FEAST OF THE HOLY ROSARY
Jonah,
Chapter 1, verse 9-10:
9
“I am a Hebrew,”
he replied; “I fear the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and
the dry land.” 10Now the men were
seized with great fear and said to him, “How could you do such a
thing!”—They knew that he was fleeing from the LORD, because he had told them.
Jonah as wise as he was tried to
flee the Lord, are we any wiser. We often choose the wrong path. Jonah was
motivated but not by love. He wanted justice and not mercy for Nineveh. Pope
Francis in a dispute recently stated that mercy is greater than justice when
confronted with the sins of mankind and the churches stance. Our Lord desires
to give us his mercy and we should seek it and give it as often as possible.
I
thirst!”[1]
In the night and the day that followed the Last
Supper, Jesus was betrayed by one of his own. He was delivered over to the
authorities in such humiliating powerlessness that even those who thought they
loved him fled. He who came to reveal to us the God who is Love, fell into the
hands of loveless men. Then, before the eyes of John, the only apostle who was
present at the Lord’s execution, and his mother Mary, he died an appalling
death. Here at the center of the mystery of our redemption, the full measure of
the “marvelous exchange” begins to be unveiled. The Son of God not only became
the Son of Man, fulfilling beyond expectation the great hope contained in the
psalms and the prophets. Jesus came to be the purifying flame of Love in our
midst, unsettling a world that had become comfortable in its estrangement from
God. He came to pour his Spirit on us and reconcile us to the Father. When St.
Paul tells us that the Son of God “emptied himself”, he does not mention only
Jesus’ birth. When the Son of God took on our humanity, his “exchange” with us
goes all the way to the end: “Being found in human form, he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even death on a cross”. Elsewhere, St. Paul points
to the same unfathomable mystery of solidarity with sinners that John the
Baptist had glimpsed at the Jordan: “For our sake he made him to be sin who
knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. When we
gaze with Mary and John on Christ, who “died for our sins in accordance with
the Scriptures”, we come face to face with all the consequences of the
Incarnation. In joining himself to his creation, the Son of God took on all our
fate. He took on even the thirst of a world suffering its self-inflicted
estrangement from God. Even death. For centuries, the faithful people of Israel
thirsted for God like the dry earth. They prayed, “My throat is parched. My
eyes grow dim with waiting for my God”. All of humanity thirsted, for by
sinning, we had rejected the source of our life. We had defended ourselves against
the God who is Love. Yet our suffering in “this time of God’s absence” was as
nothing before the terrible cry Mary and John heard at the foot of the cross.
“Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the scripture), ‘I
thirst!’. The tortured, dying man thirsted for water – but also for love. He
thirsted for our love, for he had come to espouse mankind to himself. And
although he was “true God from true God … consubstantial with the Father,” he
thirsted even for God. John could not have imagined such a use – or fulfillment
– of the words of the psalms as when the Son of God cried out his thirst to his
Father: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When John heard this, he
somehow understood. Those words were written for this day. They were prayed
through the centuries so that Jesus might sum up all human thirst for God, all
suffering and forsakenness, in himself. These words were handed down from
generation to generation so that when the Son used them to express his own
thirst, suffering, and forsakenness to his Father, our words would become
divine words of unbreakable, unsurpassable love. “Father, into your hands I
commend my spirit,” Jesus cried. Finally, “he bowed his head” and handed over
the Spirit that bound Father and Son. He made even his death a revelation of
the unbreakable communion of Love that is God. When a Roman centurion pierced
Jesus’ side with a spear, John, Mary, and the centurion himself saw blood and
water – a sign of Christ’s divinity and humanity – gush forth over the parched
earth. The covenant was established. It would never be broken. The divine bridegroom
had truly loved us “to the end”. Even the centurion, an unbeliever who knew
neither the psalms nor the prophets, recognized this radiant humility and saw
the glory of this love: “When the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he
thus breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly, this man was the Son of God!’”
This feast was fixed for the first
Sunday in October by Pope Clement XI; in perpetual commemoration of a
celebrated feast was fixed for the first Sunday in October by him due to the
double victory gained by the Christians at Lepanto, in 1571, under Pope St.
Pius V., and at Belgrade, under Pope Clement XI., through the intercession of the
Virgin Mary, who had been invoked by saying the Holy Rosary. It is at the same
time the principal feast of the Arch-confraternity of the Holy Rosary. In 1885
Pope Leo XIII., ordered the Rosary to be recited every day during the month of
October in every parish church and cathedral throughout the world, and those of
the faithful who cannot be present at this recital he exhorted to say it with
their families or in private. The Holy Rosary is a form of prayer in which
there is first said the Apostles Creed, and then fifteen decades, each one of
which consists of ten Hail Mary’s. Each decade has one Our Father to be said
before it and is followed by a meditation upon one mystery of our redemption.
It is called the Rosary, or Wreath of Roses, because the joyful, the sorrowful,
and the glorious mysteries, aptly symbolized by the leaves, the thorns, the
flower, of which the rose consists with the prayers and praises that are
blended together compose, as it were, a wreath or crown. It is also called the
Psalter, because it contains a hundred and fifty Hail Mary’s, as the Psalter of
David contains a hundred and fifty psalms, and because it is used in place of
the singing of psalms, as practiced in former times. There are three parts in
the Rosary the joyful, the sorrowful, the glorious. The joyful part consists of
the five first decades, to which are attached five mysteries of the incarnation
of Jesus Christ, through which, full of joy, we speak to Mary of Him: 1. Whom
she conceived while a virgin. 2. Whom she bore to Elizabeth. 3. Whom she
brought forth while a virgin. 4. Whom she offered to God in the temple. 5. Whom
she found Him in the temple. (This is said particularly in Advent.) The
sorrowful part, in like manner, contains five decades, in connection with which
there are presented for our meditation five mysteries of the passion and death
of Jesus: 1. Who for us sweat blood. 2. Who for us was scourged. 3. Who for us
was crowned with thorns. 4. Who for us bore the heavy cross. 5. Who for us was
crucified. (This is said particularly in Lent.) The glorious part, consisting
of the last five decades, reminds us of the glory of Christ and of the Blessed
Virgin by five mysteries in which we commemorate Him: 1. Who rose from the
dead. 2. Who ascended into heaven. 3. Who sent to us the Holy Ghost. 4. Who
received thee, O Virgin, into heaven. 5. Who crowned thee, O Virgin, in heaven.
