Day 107: Beauty Which Never Fades
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I am Father Mark Mayer with Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast, where through prayer and meditation, the rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. This is day 107. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a Year, visit ascensionpress.com forward slash rosary in a year or text R-I-Y to 33777.

Today we will be praying with

and meditating upon the fourth glorious mystery, the Assumption of Mary, with help from writing by Venerable Fulton J. Sheen from his work, Meditations on the Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary. So today we have Venerable. He's our first non-canonized author, but he's a pretty special guy, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. So he's born in 1895 and he passed from this life in 19...

So he was very popular, very popular from the year 1930 to 1950. So for 20 years, first his father, then his Monsignor Sheen, he'd be the host of a popular radio show called the Catholic Hour. But then after being consecrated Bishop in 1951, he would begin his very, very, very famous show called Life is Worth a Living that would reach an estimated 30 million viewers a year.

a week. He won an Emmy. He was on the cover of Time Magazine. It was a bit of a different time back then, but he was very popular. But more than being popular, he was a man of prayer who loved God, loved the church. You know, there's a new movement and very, very popular, especially for priests, young missionaries to make a holy hour every day. And I think a lot of this goes back to the influence of Bishop Sheen, who for some 40 years of his priesthood would make sure he'd spend an hour a day

in front of the Blessed Sacrament, something that he kept very, very faithfully and really influenced the whole new generation of Catholics. In 1979, when Pope John Paul II visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, visited where Bishop Sheen was, he said to Bishop Sheen, you have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You are a loyal son of the church. In 2012, he would be proclaimed as a venerable

Servant of God, which is kind of on the step towards canonization and that process is still ongoing. Our focus today will be beautiful because it is a temple of God. Now our writing from Bishop Sheen. What the ascension was to our Lord, that the assumption is to our Lady. Certainly she, the new garden of paradise in which grew the lily of divine sinlessness,

and the red rose of the church, should not be delivered over and forgotten by the heavenly gardener. She in whose womb was celebrated the nuptials of eternity and time is more of eternity than time. If husband and wife and marriage are made two in one flesh, then shall not she, who is the new Eve of the new Adam, be also made two in one spirit with him.

As Christ ascended into heaven to the unity of the divine nature, so Mary is assumed into heaven in the unity of Christ's human nature. Her mystical flight is the event to which our whole generation moves. Our age of carnalities, which loves the body beautiful, is lifted out of its despair by the assumption to honor a body that is beautiful because it is a temple of God, a gate through which the word of heaven passed to earth, a tower of ivory,

up which climbed divine love, to kiss upon the lips of his mother a mystic rose. The end of the reading. Thanks be to God. Again, our theme is reflect on the assumption. It's going to be beautiful because it is a temple of God. If you remember all the way back, all the way back to our first episode on which we reflected on, discussed the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth,

We looked at how sometimes prose isn't enough, that poetry is needed, especially when speaking of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There may be no greater master of providing poetry in praise of the Blessed Mother than our author today, venerable servant of God, Fulton J. Sheen. And I guess it's not always like poetry exactly, but his words always have that extra beauty and the love and certainly poetic quality fitting to Our Lady.

His work, The World's First Love, is an especially beautiful book honoring Our Lady. We see the poetic quality of his writing, speaking of the Blessed Mother and Our Lord, really, in what we just read, right? He refers to Our Lady as the new garden of paradise. Beautiful. His words, she in whose womb

"was celebrated the nuptials of eternity and time." Are you kidding? I love it. She and whose womb was celebrated the nuptials of eternity and time. There's a reason Bishop Sheena was as popular as he was. And Mary's mystical flight is the event to which our whole generation moves. On that last line, just a little callback again, if you recall our discussion of Mary's assumption in light of her Magnificat, particularly we looked at it during our time of Lectio Divina, right? As we looked at

Mary's Magnificat, what we pointed out is the pattern it follows. First celebrating what happens in the life of Mary, God's goodness to Mary, but then celebrating the fact that what Mary experiences first, we are all invited to experience. Mary's mystical flight is the event to which our whole generation moves. And so we are all invited to this destination, to sharing in the resurrection, to sharing an eternal life in heaven,

Not exactly as queen as Mary does, but certainly as beloved sons and daughters of the queen. Now let's focus real quick on the resurrection of the body, right? So Mary is assumed into heaven, body and soul. She's already taken the mystical flight to which our whole generation moves. And we ourselves believe we profess the resurrection of the body. We believe we are called to this.

To begin a discussion, there's a great quote, a quote I'm gonna use all the time that I just came across from the French Catholic thinker. His name is Rene Girard. And he wrote, few people want to be saints these days, but everyone is trying to lose weight. It's so true. And I think he just nails in a very, very pithy way what Bishop Sheen is saying, right? Bishop Sheen in that last paragraph we just read, he says,

Our age of carnalities, which loves the body beautiful, is lifted out of its despair by the assumption to honor a body that is beautiful because it is a temple of God. Like everyone's trying to lose weight, you know, everyone is fighting aging. There's a real, there's a real movement of those who celebrate even worship the body beautiful in our age of carnalities, using Bishop Sheen's words, who are just doing everything that they can to fight aging and

But Bishop Sheen, he says about how this leads to despair. Why? Because you can't win this battle. Life's going to have the struggle, make sure it's the right struggle, the right struggle to really push against and fight aging, like to really try and stop it. Like it's not a fight you're going to win. Aging is going to win. The decline of the body, the atrophy of the body, like you're not going to be able to stop it. But here's what we know, right? Like that's not where true beauty lies.

It's not anti-wrinkling and it's not anti-aging. So let's look at Our Lady. How beautiful would Mary's gray hair have been? And I imagine deep wrinkles, like signs towards the end of her earthly life. Like how beautiful would Mary have been with a head full of presumably gray hair and a face with deep wrinkles? These signs of a life actually profoundly lived and a love profoundly experienced by

And just a heart that had been totally, totally given. Mary, the temple of God, the garden of paradise was assumed into heaven, body and soul. Her body will live forever. And with a heavenly beauty that far surpasses any beauty ever encountered in this world. I'll say like the desire for a beauty which doesn't fade can actually be a very good and holy thing. And I dare say it's what we're made for.

but not in this world and not just through human means. The ultimate cause of our beauty and the ultimate cause of the preservation of our beauty and eternal beauty of both body and soul is holiness. It is the beauty of a person conformed to Jesus Christ. We call Mary the all-beautiful one because she experienced this firstly and most profoundly, but where Mary has gone, we are all called to follow.

to the resurrection of the body, to the experience of a beauty which never fades. So as we pray today, as we pray with this mystery, may we place our hope, our hope for eternity, but also our hope for ourselves, for the beauty of the body. And if we can say like the anti-aging we're longing for, can we place it where Mary found it and pursue it, right? The same way that Mary pursued it and experienced it

through holiness, through communion and transformation in Christ with its ultimate hope placed in heaven, and our belief that we, all of us, like Mary, who experienced it first, are called to experience the resurrection of our bodies and a beauty which never fades.

And now with Mary, the garden of paradise, the all-beautiful one, let us pray. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you for joining me and praying with me again today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow. Poco a poco, friends. God bless all.