The Day Before . . .

The rosary is a beautiful, efficacious prayer. Praying the rosary brings about profound life changes, as Mary leads us closer and closer to the foot of the Cross, and into the depths of the Sacred Heart of her Son, Jesus.

Recently, as I pray and meditate upon the mysteries of the Gospel which are at the heart of the rosary, I find my meditation and thoughts being drawn to the day before. This has led me to consider every mystery of the rosary in this context, as well as some other accounts in the bible where people experienced great conversions or changes of heart. Have you ever considered what it was like, for instance,

The day before . . .

. . . the Angel Gabriel came to Mary
. . . Joseph had a dream
. . . Mary’s visit to Elizabeth
. . . the shepherds heard the angel
. . . the Magi saw the Star
. . . Simeon met the Holy Family
. . . Anna met the Holy Family
. . . the men in the temple met the Child Jesus
. . . the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist
. . . the wedding at Cana
. . . the proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven
. . . the healing of the blind man, leper, woman with hemorrhages, etc.
. . . raising Lazarus from the dead
. . . the transfiguration of Jesus
. . . the institution of the Eucharist
. . . the agony in the garden of Gethsemane
. . . the suffering, crucifixion and death of Jesus
. . . the resurrection of Jesus
. . . the ascension of Jesus into heaven
. . . the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost

At first I thought the gift of this meditation was merely a help in my waiting to enter the Daughters of Mary….that my life could change any moment and I could be on my way to Connecticut…that I, myself, was living in the day before. But then I realized that the truth is that we are all living in the day before and that each of our lives can change in an instant. Quite frankly, our lives will probably change in an instant for any number of reasons over the course of our lives.

So what does it mean to be living in the day before? It means surrendering this day to God, knowing that He is in charge and that His plan is perfect…..Knowing that we can trust to our faithful Creator, our most vulnerable, frail, imperfect hearts, and He will always bring about the best for us, even when we can not see it for ourselves at a particular moment. All we need do is to cooperate with His grace and make an effort to actively surrender everything to Him, making FIAT! our battle cry. Be it done unto us according to Your Word, Lord.