Fr. Peyton provides a unique view of the myeteries of the rosary.  Each of the following meditations on the mysteries of the rosary are taken from the book Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book, 1984. 

The Joyful Mysteries - Loving God

First Joyful Mystery - The Annunciation

Another day had begun in the little home of Nazateth - a quiet, cool March day.  Mary would spend it as she had spent countless others, quietly working about the house.  An ordinary girl, Mary, as the world judges; ordinary like the rest of the villagers, like Joseph...Suddenly an angel was by her side:  "Hail, full of grace!"  An ordinary person would be rather disturbed by such a visitor, and by such a greeting.  And Mary was!  "She was troubled at his word."  The angel had implied that Mary loved God with all her heart, sould , mind, strength; that she loved God enough to become His Mother.

Loving God wholeheartedly - like Mary, I was created to do just that - and being "ordinary" puts no barriers in my way!

                                                                          Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book; 1984, p.3. 

Second Joyful Mystery - The Visitation

Because Mary was ordinary - that is a really human being, unselfish, heart full of affection - this mystery tells me something remarkable about loving God.  The God-Man was now divinely conceived in her womb.  Keep to your quiet home, Mary, (we might have advised) and love Him, love Him alone. But Mary know this secret about loving God:  to love God alone is to love Him not at all.  Of her Son's commandment, "Love one another," Mary's visitation was an unconscious prophecy.

Loving God requires that I love everyone else - even those I cannot like!  How do I do that?  Practice seeing Christ in others, and act accordingly.  "What you do for others, you do to me."  Christ meant that.

                                                                           Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book; 1984, p.4. 

Third Joyful Mystery - The Nativity

Mary and Joseph found accommodations in one of Bethlehem's hillside caves.  It offered some protection from the biting cold of a December night, nothing more.  Air, heavy with moisture seeping through damp earthen walls; stifling odors of cattle; darkness made all the more emphatic by a lantern's frail light and the smallest patch of night horizon, too low for starts - yes, there would be room here.  And here, Mary and Joseph loved God as He was never loved on earth.

God can be loved - wholeheartedly - anywhere.  Loving God does not depend on the kind of a place I'm in - it depends on the kind of a person I am.

                                                                            Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book; 1984, p.5.

Fourth Joyful Mystery - The Presentation in the Temple

We think of Mary as the very quietest of women.  Her recorded words are few; when other speak, she "ponders their words in her heart."

It is almost as if she spent her life somewhat drably, in the far corners of her soul.  No. She was the perfect woman, God's masterpiece; so Mary sang.  Lark in the light of the morning never sang so sweetly as she. "My sourl magnifies the Lord!...rejoices in God!  He Who is mighty, Holy is His Name!"  That is no whisper from a dark corner!  The silent Mary's unpremeditated song - and it leapt out of her love for God.

Loving God makes a heart that sings - a heart I should wear on my sleeve!

                                                                           Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book; 1984, p.6.

Fifth Joyful Mystery - The Finding of Jesus in the Temple

In three syllables, this Mystery of the Rosary reveals the very root and fiber of love for God; it tells exactly what loving God means.  "They found him."  A perfect expression of our meditation's theme.  To love God is nothing else than to have found Jesus.  The explanation is no less simply told:  all my love for God is from Christ; the prodigal downpour of grace which drops invisibly upon the world is His meriting.  Every spark of divine spark of divine charity, the briefest, the brightest, in every soul in every age, has been struck to life on one Cornerstone - Christ.

Mary's Son came into the world to look for me that I might find Him.  I find Him in the sacraments, the Mass, in my neighbor.  Am I on the watch for Jesus, wholeheartedly, as Mary was?

                                                                           Father Peyton's Rosary Prayer Book; 1984, p.7.

Return to Fr. Peyton's Rosary Meditations