Day 99: Stay in Dialogue
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Hey, I'm Father Mark Mary with the 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 99. 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. I encourage you to pick up a copy of the Rosary New Year Prayer Guide, a book published by Ascension that was designed to complement this podcast. You'll find all the daily readings from scripture, saint reflections, and beautiful full-page images of the sacred art we'll be reflecting on. Today we will be meditating upon and praying with the first sorrowful mystery, the agony in the garden, enriched by a reading from Saint Alphonsus Liguori from his work, The Passion.

and death of Jesus Christ. And the emphasis of our reflection are going to be these words from the writing of St. Alphonsus. Take upon thee our fearfulness in order to give us thy courage. And now we'll have our reading from St. Alphonsus Liguori. Behold, our most loving Savior, having come to the garden of Gethsemane, did of his own accord make a beginning of his bitter passion by giving full liberty to the passions of fear, of weariness, and of sorrow.

to come and afflict him with all their torments. He began to fear and to be heavy and to grow sorrowful and to be sad. He began then first to feel a great fear of death and of the sufferings he would soon have to endure. The reading continues. O most amiable Jesus, thou wouldst take upon thee our fearfulness in order to give us thy courage in suffering the trials of this life.

O be thou forever blessed for thy great mercy and love. O may all our hearts love thee as much as thou desirest and as much as thou deservest. The end of the reading. So we, and by we, I mean the Franciscan friars of the renewal have begun a tradition of taking the men in our first phase of formation called postulancy, the men themselves called postulants,

on a 21 day backpacking trip to the Moab desert around that area. And the details and what we ask for this trip is for it to be intentionally very difficult and challenging on a variety of levels. They have a variety of options they offer and we take the hardest one and make it, I believe more difficult.

For me personally, by a long shot, the biggest challenge was always the cold. The times I've done it, we've done it in November, like so Moab in November, and we're intentionally, we're out in the middle of nowhere. And the first thing we do each morning is have mass. And then we have a Eucharistic holy hour. So you're just there, you're seated there, you're stationary there for the first hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes of the morning, just out in the elements.

At the end of the holy hour, the priest, he consumes the host as we're not going to be back to the spot again. So we have our traveling mask kits and this is what we do every morning. I mean, one of these mornings, looking back at it, it was literally as cold as six degrees. Like, dude, brutal. Like this California country club boy, like I'm made for sunshine, like Newport Beach, not the Moab desert when it's six degrees. But...

I learned and I grew. For others and for a lot of the guys, the biggest challenge is the variety of activities we do, which involve heights, in particular, rappelling. Rappelling is when you rappel down like the side of a mountain, basically. And we're with train guides who really, really are elite at their craft. They know exactly what they're doing. So we're in great hands. But for a lot of the guys still, when you're being asked to step off, you know,

hard surface, the flat ground, and start to descend 250 feet down, like the side of a mountain, it can, and reasonably so, stir up a lot of fear. Father Innocent is the postulant director. So that means the friar who's in charge of these guys.

Father Innocent himself is not a fan of heights at all. He's gone on multiple of these trips and he still doesn't like anything about rappelling, not even a little bit. But he has this commitment, a commitment which he keeps like very, very faithfully and he holds to very earnestly. His commitment is that he is always going to be the first one down when we're doing some sort of rappelling exercise.

He always faces his fear first to show the men the way. He experiences real fear, but he does it anyway because he's not going to ask the guys to do anything that he's not willing to do first. And actually, how he does it is as important probably as that he does it

He doesn't just like man up and do it. Like he's quite vocal and quite honest and really, really humble. The whole time he's getting ready to take the big step off the side of the cliff to begin the descent. Like he's talking to the guys. Hey, talk to me, Jacob. Look at me, Jacob. Jacob, I can't hear you. Look at me, Jacob. Hey, hey, hey, hey, look at me. And what he's doing, right? In a really beautiful way is he's not focusing on the fear. He's not focusing on the heights. Like

Instead, he is keeping focused on the one in whom he is placing his trust. He's keeping his focus, his eyes, his dialogue on and with the one in whom he's placing his trust. I think in a parallel, though, obviously much more profound way, this is a bit of the angle that St. Alphonsus Liguori has for us as we reflect on Jesus and his agony in the garden today. St. Alphonsus, he highlights this.

The true fear that Jesus experiences before his forthcoming agony. Jesus experiences real, deep, human fear and anguish. And how does he move through this trial? He stays focused and he stays in dialogue with his Father three times. Again and again he returns to the Father. Now Jesus knows that we will often experience fear before the Father's will for our lives. Before the future, before the unknown.

Jesus has gone before us. He has known fear and human fear to the height and the depths of human capacity for this experience. But still he says yes. Still he says yes to the Father. Jesus is not going to ask us to do anything. He doesn't ask us to do anything that he hasn't done as well.

He also shows us the way how to stay faithful to the Father's will even though we experience fear. We stay focused on the Father. We stay in dialogue with the Father. If we remain in this relationship, if we remain in relationship with God, with the Father, fear, suffering, even death, they will never have the last word. But the Father's power and His fidelity will always last.

Like in the Moab desert, right? Like our hope in the instructors and the climbing gear, it was really, really confident. But our hope in God, our hope in the Father is absolutely certain. So as we pray today, like let us go ahead and acknowledge any fears we may be experiencing in our lives, particularly where we're afraid to say yes to God or we're struggling to trust that he can carry us through a struggle or a suffering for ourselves or a loved one.

But also let us, like Jesus, bring this to the Father. Let us ask Jesus to teach us how to entrust it to the Father. And hear Jesus himself speak to you. Hey, hey, look at me. I've got you. I've got you. We're going to get through this. Look at me. Trust me. I've got you. And now, my brothers and sisters, just remaining in this dialogue,

remaining with Jesus in our fear, but also learning from Jesus how to keep going forward even though we experience fear, how to stay in relationship and dialogue with the Father even though we experience fear. 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.