The Unity Law and the Rosary

FAITH Magazine July-August 2008

Priests and Catechists involved in Faith Movement find that its key ideas are helpful
in presenting aspects of the Catholic Faith to listeners of all ages. Here we use them to
place the Mysteries of the Rosary in what we find to be a potent context.

The essential meaning of ‘The Unity Law of Control and Direction’ is that every aspect of reality is permeated by a single principle which relates it all to the Mind and Will of God. Every facet and every phase of creation builds up to a meaning and a purpose which is fully revealed and fully realised in Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh.

We can grasp this principle at the simple level of material reality with its mathematical constitution and its environmental harmony in evolution, which points so convincingly to the ‘Transcendent Unity’ or Spiritual Mind that made the cosmos and holds it in being. We can see it at work too in our own nature – a synthesis of both spirit and matter – pointing us towards God as our true Environer and Law Giver. And we can go on to find it at work throughout human history in the unfolding of Divine Revelation and the building up of the People of God.

This lawful development reaches its peak in the Incarnation and continues in Christ’s work of redeeming and perfecting the sons and daughters of God through the Church and the sacraments until the end of time. So we can also contemplate this same unfolding and unified purpose of Christ in our own lives , from our conception as a simple cell, ensouled by God in accordance with the Unity Law, to Baptism and entry into Christ in the Eucharist, through the years of growing up and formation in holiness and the spiritual life – maybe through failure and re-conversion.

We also look on ahead with hope and longing to the fulfillment of heaven, knowing that this will also mean deeper purification and greater love and most likely purgation even after death as Christ continues his work of ‘divinising’ our being into his own perfect image and likeness. All of this, whether at the cosmic or the personal level, is the working out of the one great Unity Law of creation.

You will find all of this in the rosary too, and with the same sense of many unfolding facets adding up to a unity which is at all times centred on Christ. Mary represented the whole of creation awaiting its Messiah King. She received the revelation of God’s final purpose and plenary love for mankind, and the Word thus revealed became Incarnate from her. How very appropriate then that she should lead and encourage us on our journey of prayer. In the rosary she takes us with her from the advent of the Annunciation, through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, to the contemplation of the glory which Christ bestows on his saints, with Mary again its most perfect recipient.

And just as we can ponder on the Unity Law on many levels throughout creation, and marvel at God’s work either in simplicity of principle or in great depth of detail, so too in the rosary we can contemplate the Mystery of Christ at many levels, from the childlike words of trust and confidence contained in the prayers themselves, through meditation on the mysteries of our Lord’s loving work for us, to the heights of mystical union with the Mind and Heart of Christ. Truly the rosary is not only a ‘compendium of the Gospel’, but a summary of all the mighty works of God, and a ‘pocket sized edition’ of the whole spiritual life.