It may seem attractive. It may seem pleasant. It may seem desirable, and it may be reachable…but DON’T eat it. Don’t consume it. Don’t take it into yourself.

So what’s this about? The forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Yes, we’re in the garden. We’re up at the beginning; our human beginning.

Don’t eat it or even touch it. Who says so? The Lord God. And what if we do? “You shall most surely die”, said the Lord God.

And they did consume, and they did most surely die; a done deed, a consuming passion. And all humanity is most surely consumed in death. Yes, in some mysterious and inescapable way we are all in it, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. We are all in that garden event, because we are human. Not because we are modern or ancient, eastern or western, northern or southern, sick or healthy, urban or rural or personally whatever, but because we are human.

All of this forms the frame of the big picture of our gospel revelation for today.

“Who do you say that I am?” John the Baptist? No. Elijah? No. An ancient prophet risen from the dead? No. YOU ARE THE CHRIST OF GOD, YOU ARE THE SON OF MAN. You are the New Adam born of the New Eve, Founder of the New Creation, born to die the death merited by the consuming passion of our first parents for what was forbidden in the Beginning, in the garden.

Lord Jesus, Christ of God, by your sacred Passion and Death you are to consume that garden-death in the love-fire of your self-denying sacrifice offered to God for us all…offered to God the Creator to turn our human suffering and dying into something precious. The prayer attributed to St Francis captures nicely something of this mystery: “…And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Nevertheless, Christian life in the New Creation of Christ the New Adam has not removed the hazard of possible consuming passions. Embers remain in us and these can burst into damaging flames. Why are we left with such troublesome embers? Only God knows the full answer, but maybe one reason is that we be kept aware of the big picture, of Jesus the Christ of God and Son of Man dying and rising for us. And not just knowing about this as a fact but needing to embrace the truth and participate in it. The lurking embers of desire ensure that there will be good or evil choices to be made and therefore the need for self denial, after the example of Jesus the Lord.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me”.

Young mums and dads might be battling to do what they promised they would at their child’s baptism.

The baptizing celebrant would have said to them at the beginning of the ceremony: “You have asked to have

your child baptized. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training her (or him) in the practice of

the faith. It will be your duty to bring her (or him) up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbour.

Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?” And they say “We do”. But do they really? How can they get help for this? Most

of them don’t come to church or have any real ongoing bond with the Church.

Here’s my thought. Many young parents read to their little ones. Always there are favourite stories. But these are invariably stories about

animals or trains and train engines. And if they are about people, there probably isn’t much reference to anything Christian. Nevertheless

they are attractive and well done.   Why can’t there be fascinating and mysterious little stories about biblical characters that are attractive

to four and five and six year olds with wonderful illustrations like you find in Mem Fox’s classics? Why can’t there be mini “historical

novels” about saints of long ago where facts are scarce and Christian imagination is called for? I am thinking especially of what we might

call “Rosary saints” – both from the Bible and from the life of the Church. Their lives and escapades could be made so real to little children

that they identify with them. One writer who did this many years ago so beautifully was the Austrian Karl Heinrich Waggerl with his

“Christmas Legends”.

So if there is anyone out there…..do let me know on >ben.hensley@op.org.au<  or >frben@rosaryafresh.org<

Fr Ben OP

Later in that same Letter Pope John Paul indicated a difference between two kinds of holy learning. First, we can learn what Jesus “the supreme Teacher” taught, but secondly we also need to “learn him”. In this regard, the pope asks, “could we have any better teacher than Mary?”

In the first way Jesus guides and informs us. In the second way he seems to draw us -or rather, he has Mary draw us to himself.

These two ways of holy learning in the school of Mary are not either-or, but both-and.

So with Mary we can “learn Jesus” coming into the world from the Father as human by conception and birth. She knows this more intimately than any one else. Now, we join her in prayer-learning as we ponder his leaving her and the world humanly, and returns to the Father.

We join her in contemplating and celebrating his whole life and all that he suffered and achieved in his triumphant world wide win over the web of sin and death.

Fr Ben OP

The Rosary is going to be our thing. We think of it as the “Rosary Afresh” Why? Well, that was the title that Mrs Mary Gill (of the Dominican Laity) and I used for our first Rosary Mission in St Francis’ church, Melbourne way back in 1981.

Our symbol for that was a special picture of the Mystical Rose painted by Mary’s daughter Teresa.

Our Lady

Nothing too narrow. Yes, the Rosary claims a wonderful tradition of hundreds of years. But there’s nothing stale about it, especially when the praying of it invites us into the mysteries. The mysteries are never stale, because they are inexhaustible. And they are inexhaustible because they are mysteries of God.

What are going to be on about  with the Rosary in this blog? Exploration of the mysteries and all sorts of connections to aspects of our ordinary Christian life.

So, come back and check us out each fortnight as we post new material.

Eastertide blessings!

Fr Ben