S3, E1 - Welcome to Season Three: The Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary

The mission of the Ponder and Magnify Podcast is to seek an encounter with Jesus through praying the rosary, relying on the grace of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary. In this episode, John and Jessica introduce Fr. Philipp, a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri. Throughout Season Three, John, Jessica, and Fr. Philipp will be diving into the Scripture of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary together. In this episode, in addition to giving a glimpse into the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, Fr. Philipp shares about his relationship with Mary, when he prays the rosary, and what Mary’s role can be in our relationship with Jesus. Praise be to God!

Transcript

Jessica: 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Ponder and Magnify podcast, where our mission is to seek an encounter with Jesus through praying the Rosary, relying on the grace of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of Mary. I am so happy that you are here. Welcome everybody to the launch of our season three of Ponder and Magnify, where we will be focused on the luminous mysteries of the Rosary. We can't wait to dive in and we are so excited to welcome onto our podcast Father Clark Philipp, another priest in the Archdiocese of St Louis. His current assignment is pastor of St Alban Roe in Wildwood. John and I are excited and eager to reconnect with Father Philipp and to have this time with him feels like a true answered prayer.

Jessica: 0:54

Father Philipp was really on our hearts when we were discerning who would be a good fit for this season on the Luminous Mysteries, because John and I both feel like in these mysteries, Christ, the teacher, comes out, and one of our favorite experiences with Father Philipp was years and years ago when John and I first moved back to St Louis and we were attending Mass at St Clement where Father Philipp was the associate pastor.

Jessica: 1:28

That's the right title, right? Okay, the Associate Pastor and he just was a good friend and companion during that time for us when we first moved back and we had been kind of hanging out talking after Mass and he invited us into a deeper Bible study with him. He invited us to do that with him and John and I both feel like it was the first time that we were really pursued by a priest coming to us and really wanting us to know the Lord's love for us so much more and it was so special to do that as a married couple in those earlier years of marriage with him. So we're just really grateful to have you here with us and thanks for being a witness to Christ the teacher for us.

Fr. Philipp: 2:08

I'm grateful to be here.

Jessica: 2:10

Father Philipp, is there anything that you want to add to your introduction?

Fr. Philipp: 2:18

Not really.

Jessica: 2:20

Perfect. Well, in that case, will you kick us off opening us with prayer for this third season?

Fr. Philipp: 2:29

Sure In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Jesus, we come before you and we know that you see us, that you desire us, that you know what we desire and we ask you to place in our hearts your desires, your knowledge, your love, your healing and your spirit. Lord, send him upon us that we might be led to you.

Fr. Philipp: 3:12

Mary, we turn to you as well and we ask your motherly help and your goodness to be our mother and our guide, and one who walks with us today and always. We ask this all in your most holy name, Jesus, amen.

Jessica: 3:23

Amen,

John: 3:23

amen

Jessica: 3:28

Thank you so much, father. All right, john, it's your favorite time of the podcast. What's your one word to describe how you're feeling here as we jump in to this third season after a little bit of a summer break here? How are you feeling?

John: 3:40

I'd say hopeful. You know, like the start of every baseball season or, you know, sports season, where you feel like there's hope for your team to do well, make a run. You know it's just kind of the giddiness about you know starting anew, so feeling hopeful and just excited to be getting back after it. How about you, father Philipp?

Fr. Philipp: 4:08

I would have to say that the word that I would use is full. We just ate dinner, so that's part of that, but also just the reality of being met by the Lord today and being full of gratitude for that. How about you, jess?

Jessica: 4:31

I am going to go with heartburn in both a literal and a spiritual sense. I was joking with John and Father Philipp before we got on the podcast about how I've been experiencing some heartburn recently, but I actually woke up this morning with heartburn, which was a most unpleasant experience.

Jessica: 4:52

A most unpleasant experience and I, as I was sitting there, like oh, I was like wait, no, this is actually perfect, I actually thought about the story of the road to Emmaus that's right, okay and wanted to make sure it was the right road there and how their hearts were burning within them when they heard the Lord speak to them, without even knowing that it was the Lord at that time. And I just woke up and I felt that heartburn and, as I was dreading it, I was like, no, this is actually perfect. I'm feeling a real heartburning sensation about this next season, especially after having taken a little bit of a break over the summer. I am just so eager to see what the Holy Spirit has in store for us.

John: 5:34

You need some spiritual Tums.

Jessica: 5:36

Yes, John, exactly

John: 5:39

omyselfuld' there.

