Hey Rosary Lovers! In this post we will look at what mysteries are supposed to be prayed on Wednesday.

So: what are the Wednesday Rosary mysteries? See also this post.

The Church’s Rosary ‘Calendar’

Anyone who wants to pray the Rosary is perfectly free to pray whatever set of mysteries they wish. But the Church does have a sort of calendar for those of us who wish to pray the Rosary along with the Church.

Mondays – Joyful mysteries

Tuesdays – Sorrowful mysteries

Wednesdays – Glorious mysteries

Thursdays – Luminous mysteries

Fridays – Sorrowful mysteries

Saturdays – Joyful mysteries

Sundays – Glorious mysteries

Sundays of Lent – Sorrowful mysteries

Sundays during Advent season – Joyful mysteries

Again, you don’t have to follow this schedule, but this is what many in the Catholic Church do every day.

Of course, many Catholics also pray the entire Rosary everyday – ALL the mysteries. In which case, this calendar isn’t relevant, since everyday they hit every set of mysteries.

As you can see, on Wednesdays, the holy Catholic Church (Latin Rite) prays the Glorious mysteries of the most Holy Rosary.

And so let us look at what these mysteries are.

Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary – List

The Glorious mysteries of the most holy Rosary focus on the triumph of Jesus Christ our Lord, God and Saviour over death, Satan, hell, sin and all evil/darkness.

The Glorious mysteries of the Rosary follow the Sorrowful mysteries, which focus on Christ’s tragic mistreatment and death at the hands of sinful people.

In order the Glorious mysteries are:

1. The Resurrection
2. The Ascension
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit
4. The Assumption (of Mary)
5. The Coronation (of Mary)

How do I pray these mysteries?

You announce the mystery, then you pray one Our Father and 10 Hail Marys, finishing with a Glory be.

You then announce the next mystery, and do the same. And so on until you’ve prayed all 5 mysteries.

You’ll need a set of blessed rosary beads to do this. Check out this post for help here.

The Resurrection

The Glorious mysteries begin with Christ’s glorious resurrection, where God the Father sent the Holy Spirit to raise the dead body of Christ back to life. It was a bodily and physical resurrection, not a spiritual one.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the greatest event in the history of the human race, of planet Earth and even of the Universe. It is the greatest miracle that has ever occured and it is the defining event in all of human history.

The Resurrection of Jesus is the sole foundation of the entire Christian and holy Catholic faith. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, if Jesus Christ is not alive from the dead then our faith is ALL in vain.

Christ’s resurrection is a prelude to the Great Resurrection which will happen someday when Christ returns and when he will raise up the dead bodies of everyone who has ever lived.

We can each participate in the power and glory of Christ’s Resurrection by the great Sacrament of holy Baptism. Baptism is the foundational Sacrament, the means given to us by God to be saved.

By water Baptism, we entered truly into Christ’s death and truly into his Resurrection, somehow. We don’t understand how, only that it is a reality. We become new people. Our old selves full of sin die, and we come forth as new individuals, washed from all our sins.

The Ascension

This is followed the glorious Ascension of Christ bodily into heaven. After he was raised to life, Jesus stayed with his disciples for 40 days.

He wasn’t with them all of that time, but he was with them for a lot of that time. During these 40 days, Christ instructed the disciples about the Christian faith which he has now established by his death and spectacular resurrection.

Very little of the teaching which took place during these 40 days is written down in holy Scripture. But we know that much of this teaching must have been very important. Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper, ‘I have many things to still tell you but you cannot bear them now.’ (John 16:12).

This is one of the great reasons I am Catholic. The Holy Catholic Church relies not on Scripture alone, but on Scripture and Tradition, the two great pillars of the Christian faith. Without Tradition, there is a great deal we cannot know about Jesus and the faith he established.

At the finale of these 40 days, Jesus ascended the Mount of Olives, in the presence of his disciples. He then blessed them and rose up to the heavens in their sight. A cloud covered him, and that was that: he was gone forever, never to return to earth until thousands of years later.

The tremendous sorrowful and sense of loss the disciples must have felt must have been unbearable. This is why Jesus was about to do something wonderful which would greatly help them with their loss.

