A River Runs Through It

The more I use the Holy Father’s new series of mysteries the more I like them. He calls them the mysteries of light but my own meditation has been following a theme centered on water.

A Carmelite friend explained to me once that a true prophet in the Old Testament was always one who had power over water. Baal was the god of water and rain. So the prophets of the true God showed their superiority by having greater power than the Baals over the element of water, the essential for all life on earth. All through the New Testament, Our Lord shows greater authority over water than any prophet. The mysteries of light seem to me to highlight this.

In the first mystery Our Lord is baptized by John the Baptist and thereby sanctifies water for all time. He makes it suitable for the sacrament of baptism and for sanctifying us.

In the second mystery Our Lord takes the element of water and transforms it utterly by turning it into wine, thereby bringing it to a higher natural order.

In the third mystery the kingdom is proclaimed. The first step here is to “repent and be baptized.” Here water is used on a higher spiritual plane to bring life in the spiritual order.

In the fourth mystery of the Holy Transfiguration, Our Lord appears with the two Old Testament prophets who had the greatest power over water, Moses and Elias. Moses parted the Red Sea and brought forth water from a rock. Elias started and stopped droughts and was able to bring fire from heaven to consume a sacrifice soaked in water.

In the fifth mystery which includes the institution of the Blessed Eucharist, Our Lord transforms wine into his own Blood. In the second mystery water is raised up a step to wine and now the wine is raised even further by becoming the Lord Himself.

At the end of the sorrowful mysteries, water and wine together flow from the Lord’s pierced heart.

Do I make too much of the water theme? Maybe. But so far it has been a fruitful meditation.