Jessica: 5:41

Oh goodness,

John: 5:42

All righty. So, Fr Philipp, with this being a rosary podcast, do you mind sharing just whatever you feel comfortable with about your relationship with Mary and how that's developed over time and just kind of what that looks like for you today?

Fr. Philipp: 6:01

Yeah, I would say, uh, that's a good, it's a good question. I was kind of pondering that earlier today and in preparation for this for this podcast. But uh, when I, when I considered like my relationship with the Our Lady, and how it's grown, I think early on it was one of the early ways that I kind of chose to pray was to use the rosary in some way. Now I don't think I used it in a way that was particularly fruitful for contemplation, but it was the means by which I was praying in high school on the way to school, and so I just had intention for every bead and I would pray for my friends or my family or the things that I was hoping for desiring, and that later on developed to a habit of praying the rosary. And I think Our Lady met me in that and brought me closer to Jesus in many ways.

Fr. Philipp: 7:03

And it's interesting, I did some of my studies away from St Louis and during that time I actually, coming back to St Louis, kind of fell away from the rosary for a little while and it's been an interesting kind of path back to entering into a relationship with Mary and one of the things that has actually how Our Lady has met me is under her title, our Lady of Guadalupe, and the words that she speaks Am I not here who am your mother? Are you not in the cross in my arms and the fold of my mantle? and the rosary has in some ways been a way for me to entrust myself to her. When I try to minister to people, it's an easy way to set myself in the space of getting out of the way so that Jesus can act and just being in her care. Um, so that's, that's where I would say like it's grown and developed.

John: 8:03

I can relate to that too. That's what I, you know, when we I think it was our first episode I talked about it. That's how it was for me too At first it was. It was very, uh, almost just like numerical. It's like, all right, this intention gets five, hail Marys, this next one gets five, and okay, then kind of map it out. So I can relate to that and also relate to you know, say, doing in the like in the car while you were driving. Is there, is there any like ritual that you have with it now was saying the rosary, or is there? Um, I guess, what does that look like in your day-to-day life if you are saying a daily rosary?

Fr. Philipp: 8:40

Yeah, so I would say the days that I'm praying the rosary. I don't pray a daily rosary. Our lady is pleased with me no matter what, but I wish I were more dedicated to her. I find that I do pray it oftentimes when I'm in counseling with people, so it's actually a good way for me to enter into kind of the openness and contemplation, to be attentive to who I have before me, so like that's the most potent way I do enjoy. Also, like the rosary walk. That's probably my favorite way to pray the rosary is actually to go on a walk and just speak to Our Lady. So that's a fairly common way for me to kind of hightail it out of the rectory door when I'm having a day and just go down the sidewalk and pray the rosary and be with Our Lady in the midst of the mysteries.

John: 9:35

That's awesome, yeah, yeah, and I appreciate your answer there too, because I love it when people are able to like pray it every day, but it's not something I feel like I'm able to like work in myself and it's usually around, I don't know, doing it in community or with jess and with our girls or things like that.

John: 9:56

So, um, yeah

Jessica: 9:59

I really like what you're saying, father Philipp, too, about just like in the context of counseling others. I'm assuming by that it's like when you're having others in front of you, that you're yeah and to me that seems so marian that like she would be the perfect companion to like extend your heart to the people in front of you. I don't know, I think about some of these luminous mysteries that we're going to dive into, and just particularly the wedding feast at Cana is coming up and just thinking about how she is always attentive to the needs and just sees the face of her son in the people that are right before her, and so I think it's particularly beautiful that that would be a setting for a priest to really cling to the rosary is when they're counseling someone and really seeking the face of Christ there, and just honestly thinking about her, like welling up a love for whoever is in front of you in that setting, is also really beautiful. So thank you, holy Spirit, for that.

Jessica: 10:52

Father Philipp, I recently had a friend ask me about when to pray to Mary versus when to pray to Jesus, and I thought that that would be a good thing to throw to a priest. Just really this. I think that gets at the heart of this deeper question of like what is Mary's role in our relationship with Jesus? And I think sometimes people can feel funny like praying to Mary versus praying to Jesus and all that kind of thing. So I just wonder if you could speak into that with any of your personal experiences or anything from your studies or anything.

