29th Sunday Rosary & Persevering in Prayer

 

Today’s readings cause us to reflect upon persistent prayer. The story from the book of Exodus, when understood as being symbolic of prayer, shows us that if we keep praying and do not give up, our prayers will be answered. The Israelites battled against the Amalek, who waged war against them. During the battle, when Moses raised his hands, God’s strength and power would be given to the Israelites. But when Moses lowered his hands, the enemy would begin to win. When we raise our hands in prayer, God’s blessings and graces are with us. But when we lower our hands in prayer, because we give up—we lose God’s graces.

This is analogous of praying the Rosary, and so to speak, holding up our hands in prayer for a specific intention.

Do you ever get tired of praying because it seemed like it does no good? In somewhat of a different way, we can also ask the same question for husbands and wives. Have you ever got tired of telling your spouse, “I love you”? Of course not. No one would ever stop telling your spouse, “I love you”. When we come home from work, we don’t walk into the house without first kissing our spouse, saying, “I love you.” The wife would never tell her husband, “O honey, you don’t need to tell me you love me again, after all, you told me you loved me this morning.” We never get tired of hearing the words, “I love you”, nor do we tire of saying, “I love you”. So it is with prayer. God never tires of hearing our prayers and we should never tire of praying-- because we love Him, even if we don’t get what we want, when we want it.

When we pray the Rosary, we pray the Hail Mary 50 times and the Our Father 5 times. But God does not get tired of us praying the same prayer repeatedly, because we say it with love.

God never tires of the angels in heaven repeatedly singing to Him. In the vision of the prophet Isaiah, seraphim (angels) cry out to each other, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" (Isaiah 6:3) The book of Revelation describes four living creatures who, day and night, ceaselessly say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." (Revelation 4:8)

St. Paul states to “pray without ceasing”. The widow in today’s Gospel never ceased asking for what she wanted. She never gave up. She persevered. How much more does God look with favor on us, when we pray to Him, as He looks at our heart’s desires?

Pope John Paul II in his encyclical “Rosary of the Virgin Mary”, said, “The rosary is nothing more than to contemplate with Mary, the face of Christ.” When we pray the Rosary, we pray it in two ways. First, we pray with vocal prayers, as we recite the Our Fathers and the Hail Marys. But second, as we pray the vocal prayers, we also meditate on the life of Jesus and Mary in the mysteries we contemplate. For example, if we meditate on the Birth of Jesus praying the Our Father and 10 Hail Marys, we think about His birth in Bethlehem. In our heart--- we see the face of the Infant Jesus, as Mary holds Him in Her arms and lays Him in a manger. It's a very loving thing, to ask Mary to pray for us, now and at the hour of our death, when we are meditating on the lives of Jesus and Mary.

On Sunday, in Wichita, the Diocese is holding a Family Rosary Rally at St. Catherine parish at 3pm. Our own Dave and Emily Leonard will speak about how the Rosary helped Molly when she was in the hospital. April Owens will testify how her atheist brother came back to God and received the Last Rites due to the Rosary and how the Rosary caused her mother to go Confession and her father to become Catholic. Kate and Jared Reichenberger will testify that when the family prayed the Rosary every night, their daughter prayed for a baby sister for six years, and how the Rosary helped them conceive their youngest child. Angie Marlett will give witness to how the Rosary keeps her sober from her alcohol addiction. Alex and Erin Flood were Protestants, and they will give testimony, how after watching a movie on Fatima, they began to pray the Rosary as a family, which led them to become Catholic.

I will give my testimony of how the Rosary brought me to Confession after being away from Confession for 20 years.

I will also explain how a Seven Sorrows Rosary Novena in 2005 closed an abortion clinic in Wichita.

I will explain how the Rosary saved the lives of some religious sisters, children and local farmers from a fire in Wisconsin.

The Rosary helped convert a satanist, Bartolo Longo. He was raised Catholic but fell away from the Church and became a satanic priest. He eventually went to Confession but fell into despair. He said, “I experienced a deep sense of despair and almost committed suicide. Then I heard an echo in my ear of the voice of Friar Alberto repeating the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary: ‘One who propagates my rosary shall be saved.’ Falling to my knees, I exclaimed: ‘If your words are true that he who propagates your rosary will be saved, I shall reach salvation because I shall not leave this earth without propagating your rosary.” From that moment, Bartolo Longo’s life was consumed with devotion to Our Lady and Her Rosary. He began to spread the Rosary wherever he could – preaching missions, giving out rosaries, teaching others to pray it, and encouraging public processions and recitations of the Rosary in areas where the faith had grown cold. He understood the Rosary not only as a private devotion but as a public proclamation of the truths of the Faith. He built the world’s largest basilica dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, Italy.

Pope Leo XIII was elected on May 8^th, the anniversary of the feast of Our Lady of Pompeii. Today, by divine providence, the same day as our Family Rosary Rally, Bartolo Longo, was canonized and made a saint by Pope Leo. Saint Bartolo and St. Preca influenced St. Pope John Paul II to add the Luminous mysteries to the Rosary.

There is no better way to be persistent in prayer by repeatedly praying the Hail Mary while meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and God will answer our prayer because He loves when we pray with love to His Mother asking Her to pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

Saint Bartolo Longo once said, “Oh, if only I could have an immense voice so as to invite all the sinners of the world to love the Rosary of Mary!”