(This part is said particularly at Eastertide.)
How
was this prayer introduced into the Church? St. Dominic had for many years
preached against the errors of the Albigenses and other heretics, with such
zeal and profound ability that they were often convinced. But nevertheless, the
results were unimportant; but few returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church.
In this discouraging state of things St. Dominic redoubled his prayers and
works of penance, and in particular besought Mary for support and assistance.
One day Mary appeared to him and taught him the Rosary. He zealously labored to
introduce everywhere this manner of prayer, and from that time preached with
such success that in a short period more than one hundred thousand heretics and
sinners were converted. The divine origin of the Rosary is testified to by the
bull of Gregory XIII of the year 1577.
Is
the Rosary a profitable method of prayer? Yes; for by bringing before the
eyes of the spirit the fundamental mysteries of Christianity it supplies us
with the strongest motives to love God, to hate sin, to subdue the passions, to
condemn the world and its vanity, and to strive after Christian perfection, in
order that we may gain those happy mansions which Jesus prepares for us. The
Rosary, besides, brings before us living examples Jesus and Mary whom we must follow,
and encourages us to good works by pointing to the all-powerful grace procured
for us by Jesus, and the all-prevailing intercession of the gracious Mother of
God. Let us not be ashamed to carry the beads with us, for otherwise we might
be ashamed of being Catholics; let us say the Rosary often every evening as was
the custom with Catholics in former times, and we shall find that, as in St.
Dominic’s day it was a wholesome check to error, so too in our times it will
be, if said aright, a powerful weapon against heresy and unbelief, and will
increase faith, piety, and virtue.
“I am the resurrection
and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and
everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”– John
11:25-26
Pope Benedict XVI invites all families to pray the Rosary for the intentions of the Pope, the mission of the Church and peace. "It is as if every year Our Lady invited us to rediscover the beauty of this prayer, so simple and profound." The Rosary, a "contemplative and Christocentric prayer, inseparable from the meditation of Sacred Scripture," is "the prayer of the Christian who advances in the pilgrimage of faith, in the following of Jesus, preceded by Mary," said the Pontiff.
Things to
Do
·
Pray
the Rosary, or 5 decades of the Rosary tonight with your family. Continue this
practice through October, the month that is especially dedicated to the Rosary.
·
Read
the encyclicals
on the rosary, and the latest apostolic letter.
·
Learn
the Luminous
Mysteries. For families with younger children, it helps to have visual aids
for the mysteries. Have a picture to flip at the beginning of each decade for
the family Rosary. See the Activities Bar for ideas.
·
Learn
about the great victory of Our Lady at the Battle of
Lepanto. You can also read more about Pope St. Pius V,
who instituted the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
·
Read
Cardinal Angelo Sodano's homily at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary.
·
"The
Rosary, or Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is one of the most excellent
prayers to the Mother of God." Read the Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy on the Rosary,
particularly encouraging the practices of:
1. [T]he recitation of the Rosary
could be made more solemn in tone "by introducing those Scriptural
passages corresponding with the various mysteries, some parts could be sung,
roles could be distributed, and by solemnly opening and closing of
prayer."
2. The custom of making an insertion
in the recitation of the Hail Mary, which is an ancient one that has not
completely disappeared, has often been recommended by the Pastors of the Church
since it encourages meditation and the concurrence of mind and lips.
Insertions of this nature would appear particularly suitable for the repetitive and meditative character of the Rosary. It takes the form of a relative clause following the name of Jesus and refers to the mystery being contemplated. The meditation of the Rosary can be helped by the choice of a short clause of a Scriptural and Liturgical nature, fixed for every decade.
·
Foods
for this feast: Since the origin of this feast came from the Christian fleet
defeating the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1570 through the intercession
of Mary through the Rosary, why not make a cake in the shape of a ship? See the
top bar for a cut-out cake, or make moderations to this Ship Cake. Read more about the Battle of
Lepanto for ideas.
·
St.
Pius V was a very holy Dominican, who wore his scratchy habit underneath his
papal robes, and walked around Rome barefoot. He ate just to sustain himself,
and fasted frequently. We should use his example and remember to fast and pray
the Rosary for the conversion of Islam.
Daily Devotions
[1]http://www.kofc.org/en/resources/cis/cis403.pdf?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiT0RSaU16TmxNemM0T0RFeSIsInQiOiJQWHBpQmtXaHI1dEVzTVhTQWV4TzFLZU9pR0ZiNXMwRGcyU2l3b1J2cERXRkVsTGhXME01S20rZ1g3RVQ3ZEJSTkQ5TXdMRjFmc0RiV3I3ZVRGQ0lwdnRUWXBEWFUrc2QzWlk2dU1zeTFcLzF4blUwY1dOVkFqQkcxMDZXQ09rYWgifQ%3D%3D
[2]
Goffine’s Devout Instructions, 1896.
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