Day 170: Grit and Grace
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I am Fr. Mark Mary 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 to 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 171.

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. You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month and it's a great way to track your progress. The best place to listen to the podcast is in the Ascension app. There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full rosary with myself and other friars. On behalf of myself and the whole team here at Ascension, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who's helped support this podcast financially, your generosity has

is so appreciated and helps us to reach as many people as possible. And if you haven't already, please consider supporting us at ascensionpress.com forward slash support. Today we will be meditating upon and praying with the second joyful mystery, the visitation, with help from a mosaic, which we will call the mosaic adorning the front of the church of the visitation, depicting the scene of Mary's visit to Elizabeth II.

at the Church of the Visitation by the artist Antonio Barluzzi. Now a brief introduction to our artist and artwork. Barluzzi was born in the year 1884, he died in the year 1960, and he was an Italian architect renowned for his sacred architecture in the Holy Land, earning him the title Architect of the Holy Land. His work reflects deep religious devotion and a unique ability to translate Christian mysteries into architectural forms.

Barluzzi combined Byzantine and Romanesque elements with modern techniques. Over his career, he built and restored 24 churches, hospitals, and schools between the years 1912 and 1955. The mosaic that we're looking at today was completed in the year 1955. And now our description. At the center of this mosaic, Mary is depicted seated on a donkey.

cloaked in white, traveling through a dry, rocky landscape. She journeys between two distant towns labeled in embedded tiles as Nazareth and Ein Karim. Positioned around her are three winged angels dressed in tunics and sandals, walking in accompaniment and solemn procession. Their posture and presence suggests a prayerful guardianship as they accompany Mary and her unborn son.

Above in the deep cobalt sky, three more winged angels fly above her, horizontally traveling in the same direction as Mary. In the distance near Ein Karim, a solitary woman stands outside to Elizabeth. Her posture, one of eager anticipation as she awaits the arrival of her cousin with attentive expectation. Okay, so the particular detail that I want to use at the jumping off point for our meditation today is that Mary...

is being accompanied by the angels, but not carried by the angels. Angels have certainly shown themselves to be a very consistent theme in the artwork we spent time with up to this point. And as has been noted in the artwork depicting Mary's assumption to heaven, Mary's often shown as being carried more than escorted by angels to heaven.

But today, right in this mosaic of the visitation, Mary is traversing this arduous path on the back of a saddleless donkey. And the characteristic or the virtue of Mary that I believe this speaks to is her grit. To be honest, during our episodes on the Joyful Mysteries where I was highlighting the role of Joseph in accompanying and providing for Mary, I

I was a little self-conscious, still am, about overplaying Mary as being perhaps like helpless or fragile. Because there's a big difference between being vulnerable and being fragile. The young virgin that the angel appeared to and that Joseph would accompany, like she was vulnerable. Like there's just a truth about a single woman traversing a country trail into a distant city and

in which she is vulnerable to the elements, to robbers, etc. But also, this is a manifestation of her grit, like of her interior toughness that allowed her to freely enter that space and to persevere on the journey because her cousin was in need. I want to pause here for a second to have an extended quote from the Catechism, and this is paragraph 1804. Human virtues are firm attitudes,

stable dispositions, habitual perfections of intellect and will that govern our actions, order our passions, and guide our conduct according to reason and faith. They make possible ease, self-mastery, and joy in leading a morally good life. The virtuous man is he who practices the good. The moral virtues are acquired by human effort."

Moral virtues, the virtuous life requires human effort to possess ourselves through self-mastery and to give ourselves in sacrificial love. It requires hard work, self-denial, discipline, and perseverance. It requires grit.

In the Christian life, it's not just a passing grit. It's not like a grit sprint. It's an ultra marathon of grit. The giving of oneself throughout one's entire life.

And I use the ultra marathon here because the journey that Mary makes in the visitation from Nazareth to Judea, it's not just a marathon, right? It's a 70 mile plus journey, which in modern times is considered an ultra marathon. And Mary did it. And here, I believe like why she did it and how she did it are a bit the same. She did it for love. The why and the how are the same. They are love.

She was driven by charity and she was driven by obedience and she was driven by the grace of God. And these fuel sources like love, especially divine love, obedience and duty and trust and the grace of God are the most powerful of motivators and fuel sources. Mary wasn't driven by a need to prove herself.

which is a fuel source that drives a lot of us, right? She wasn't driven by that. She wasn't pushed on by some need for self-flagellation and she wasn't being refueled by a high calorie like performance gels, right? In the visitation to her cousin, Elizabeth, the blessed mother, this young vulnerable teenage girl, she made an arduous journey, right? A literal modern day ultra marathon escorted by angels built upon grit, right?

Driven by love, directed by obedience, and nourished by heavenly grace. My brothers and sisters, we have not signed up for an easy pilgrimage. It's not meant to be a casual walk in the park. We're meant for heroic charity. And to lay down our very lives just as Jesus did. Through our prayer today, let us be inspired by Mary's grit.

And let's recommit ourselves to the human effort necessary to lay that natural foundation that grace desires to perfect. And now with Mary, 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. All right, thanks so much for joining me and praying with me today. I look forward to continuing this journey with you again tomorrow. Poco a poco, friends. God bless y'all.