{"id":2980,"date":"2007-09-08T22:07:12","date_gmt":"2007-09-08T22:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2007\/09\/hail-mary-little-child-full-of\/"},"modified":"2007-09-08T22:07:12","modified_gmt":"2007-09-08T22:07:12","slug":"hail-mary-little-child-full-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2007\/09\/hail-mary-little-child-full-of\/","title":{"rendered":"The Earlier Mysteries of the Blessed Virgin Mary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"090806%20St.%20Anne%20%26%20BVM.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/090806%20St.%20Anne%20%26%20BVM.jpg\" width=\"88\" height=\"256\"style=\"float: right; margin-left:20px; margin-bottom:20px;\" \/><br \/>\nFor some years now, especially around the Marian feasts of September 8th, September 12th, November 21st, and December 8th, I have prayed my rosary while dwelling on five mysteries of the <em>first part<\/em> of Our Lady&#8217;s life.  These five mysteries of the Blessed Virgin are:<br \/>\n\u2014 the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the womb of her mother, Saint Anne;<br \/>\n\u2014 the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary;<br \/>\n\u2014 the Most Holy Name of Mary<br \/>\n\u2014 the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple;<br \/>\n\u2014 the Betrothal of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Joseph;<br \/>\nThere is a particular sweetness in dwelling on these mysteries of <em>Maria Bambina<\/em>, the Infant Mary, the Child Mary.  They distill graces of purity, of childlike simplicity, and of littleness.<br \/>\nAll five mysteries are commemorated in the Sacred Liturgy.  The liturgical books are rich in texts to nourish the meditation of each one.  It is enough to take an antiphon, a verse, a single phrase, and to hold it in the heart while telling one&#8217;s beads.  The Rosary corresponds to the <em>meditatio<\/em> and the <em>oratio<\/em> of monastic prayer; it begins necessarily in <em>lectio divina<\/em>, the hearing of the Word and then, gently, almost imperceptibly, draws the soul into <em>contemplatio<\/em>.<br \/>\nThe Rosary is, I am convinced, the surest and easiest school of contemplative prayer.  The Rosary  decapitates pride, the single greatest obstacle to union with God.  The repetition of the <em>Aves<\/em>, like a stream of pure water, cleanses the heart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For some years now, especially around the Marian feasts of September 8th, September 12th, November 21st, and December 8th, I have prayed my rosary while dwelling on five mysteries of the first part of Our Lady&#8217;s life. These five mysteries of the Blessed Virgin are: \u2014 the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary in <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blessed-virgin-mary","category-rosary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-M4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}