Rosary Mysteries for the Sundays of Lent

Marialis Cultus

The Rosary is a practice of piety which easily harmonizes with the liturgy. In fact, like the liturgy, it is of a community nature, draws its inspiration from Sacred Scripture and is oriented towards the mystery of Christ. The commemoration in the liturgy and the contemplative remembrance proper to the Rosary, although existing on essentially different planes of reality, have as their object the same salvific events wrought by Christ. The former presents new, under the veil of signs and operative in a hidden way, the great mysteries of our Redemption. The latter, by means of devout contemplation, recalls these same mysteries to the mind of the person praying and stimulates the will to draw from them the norms of living. Once this substantial difference has been established, it is not difficult to understand that the Rosary is an exercise of piety that draws its motivating force from the liturgy and leads naturally back to it, if practiced in conformity with its original inspiration.(Paul VI, Marialis Cultus, 2 February 1974)

The Rosary and Lectio Divina
For some years now on the Sundays of Lent, when praying part of my daily Rosary, I have prolonged my lectio divina by taking the great Gospels of the season as “Lenten Mysteries of the Rosary.”

The 1st Lenten Mystery: The Temptation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Desert
And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the desert, for the space of forty days; and was tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry. (Luke 4:1-2)

The 2nd Lenten Mystery: The Transfiguration of Our Lord Jesus Christ
And after six days Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow. (Matthew 17:1-2)

The 3rd Lenten Mystery: The Promise of Living Water to the Woman at the Well
Jesus answered, and said to her: If thou didst know the gift of God, and who he is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. (John 4:10)

The 4th Lenten Mystery: The Healing of the Man Born Blind
He answered: That man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed my eyes, and said to me: Go to the pool of Siloe, and wash. And I went, I washed, and I see. (John 9:11)

The 5th Lenten Mystery: The Resurrection of Lazarus
Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live: And every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. (John 11: 27)