First Joyful Mystery
Annunciation
Spiritual fruit: Humility
Narrative:
1. Through the disobedience of Adam, sin enters the world.
(Rom. 5:12)
2. The Father sends His Son to save the world.
(Jn. 3:17)
3. The Angel Gabriel is sent to a virgin named Mary. (Lk. 1:26,27)
4. The Angel tells Mary: “You are to have a Son and will name Him Jesus.”
(Lk. 1:31)
5. He is the Son of God.
(Lk. 1:32)
6. Mary consents: “Let it be done to me.”
(Lk. 1:38)
7. God the Son becomes Man, in obedience to His Father.
(Lk. 1:35)
8. By His obedience many shall be saved.
(Rom. 5:19)
9. Mary becomes Mother of God. (Lk. 1:35)
10. Nothing is impossible with God.
(Lk. 1:37)
Spiritual Fruit: Humility
1. Accepting Humiliating and Embarrassing Circumstances
2. Obedience to Legitimate Authority
3. Distrust yourself. Rely only upon God.
4. Acknowledge your Nothingness
5. Think better of others than of yourself
[1. Accepting Humiliating and Embarrassing Circumstances]
"Many souls would like to be humble, but few desire humiliation; many ask God to make them humble and fervently pray for this, but very few want to be humiliated. Yet it is impossible to gain humility without humiliations; for just as studying is the way to acquire knowledge, so it is by the way of humiliation that we attain to humility."
- Fr. Gabriel of St. Mary Magdalene
[2. Obedience to Legitimate Authority (such as the Catholic Church Practices)]
Humility is always manifested by obedience to legitimate authority, whether it be your boss or the government.
“The first degree of humility is prompt obedience.”
- St. Benedict
[3. Distrust yourself. Rely only upon God.]
The saints tell us that every sin we commit is due to our pride and self-reliance. If we completely distrusted ourselves and relied only upon God, they say, we would never sin.
“Distrust of self is so absolutely requisite in the spiritual combat that without this virtue we cannot expect to defeat our weakest passions, much less gain a complete victory.”
- Fr. Dom Lorenzo Scpuoli
[4. Acknowledge your Nothingness]
"Who can contemplate the immensity of a God without humbling himself into the dust at the thought that God created heaven out of nothing, and that with one word he could turn heaven and earth into nothing again? A God who is so great, and whose power is boundless; a God filled with every perfection; a God with his never-ending eternity, his great justice, his providence, who rules everything so wisely, and looks after everything with such care, and we a mere nothing!"'
- St. John Vianney
[5. Think better of others than of yourself]
"Do not think yourself better than others lest, perhaps, you be accounted worse before God Who knows what is in man. Do not take pride in your good deeds, for God’s judgments differ from those of men and what pleases them often displeases Him. If there is good in you, see more good in others, so that you may remain humble. It does no harm to esteem yourself less than anyone else, but it is very harmful to think yourself better than even one. The humble live in continuous peace, while in the hearts of the proud are envy and frequent anger."
- Thomas à Kempis, 'The Imitation of Christ', 7.
“Do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves,”
-St. Paul (Phil. 2:3)
