The rosary, an indispensable weapon for the mission.
October 7, 2019 - Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary
A Bambara proverb says, “A long
beard and a rosary will not make you a priest.” But to pray devotedly the
Rosary brings you closer to God and help you defeat the evil.
Ours, is a time of battles. Not
only that our world is opened to many physical, social, political, economics
and intellectual or theological battles. But mostly, we all face spiritual combats.
For those spirituals’ warfare, we can only make use of spiritual weapons. One cannot
use atomic or thermonuclear gravity bomb in the fight against the devil. It won’t
be of any effect on him. The devil is the worst of all the terrorist mankind
has ever be confronted to. And only spiritual weapon can help overcome him. For
us, one of the simple, yet very effective weapon is the Holy Rosary. Thus, St.
Padre Pio of Pietrelcina affirmed, “The Rosary is the weapon for these times.”
The Holy Rosary, or Corona de
Rosa holds a special place in the prayer life of every Catholic. It is the most
popular non-liturgical prayer in the Latin Rite. Even those who have never hold
a personal Bible, or been through the 150 psalms, have at least one’s, if not
continually and devotedly, hold their crown of roses (Rosary) and know how to
pray it and how it works in their relation with God.
We are celebrating today, October
7, the Memorial of “our Lady of the Rosary”. Before all biblical and spiritual
meaning, this feast has a deep historical background which makes it the more
famous. It is said that, “Pope Pius V established this feast in thanksgiving
for the crucial victory of Christian Europe over the Turks at the naval battle
of Lepanto in 1571. It was said that the soldiers asked for the help of Mary through
the Rosary. Today, as we honor Our Lady of the Rosary, we pray that, by
contemplating the mysteries of our salvation, all peoples may be brought together
into one family and that we may become instruments of peace wherever we are.” The
historical context which led to the institution of today’s feast makes of the
Holy Rosary a “Spiritual Weapon” in our spiritual warfare against the devil.
Many people, mostly the eternal
detractors of the Catholic Christians, see in the Marian devotion a mere
idolatry and the Holy Rosary as simulacre of prayer or a pure talisman. They
accuse Catholics of raising Mary into a divine pedestal. Far from being a divinization
or exaltation of Mary, our devotion to her is expression of filial love, and
the Holy Rosary, a meditation, through Mary, of the mysteries of the life of
Jesus, Son of God born of Mary. Hence, from the first Joyous mystery to the
last Glorious mystery, passing through the Luminous and the Sorrowful mysteries,
all is about Jesus, the significant events of his life. Mary, in that meditation,
stands as our companion in prayer, as she was the companion of the Apostles
gathered in the Cenacle (Acts 1:12-14). She stands as one who has witnessed
those events of the life of her Son and can tell of their joys, lights, sorrows
and glories. Mary is not the central part of our meditation. She only leads us
to see and to love the more her divine Son.
On this matter, Pope John Paul II
in his Apostolic Letter, ROSARIUM VIRGINIS MARIAE, clearly stated, “The Rosary,
though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the
sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its
entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium. It is an echo of the
prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive
Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian
people sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the
face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the
faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of
the Redeemer.” RVM, 1
Another great Spiritual teacher
and devoted to Mary, the Archbishop Fulton Sheen said, “The rosary is the book
of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the
world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into
mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is
the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open
on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description.”
And closer to us, St. Luigi
Orione, the founder of the Little Work of Divine Providence, at an occasion of
the feast of the Holy Rosary, wrote, “Tomorrow is the feast of the Holy Rosary:
what a syndrome of faith, immortal hopes, charity, love of God and men are the
decades of our Holy Rosary! They symbolize the high points of the Gospel. Let
us live the Rosary and we shall live the Gospel! We shall live Jesus and Mary! You
write that you are thirsty and that you are reaching out for the sacred water
of Our Lord. Behold my dear son, imbibe of the Holy Rosary, and you shall be
drinking at the mystical fountain of Mary, our Mother.”
The Rosary holds a very
mysterious side as weapon in our today’s battles. Many people could give testimony
of their personal experience and yet, God is still at work in our days through
this simple instrument. And the words of John Paul II, “Simple yet profound, it
still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great
significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily
into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand
years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the
Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!).”
Today, many are those accusing
the Catholics because of our Marian devotion. But, in the secret, how many are
they, who hiddenly run into the Marian Shrines and Sanctuaries to implore
graces from God through Mary. I personally heard the experience of a Pastor of Methodist
Church and also that of a Muslim woman. It was about how, through the prayer of
the Rosary, Mary obtained for them special graces from God, even when science
and medical reports gave it impossible. Because, as the Angel Gabriel said to Mary,
“Nothing is Impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Through the mysteries of the Holy
Rosary, that is always proved true. God is the Lord of all possibilities and
Mary plays as his humble servant, the instrument of his love for us.
In our today’s context, celebrating this
Extraordinary Missionary Month, this memorial takes a more special meaning.
With Mary, we are called to be rags of the Good News where we live and to all
people we may encounter. As army of Mary, we are baptized and sent to make new disciples
for Christ. For, says Pope Francis, she was the one who sets “out on her
pilgrim way, who was fully involved in the mission of Jesus, a mission that
became her own at the foot of the Cross.”
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