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Given the sacred origin of the Rosary as Our Lady's Psalter given by Mary to Saint Dominic, I would not want to see any changes. I certainly would not presume that I could add anything. But just as a thought experiment, if I were the pope I would consider adding 'The Leonine Mysteries'. They would highlight Jesus as the Lion of Judah, a title given to him in the book of Revelation. They celebrate and honor Jesus as a royal, alpha warrior, who is physically strong, spiritually powerful, virtuous and just.
The name ‘Leonine’ is not because of Pope Leo (although that shows how providential the timing is to introduce such mysteries) but because the word leonine means ‘lion-like’. Jesus is the Lamb of God but he is also a fearsome Lion. As St. Augustine put it, "He endured death as a lamb; he devoured it as a lion."— Sermon 375 AD.Like the other mysteries of the Rosary the ‘Leonine’ are christological and explicitly scriptural.
Meditation: Led by the Spirit to fast and pray for 40 days. Jesus was there to prepare for his public life and ministry. At the end of the solitary sojourn he was tempted three times with physical desires, pride, and worldly ambition. In refuting the devil each time with the sword of scripture he began to overthrow the evil in this world and proclaim it for God. He modeled the use of spiritual weapons such as silence, solitude, fasting, detachment from the world, prayer, scripture and unwavering love.
Meditation: Jesus was sleeping when those in the boat began to panic. As the waves started to swamp the boat they woke Jesus and begged him to save them. They knew that Jesus had power over every kind of evil. Before he rebuked the storm he rebuked them for their cowardice and lack of faith. As the boat began to settle in the calm waters and the rain stopped their fear of the storm was replaced with fear of the Lord. “The men were amazed and asked, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!’”
Meditation: Jesus entered into unclean enemy territory and immediately he was confronted by two possessed men who lived among the tombs. They acknowledged his divinity as the Son of God and the respected his power to torture them. The many demons begged to be released into the pigs nearby and Jesus commanded with one word, “Go!” They obeyed and the whole town became afraid of the power of Jesus.
Meditation: Jesus had enough. He was tired of the hypocrisy, deception and the corruption of the religious leaders of his day. Knowing that he was putting his own life in jeopardy, Jesus told the full, unvarnished hard truth. He harshly exposed the Pharisees and scribes for who they really were. He saw them as bullies who placed an unreasonable burden on the people. For the entire chapter 23 of Matthew, Jesus unloads on his human enemies even resorting to name calling to elicit a conversion.”You serpents, you brood of vipers, how can you flee from the judgment of Gehenna?”
Meditation: Jesus detested greed and corruption. What made it worse was that the money changers were defiling the House of God, the Temple. Jesus came to cleanse the Temple with a physical display of his courage, righteous anger and physical strength. He uses scripture as a weapon against them. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
It was Jesus, as the Lion of Judah, who earned the respect of 12 rough men who gave up everything, even their lives in martyrdom, to be his disciples and later apostles. The Bible says when people followed Jesus they were ‘amazed and afraid’. He walked on the water that later he commanded to be still. He reversed the power of death for his friends. As the centurion pointed out Jesus commanded and sometimes rebuked men and angels. In doing so he taught with authority, remained ever-fearless before his enemies and he freely embraced suffering and death. In this way he weaponized love against evil even before the full outpouring on the cross. Jesus is the only one able to enter the strong man’s house, tie him up and steal his property and plunder his house (Mt 12:29). Jesus was for all mankind but like his foster father Joseph he is an extraordinary model for masculine, leonine virtues.
I am a life-long Catholic, husband, dad, teacher and former football coach. I've been teaching the Catholic Faith to young men, religious educators and catechists since 1998. My academic background, MA is in Theology and Catechetics. Email: gary@apexcatechetics.com
