By Leon Bent –
The Rosary is a Scripture-based prayer. It begins with the Apostles’ Creed (David Burton Bryan, From Bible to Creed, Michael Glazier, Inc.), which summarizes the great mysteries of the Catholic faith. The Our Father, which introduces each mystery, is from the Gospels. “The Glory Be…” is one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Christendom. It speaks of so many things despite being so very simple (Rm.16:27; Phil.4:20; Rev: 1: 6; 14:7; Jer.13:16; Lk.2:14). In the Catholic Mass, the Gloria is doxological, and in some ways can be seen as an expanded, enriched, and fuller acclamation of the “Glory Be” (1 Chron. 29:11, Phil 4:20, 2 Cor. 13:14 are some examples).
The first part of the ‘Hail Mary’ is the angel’s words at the Annunciation (Luke 1:26), and Elizabeth’s greeting to Mary (Lk.1:42-45). The Mysteries of the Rosary centre on the events of Jesus’ Incarnation, Life, Death and Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost – all divinely-appointed events in the New Testament.
The repetition of the Rosary is meant to lead one into restful and contemplative prayer related to each Mystery. The soft chanting, as it were, of the words helps us to enter into the silence of our hearts, where Christ’s spirit dwells.
The Rosary can be said privately or with a group. The “beads” can be used as a sweet devotion, a decisive weapon, a powerful prayer aimed at conversion and healing. The “Family Rosary” is a great traditional prayer which keeps the family spiritually united. When you pray the Rosary earnestly, it send curls of fragrant incense heavenward; you needn’t go via the intercession of a Saint, not even through the mediation of Mary, but directly to Jesus!!
Drifting away from the contemplative gaze upon the Incarnate Word is one of the great dangers of life in our modern world. The hectic pace of life, the formidable, mesmerizing power of television and cinema, and the post-modern media we live with, especially the digital, wired barrage of news and messaging; the fast pace of living on the edge; the omnipresence of the market place, with thousands of items, subtly advertised, to tantalize us into making multiple purchases; these can very effectively draw us miles away from God. They can turn us from contemplatives of our eternal and glorious God into contemplatives, in a real sense, of transitory material things.
In a culture, then, pervaded by this obsessive and disordered fixation of materiality, St. Pope John Paul II encourages us to return to the Rosary. Through it we can once again fix our eyes on our God made visible, the Word made flesh: “The most important reason for strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that, it represents the most effective means of fostering among the faithful, that commitment to the contemplation of the Christian Mystery, which I have proposed as a genuine training in holiness” (St. Pope John Paul II, in Rosarium Virginis Mariae [RVM] on the Most Holy Rosary no. 5).
It must be admitted, however, that this contemplation of the face of Christ encouraged by the Holy Father St. Pope John Paul II, in the Apostolic Letter “Novo Millennio Ineunte“), describes the history of salvation as “the gradual discovery of the face of God,” which is made visible in Christ’s own countenance.” This is what lies at the foundation of the Rosary, as Blessed Pope Paul VI taught in Marialis Cultus.
Why Recite the Rosary?
• Our Lady has 117 titles, but she selected this one at Fatima: “I am the Lady of the Rosary.”
• St. Francis de Sales said the greatest method of praying – IS – Pray the Rosary.
• St. Thomas Aquinas preached 40 straight days in Rome, Italy, on just the ‘Hail Mary’.
• St. John Vianney, patron of the Diocesan priests, was seldom seen without a Rosary in his hand.
• Our Lady said to Blessed Alan de la Roche: “After the Mass, there is nothing in the Church I love, as much as the Rosary.”
• “The Rosary is the scourge of the devil” — Pope Adrian VI
• The devil’s spawn will never cease to attack Mary’s spiritual children, and the latter will be wise always to defend themselves with the most powerful weapons possible, including the Our Father and Hail Mary.
• “The Rosary is a treasure of graces” — Pope Paul V
• Saint Pope Pius IX: “Give me an army saying the Rosary and I will conquer the world.”
• Padre Pio, the stigmatic priest, said: “The Rosary is The Weapon!”
• “The mysteries of Jesus’ life belong to us! He lived them for us and for our well-being,” said F.W. Faber.
• Pope Leo XIII wrote 9 encyclicals on the Rosary.
• Pope John XXIII spoke 38 times about our Lady and the Rosary. He prayed 15 decades daily.
• St. Pope John Paul II said, “The Rosary is my favourite prayer.”
• St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, the Saint of the Rosary, wrote: “The Rosary is the most powerful weapon to touch the Heart of Jesus, Our Redeemer, who so loves His Mother.”
• Pope Benedict described the Rosary as a, “contemplative and Christo-centric prayer, inseparable from the meditation of Sacred Scripture. It the prayer of the Christian who advances in the pilgrimage of faith, in the following of Jesus, preceded by Mary”.
• Archbishop Fulton Sheen said of the Rosary, “The Rosary is the best therapy for distraught, unhappy, fearful, and frustrated souls, precisely because it involves the simultaneous use of three powers: the physical, the vocal, and the spiritual, and in that order.” He also 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.”
As much as we may love Christ, the Virgin Mary can always lead us to a deeper love and a more uplifting perspective of faith in him.
So, get the beads out and start praying! You won’t regret it! You will love it! Watch miracles unfold!
Leon Bent is an ex-Seminarian and studied the Liberal Arts and Humanities, and Philosophy, from St. Pius X College, Mumbai. He holds Masters Degree in English Literature and Aesthetics. He has published three Books and have 20 on the anvil. He has two extensively “Researched” Volumes to his name: Hail Full of Grace and Matrimony: The Thousand Faces of Love. He won The Examiner, Silver Pen Award, 2000 for writing on Social Issues, the clincher being a Researched Article on Gypsies in India, published in an issue of the (worldwide circulation) Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, New Delhi. On April, 28, 2018, Leon received the Cardinal Ivan Dias Award for a research paper in Mariology.