When he got to Heaven itself, Jesus Christ – in a human body given to him by Mary 33 years ago – sat down at the right hand of God. Reigning forevermore from the very throne-room of Heaven itself, the Seat of all creation and of the universe, is a Man, a divine Man.

The Descent of the Holy Spirit

10 days after his Ascension, Jesus received the Holy Spirit from his Father and poured out the Spirit onto the world. We call this Pentecost.

The disciples on earth were gathered together at Jerusalem. They were praying and suddenly a great Wind came upon them and each looked like they had tongues of fire on their heads.

They were baptised with the Holy Spirit. This was the first instance of the holy Sacrament of Confirmation. In this first instance, it was performed by Jesus himself from heaven.

From then on, it would be performed by Bishops and Priests in the person of Christ, passing on this Anointing for thousands of year, even to today.

The reception of the Holy Spirit meant that the disciples felt Jesus’ presence with them all the time. It was a far closer communion with him than they had known when he was with them in the flesh. Now he was living inside of them by his holy Spirit.

Jesus predicted this at the Last Supper when he said, ‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Your joy shall be full.’ He speaks of them receiving the Holy Spirit.

From that moment on, the disciples are filled with fresh strength and boldness. They now have spiritual power to fight against the forces of darkness and to save lost souls heading for destruction.

They go out and preach. They perform miracles. They raise the dead. And most of all, they save sinners, baptising them, confirming them with their own hands, and founding the holy Catholic Church. Many are added to the Church through the ministry of the disciples.

The Holy Spirit is still with Catholics today, and he is the proof that we shall receive a wonderful inheritance someday in Heaven (Ephesians 1:14).

Most of all, the Spirit of God helps us to live lives of LOVE, which is the greatest commandment and the fulfilment of the entire law. Love for God, love for everyone, and love for ourselves.

The Assumption

The Assumption of Mary takes place many years later. Mary lives a full life, being taken care of by John the apostle of love.

Many must have wanted to meet Mary, the very Woman who conceived the Infinite Christ in her womb by the Holy Spirit. She must have been something of a celebrity in the Church.

When she was in her 60s, the Virgin Mary’s life came to an end. We don’t know whether she actually died or not. This is an open question in the Catholic Church. Byzantine Catholics seem convinced she died, but so do many Roman Catholics.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is that at the end of her earthly life, when her time was up, Mary was raised/assumped from this earth into heaven bodily.

That is, Mary left this world and entered Heaven itself with a real, physical body, just like her Son. She entered Heaven and sat with her Son on his throne.

From that time on, not only does a Divine Man sit upon the Throne of God himself, but a Woman also sits there: God’s very own Mother.

This makes Mary a HUGE deal in the Christian faith. It means that we can appeal to her, we can pray to her, we can approach her just like we can approach her Son Jesus.

Jesus and Mary can both help us in our time of need because they ever live to interceed for us. They pray for us always.

There is truly only one Meditator between God and humanity: Jesus.

But because Jesus is truly God, humanity also requires a mediator between Jesus and humanity: and that person is Mary.

As St Louis de Montfort never got tired of saying: since God came to us through the means of Mary, so we must return to God by means of Mary. Mary is the great channel by which God came to us and by which we go back to him.

Whether we realise it or not, every prayer we ever pray that gets through to God goes to him through Mary. And every blessing we have ever received from God comes to us from the holy hands of Mary.

From Heaven, Mary hears all our needs and concerns and appeals to us with her Son Jesus, just as she does in John 2. Jesus always listens to the prayers of his holy Mother.

The Assumption of Mary is the great guarantee that all Christians will someday also sit with Jesus on his Throne, and be glorified just as Mary has been.

The Coronation

The final mysteries of the most holy Rosary is a very precious one. It is the Coronation of Mary, being crowned as Queen of Heaven and of earth.

Who is crowning her Queen of all things? God himself: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

There are many paintings of this wonderful mystery. Some depict only Jesus crowning his blessed Mother, and others depict God the Father and Jesus doing it together, with the Holy Spirit as a dove in the centre above her.

The Coronation of Mary is her great reward for a life of total and perfect devotion to God. As Christians, we also hope one day to be crowned by God himself for our lives of service to him.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!