An Invitation to Ponder
Photo: Katrina Harrington
We are delighted to invite you to ponder the touchstones of the gospel with us this spring. In our new book, Ponder, we take a careful look at each of the twenty points of Jesus life, ministry, death, and resurrection that give us the fullness of the gospel.
It has been said that the rosary is Scripture on a string. And so it is. Nothing could be more perfect for a focused Bible study than time set aside to become intimate with each mystery of the rosary. We could spend a lifetime meditating upon just these twenty mysteries and it would be a life of fullness of prayer and deep understanding of the gospel.
“The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer. ”
Indeed, the rosary is the rhythmic contemplation of mysteries of Christ’s story. It is “the epitome of the whole Gospel” (CCC 971). The repeated prayers set the rhythm--the quiet cadence that brings us into His presence. And the Scriptural stories of our Savior give us breath.
This book seeks to create for you a place of pure beauty where you can find a simple rhythm with Our Lord. It honors the goodness of this prayer tradition and brings each mystery to life for you in a personal, memorable way so that when you are finished, you will have engraved all of them on your heart and you will hold those memories now and in the future, when you sit (or stand or lie or run) to say the rosary.
We have devoted a day to each mystery--each has its own time and space to consider it deeply.. Look at it through the lens of each day’s essay writer. Ponder it with your pen on the pages of this journal. And then pray it. Just that mystery if that is all you can manage—but give yourself the two or three minutes a day it takes to pray that one decade of the rosary. Our hope is that as the month progresses, each bead will become its own precious, personal symbol for you—forevermore reminding you of how you encountered Jesus in His Word when you studied that mystery.
When you reach the end of the book, you will have strung Scripture on a simple, but beautiful, string. You will have become intimate with the twenty mysteries, but there will always be so much more about them to know. Our hope, and indeed our prayer, is that when this study ends you will have found or furthered a lifelong habit of pondering those mysteries in your heart, taking up the rhythm of blessed beads. Our hope is that this is just the beginning of a daily conversation with Jesus, counting beads and recalling the gift of His story.
Ponder is available now! We will study together here and on Instagram and in our Facebook group beginning May 13. Of course, we will have a group guide available for you, too. And you can look for a very special edition of Ponder for kids very soon!
All photos are the kindness of Allison McGinley