Fr. Philipp: 11:27

Sure, yeah. So there's two things that I want to say about this, which hopefully I can get them out well, but one is that in the history of the church, there's a clarity that comes about about who Mary is as the church and the Christian community. Christians in general just understand who Jesus is and are more capable of professing his name and his reality and his identity. And so we just had the feast of the dedication of Mary Major, the Basilica in Rome, but it's really like that's a feast that allows the clarity of from the Council of Ephesus in 431, the identity of who Jesus is is what's professed, but then if he's God in the fullest sense of the word, then Mary who gives birth to him is his mother, so the Theotokos, the mother of God, and so I think that there's a way in which those two things are related, like the more that we see Jesus, the more we see Mary, and the clearer we see Jesus, the clearer we see Mary and her identity and her goodness.

Fr. Philipp: 12:33

And the other thing is this right that Jesus is never jealous of the work that he does in others, and so he actually in the Gospels, he's constantly inviting people to be part of his work. He sends out the 72, he sends out the 12, but he's always inviting others to be part of the work of his redemption and he delights and loves his mother more than any of us could possibly delight and love his mother. And so if we speak to her and that's the space of comfortability or comfort or whatever with her, I mean he's not going to say man, I really wish you would have spoken to me. He's not petty and jealous in that way. He's jealous of our souls, but he wants it in whatever way he can get it right and Our Lady is just actually a reflection of his goodness.

Jessica: 13:28

I have been reading this book chapter by chapter. It's called Life in Union with Mary. It's kind of become a ritual for me of reading a little chapter, just a couple pages, every Sunday night. But one of the things that the author, who it's like Father I'm going to butcher his name but Neubert

Fr. Philipp: 13:48

yeah, I think so.

Fr. Philipp: 13:49

Something like that

Jessica: 13:56

Okay, he talks about when you come to a deeper place of union with Mary which hopefully is just a continual thing that you actually are able to love Jesus almost with Mary's heart in a way. And he talks about a prayer practice of really imagining yourself in Mary's position before you even start speaking to Jesus, so that it's like you conjure up all of her maternal affection. And when I've tried this myself, the way I speak to Jesus, when I'm trying to imagine coming from the position of Mary, has so much more tenderness and less distractions and that sort of thing than when I'm trying to do it on my own. So I really appreciate thinking about it in that way too.

Jessica: 14:35

Thank you for sharing that, though. I feel like that's a lot of good wisdom and I love this idea of like we never have to fear Jesus's reaction of going to his mother. It just it makes sense the way you put that. So thank you for sharing it. Father Philipp, as we head into this season on the Luminous Mysteries, we were wondering, john and I were wondering if you could just give us those five Luminous Mysteries and just a brief description of what's happening in each of them, just to kind of prime the audience and to also prime the hearts of John and I.

Fr. Philipp: 15:10

yeah for sure. So the luminous mysteries kind of track in between, you could say, the joyful mysteries of the birth and kind of the childhood of Christ. You enter into the ministry, the life of ministry, before you get to his journey to Jerusalem, and the passion and the glorious mysteries later on, after the passion. And so you have you begin with the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, and this is the moment where actually the church calls it one of the theophanies and it's one of the mysteries that's kind of mixed into the feast day of the epiphany. So you have these manifestations of Jesus into the world and it's the beginning of his public ministry where he and like the whole of the Trinity, are manifest to the world and kind of their goodness and their reality. And so Jesus goes down to the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John, who tells him like you shouldn't be baptizing me, right, and I shouldn't be baptizing you, like you should be baptizing me right and uh, I shouldn't be baptizing you, like you should be baptizing me, and uh. And Jesus says, like that all righteousness, righteousness might be fulfilled. And so you have this moment where the Lord intends it and he does it. And it's this breaking open of, of, like, the inner life of the Father, Son, the Spirit, um. Then next, after that, you have the wedding feast of cana, which again is like, mixed in with this feast of epiphany, the manifestations of Jesus to the world, his self-manifestation to the world, and you have him at the very beginning of his public ministry, the first miracle, as John says. And there, in the midst of the human family, the rejoicing at a wedding, and the, the, the family and friends around the bride and the groom, jesus says like, ah, like, this is where I want to to, to live and dwell. And and our lady is the one who kind of prompts him to like, there's a need here, act, and there he changes water into wine and provides for this couple in their need. And then, like in John's gospel, there's this kind of fun play where you're like who's the bridegroom? And the question's there, and you're like maybe it's Jesus, maybe it's this other guy, who knows?

Fr. Philipp: 17:26

Then you have, I think, one of the more nebulous of the mysteries, which is the proclamation of the kingdom, because you're basically talking about the whole of ordinary time right, if you're looking at liturgical seasons, but Jesus' proclamation, his announcing of what he's come to bring into this world, the kingdom, which is like himself, and all of these other things and all of these parables that are attached to it.

