August 8, 2009
Day 3 - Rosary Novena for Nancy's Healing

Nancy attended Mass on this day and tried to enter fully in its beautiful mystery.  The Mass is the memorial of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is the peak of our prayer life indeed.  

When the priest said the memorial Acclamation, "Through Him (Jesus), with Him and in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.  All Glory and Honor is Yours Almighty Father for ever and ever."   At that moment, a mysterious red light shone right next to Nancy.  She saw it and wondered what it could mean.  No explanation was given except to reflect on it.  

What does the color red denote?  If we search the scriptures for an explanation we find, for example, that the color red or scarlet in the Old Testament frequently symbolizes blood, such as the blood of sacrifice in Leviticus 14:4:14, 6, 49-52, but the letter to the Hebrews 9:18 may shed real light on this experience.  It reads in the following way: 

18 Hence even the first covenant was not ratified without blood. 19 For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, 20 saying, "This is the blood of the covenant which God commanded you."

21 And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. 22 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. 23 Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

24 For Christ has entered, not into a sanctuary made with hands, a copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the Holy Place yearly with blood not his own; 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for men to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

That's it.  In the context of the Holy Mass, red reminds us of the precious blood of Jesus shed for each one of us that we may be cleansed, freed from sin, and redeemed.