that his heart beat next to hers, because that was implied in the great promise She made when She first gave the Scapular to the world.
	Then I can turn to St. Joseph, who loved Mary more than any other man. Was he not chosen to be Her guardian? Was he not with Her through all the mysteries of Our Lord growing into manhood?
	So I can turn to St. Joseph and ask him, as my own father and protector, to pray that I may come closer to Mary, that I may appreciate Her love, Her motherhood, and above all the purity and charity of Her heart so that I may love Her to such a degree that She will give Her heart to me to be mine.
	Then there are all the saints of history, all who have been distinguished for the love of Our Lord, in the Eucharist and for Mary.
	A writer who was preparing a book on the Blessed Sacrament went to the biographies of as many saints as he could find. There were more than 300 volumes in all. And in each and every one he found a special chapter on the saint's "extraordinary devotion to Mary and another chapter on the saint's "extraordinary" devotion to the Eucharist.
	In almost every book the distinguishing characteristics of each and every saint was a "special" or "extraordinary" devotion to Our Lady and the Eucharist to such an extent that they were seen to be the most important aspects of the saint's life.
	So there is no canonized saint to whom I cannot cry out with confidence to obtain for me a great love for Mary so that I may borrow Her Immaculate Heart to come closer to the Sacred Heart of our Lord in the Eucharist.
	Let us pause now to think of the saints in whom we have greatest confidence. Let us repeat the prayer of each saint in our hearts, and when we say "Pray for us," let us intend that this saint will obtain for us a greater intimacy with the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
	(A minute of silence may be made here, or we may mention one or more of these saints in particular: St. Theresa, St. Alphonsus, St. Margaret Mary, St. John Eudes, St. Peter Julian, St. Anna Marie Goretti, St. Francis, St. Anthony, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, St. John, St. Therese, St. Catherine Laboure, St. Bernadette, St. John Vianney, Blessed Anne Marie, St. Martin de Porres, St. Rose, St. Laurence, St. Pascal, St. Ignatius, St. Dominic, St. Simon, St. Catherine, St. John of the Cross, St. Paul of the Cross, St. Bernard, St. Louis Grignion de Montfort.)
	Now dearest Mother, fortified by the prayers of Your saints, I call upon You in these next ten Hail Marys, as I see You proceeding down to Nazareth with St. Joseph and the Child Jesus while contemplating all the mysteries of the Incarnation and His relation to man in Your Immaculate Heart. Please fill me with the awe of these mysteries, and to lend me Your Immaculate Heart with which to honor Him worthily as I kneel at this moment in His presence.
	Optional - Decade Prayer to the Father
	5) Dear Father, You willed that Your daughter Mary and Her spouse St. Joseph should endure the trial of separation from Jesus, and the joy having Him return to Nazareth to abide with them. Grant that we may endure the trial and have Jesus abide with us.
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