Fr. Philipp: 17:57

So it's this beautiful cave that you could just explore forever, right, and then after that you have the mystery of the transfiguration. Actually, our feast today, praise God, may we be transfigured like him. And it's him leading John and James and Peter up the mountain to experience the kind of glory that he has in himself, that is hidden, that he manifests them again like manifestation, the light coming breaking through into our hearts, into our minds. There's like the, the center of all these mysteries. And then, last of all, it's the, like you could say the, the, the breaking forth of the whole of christ's heart in the institution of the Eucharist, like his, his gift of all of himself, full of light, also hidden in in his very gift of his presence, his body, his blood, the whole of his sacrifice, calvary, everything given that we might actually enter in and have him near, and all the rest. So that's the last of the mysteries, is the institution of the Eucharist.

Jessica: 19:08

Father Philipp, is there one of these that you are particularly excited to break into this season?

Fr. Philipp: 19:14

I think the proclamation of the kingdom. To be honest, It's a mystery that when I pray it there's some strange excitement that happens with it. It's also not easy to grasp and not easy to um, to kind of whittle down or or, and I think that might be part of the invitation for the Lord. For me, is that just uh, that I find it uh hard to understand, but also that means that there's this infinite possibility of having the Lord speak to me, uh in in the midst of it. Yeah, uh, john, is there one that you're you're excited to, to uh break into?

John: 19:56

um, probably one of the first two. Um, I feel like the baptism of Jesus is like the beginning of like the gauntlet getting thrown down, that it's like oh, okay, like game on, like this is about to speed up and and and get some like high action here, um. And then the wedding feast of Cana, just the, the party trick of all party tricks, you know, um, and I and I had heard it, but I had uh kind of forgotten, like when you were saying that it was kind of at Mary's like nudging of, like I think it's really cool that she was like come on, like do your thing. So I don't know, I'm excited to kind of dive in more into that. How about you, jess?

Jessica: 20:42

Oh, I like them all. I am also excited for Proclamation of the Kingdom in the Diocese of St Louis. We're looking forward to a great retreat that's coming in September. The healing of the whole person by Father Philip will you help me? By John Paul II

Fr. Philipp: 21:03

Healing

Fr. Philipp: 21:03

Center.

Jessica: 21:04

Thank you, Healing Center, which John and I are going to go on and Father Philipp will also be there, which we're excited about. But I feel like there's really been a movement among just friends of John and I and just this real movement toward healing. And I talked about in the beginning, when I was giving an intro to Father Philipp, about the Luminous Mysteries really bringing out Christ the teacher, but I also love Christ the healer coming out, and just as I've been meditating on the rosary and that sort of thing recently, a lot of times when I'm thinking about the proclamation of the kingdom, my heart is drawn to one of the stories of Jesus' healings. So I'm really excited to kind of in anticipation of that retreat and some buzz that's going around, at least in John and I's world. I'm excited to dive into that.

Jessica: 21:55

But the Eucharist I feel like the rosary has done so much in my heart in cultivating a deeper love of the Eucharist and so I am just really excited to be able to talk about the Eucharist Anywho. That's where I'm at. I'm excited. I'm excited for all of them. It's hard to pick, but with that, John, Father Philip, anything else anyone wants to add before we close out here.

John: 22:23

That's a wrap for me.

Fr. Philipp: 22:24

I think same for me.

Jessica: 22:27

Well, we are really looking forward to this season three with you all. We're going to have the same format this time along. So for the next five weeks you can expect on Monday there will be an episode with John and Father Philip and I that are diving into the scripture, or at least a piece of the scripture, behind each of these mysteries. And then on Wednesday there will be kind of like a deeper imaginative meditation, just praying one decade of the rosary, and then on Friday we'll have our rosary with meditations on the luminous mysteries, the full five mysteries on Friday. On this Feast of the Transfiguration.

Jessica: 23:08

I woke up with my heartburn this morning and then, when I realized it was the Feast of the Transfiguration, I was also like gosh. This is just so perfectly set up and orchestrated by the Lord. I just love imagining all of us together on this podcast, the three of us here, but also all of the listeners, just all of us together, beholding the transfigured Jesus and just his heart just radiating, radiating light and love for all of us, and I just pray that this season brings us closer to his Sacred Heart. So with that, we promise to be praying for you in these coming weeks and months and we ask humbly for you to also be praying for us. Praise be to God.