In the second reading today, St. Paul said, "Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, making your requests known to God.”
The Rosary is a very efficacious way that we can make our petitions known to God, through Mary.
The month of October is dedicated the Holy Rosary and Oct. 7th is the feast of the Holy Rosary. What I would like to do today is give you a better awareness of the power of beauty of the Rosary.
In the year 1170, Dominic Guzman was born who later founded the Order of Preachers, called the Dominicans.
During his time, there was a heresy called the Albigensian heresy, which falsely believed the body was bad and human beings were spirits trapped in physical bodies. They also saw the material world as evil and believed husbands and wives should not have marital relations. Women were placed in the dominant position. Sort of like feminists today. They were permitted to touch a man, but a man was not permitted to touch a woman. The Albigensian women despised pregnancy.
Due to the Albigensian heresy, which spread across Europe, Dominic and his friars fearlessly preached against the heresy, but didn’t convert any heretics.
Not knowing what to do, he prayed to the Virgin Mary asking Her how to overcome the heresy. And it was then Our Lady appeared to St. Dominic and gave him the mysteries of the Rosary and told him to preach the Rosary and its mysteries which she gave them.
The Rosary had existed for centuries before Mary appeared to St. Dominc, but now for the first time, Our Lady gave Dominic and the world meditations to pray with the Hail Marys. She gave him the joyful, sorrowful and glories events in the life of Jesus. Pope John Paul eventually gave us the luminous mysteries.
When the Dominic preached the mysteries of the Rosary, it revealed the goodness of Our Lord’s body as seen through the mysteries of His life, His birth, His sufferings, and His resurrection. It helped all who mediated on the mysteries of His life to know the body is good, and therefore the Rosary and the preaching of St. Dominic on the Rosary, the people turned away from the false views of the Albigensian heresy and ended it.
When we pray the Rosary, we are to meditate upon the specific event in the life of Jesus from the Gospel, while at the same time pray Our Fathers and Hail Marys. It’s a double prayer. We pray audibly with words and also meditate in our mind on the mysteries in the life of Jesus.
For example, in the joyful mysteries we think about the annunciation when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and Jesus was conceived in Her womb by the power of the Holy Spirit. When we meditate, we picture this event happening before our eyes.
The second mystery during the visitation when Mary traveled to visit Her cousin Elizabeth by way of donkey and when She arrived She greeted Her cousin Elizabeth and the unborn John the Baptist leapt for joy.
The third mystery is the birth of Jesus. We watch the miraculous birth of Jesus and Mary wrapping the Divine Child in swaddling clothes and placing Him in the manger while Joseph looks on.
The fourth mystery is the presentation of Jesus in the temple when the elderly Simon, takes the Child Jesus into his arms and blesses Him. The 80-year-old woman, Anna, who fasted and prayed for the coming of the Child is overjoyed to finally gaze upon the baby Jesus.
In the 5th mystery Joseph and Mary search with tears for the 12-year-old Jesus for 3 days because they lost Him. But now, see the joy in their faces when they finally find Him in the temple speaking the doctors and scribes.
When we meditate on these mysteries we receive graces because every event in the life of Jesus, can help bring us to salvation.
When you pray the Rosary, allow the event to come alive in your mind. Even though we were not there when Jesus lived and walked the face of the earth, through these meditations, we can be there spiritually and these events touch our hearts and our minds to a greater love of Him and knowledge of His love for us.
The rosary is not only a powerful means to crush heresy, but also to crush the enemies of the Christianity. Not long after St. Dominic and his friars preached the rosary, the rosary was attributed to the winning the battle of Muret in the 1200’s. Likewise, Pope St. Pius V beseeched all Catholics to pray the Rosary, to win the battle of Lepanto, in which Muslims were attempting to invade Europe in the 1500’s. Because Christians won the battle, the pope established the feast of the Holy Rosary on Oct. 7th, the day the battle was won.
Besides defeating heresies and winning battles, the rosary increases virtue in the interior life of the soul. Our Lady told St. Bridget, “Whenever I mediated on the beauty, modesty, and wisdom of my Son, my heart was filled with joy. Whenever I thought of His hands and feet which would be pierced with cruel nails, I wept bitterly, and my heart was rent with sorrow and pain.”
Pope St. John Paul II, in his encyclical Virginum Rosarium, said that when we pray the Rosary, we contemplate the face of Christ. We come in contact with Christ through the mysteries of the Holy Rosary, which is the Gospel in miniature, he said.
St. Louis de Montfort said, through the rosary, hardened sinners are converted, great battles have been won, pestilences have ended, people find courage to flee temptations, vocations have been wrought, and faith has been re-enkindled. And through the Rosary we grow in holiness and virtue by leaps and bounds.
Our Lady told Blessed Alan de la Roche, “When you say the Rosary angels rejoice, the Blessed Trinity delights in it, my Son finds joy in it too, and I myself am happier than you can possibly imagine”. Our Lady said, “After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, there is nothing in the Church that I love as much as the Rosary.”
Sister Lucia said, “The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary.”
Do you know why the rosary is called a rosary? St. Louis De Montfort, said that the word “rosary” means “crown of roses”. If we pray the entire rosary: the joyful, luminous, sorrowful, and glorious mysteries, with attention and love, we would place a crown of 203 white roses, and 21 red roses on the head of Mary in heaven. The white rose represents “Hail Marys”, the red Rose represents “Our Fathers”. Every time we pray a Hail Mary, we are giving a beautiful rose to the Mother of Jesus. The rose is the queen of all flowers. A complete rosary makes up an entire crown of roses.
St. Louis De Montfort also tells us a story about another holy man, who was a follower of St. Francis of Assisi. One day, when the bell rang for him to eat dinner, he didn’t show up. So one of the brothers went to see what had happened to him. He was found in his room. The room was bathed in a heavenly light. He was facing the Blessed Virgin Mary, who had two angels with Her. When he would say the Hail Mary, beautiful roses kept coming out of his mouth. The angels took each rose, one by one, placing them on Our Lady’s head, and She smilingly accepted them. Since no one had returned, two more went to find out what happened. These two Franciscan brothers found them with Our Lady, who still had not left, and she remained until the whole rosary was completed. All of these Franciscans brothers were witnesses to this miraculous appearance of Mary.
From now on, whenever we pray the Rosary, let us recall that we can end wars, convert hardened sinners, eliminate heresies, solve any problem either temporal or spiritual and that we spiritually place a heavenly crown of roses on the heads of Jesus and Mary.
Today, let us begin to offer Jesus and Mary a crown of roses, by praying the rosary. Not only will we please Our Lord and His Mother Mary greatly, but we will help many to go to heaven, and we will grow in great holiness too.
It is of great importance with regard to what is going on in the Church and the world, to turn to Mary as our refuge and sure support. Don’t just pray one Rosary a day, pray as many Rosaries as you are able every day.
O Lady, most beautiful queen,
I offer you a rose, not to be seen.
I pray an angel from heaven may place it,
above your head for all to see.
As I pray, the rosary to you,
I offer a spiritual rose that is new.
May I crown your head,
before I go to bed,
sweetly praying your rosary,
O Lady, most beautiful queen.
I love you. Amen.
Our Lady Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us, who have recourse to thee.
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