What the rosary is
The rosary is first of all a prayer, then a way to communicate with God.
Padre Pio used to say: “Be souls of prayer. Never be tired of praying. It is the essential thing. Prayer does violence to God’s Heart, it obtains the necessary graces!” (See Matthew 21,22; Luke 18, 1-8, and 1 Thessalonians 5,17).
The rosary is a repetition of Hail Mary. The Hail Mary has been inspired directly from the scriptures, for this prayer is drawn from the greeting the Angel Gabriel, on God’s behalf, has addressed to Mary in Luke 1,28, and from Elisabeth’s cry under the action of the Holy Spirit in Luke 1,42: “Rejoice you, full of graces! The Lord is with you” and “Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”
To be noted that the origin of the word Rosary dates back to the Middle Ages. At that time in each house there was a small statue of the Virgin, on whose head a crown of roses was placed (hence the name “rosary”). At night people used to pray a short prayer upon each flower, so that the Virgin’s “rosary” became an object of piety. As it was not very handy, people thought to thread on a rope wooden or metal beads that could substitute the flowers, and that was named “rosary”.
Mary had confided to Saint Gertrude in the XIII century her love for this prayer:
“Never a man had made something more beautiful than the Hail Mary, one cannot greet me in a sweeter way to my heart than by these words full of respect which God Father Himself had greeted me with”.
Why the rosary
The rosary is a weapon to obtain graces and miracles for all those who ask for them in a spirit of humbleness and unselfishness, as Mary has explained in Marienfried:
“Ask the Father for everything through my Immaculate Heart! If what you ask for is for His glory, He will give it to you. Don’t implore for perishable values, but ask for graces for individual souls, for your communities, for the peoples, so that all love and give back glory to the Divine Heart”.
The rosary is also a way to ask for Mary’s intercession in every difficult situation:
“Father, the very holy Virgin, in these last times we live, gave a new efficiency to the Rosary, so that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it may be, material or especially spiritual, about us, our families, world’s families, I say, there is no problem, now matter how difficult it may be, we cannot solve by the holy Rosary. With the holy Rosary we will save ourselves, sanctify ourselves, we will console Our Lord, and will obtain many souls’ salvation” (Words of Sister Lucy from Fatima to Father Fuentes on the 26th December 1957).
Furthermore, the Rosary is an instrument of predilection to put off the old and put on the new Man (See Ephesians 4, 22-24 and Colossians 3,10), as Jesus teaches us in the text: “Who will be ashamed of Mary, I will be ashamed of him”
“It is the Rosary that shapes me in the soul in the eyes of my Mother’s children”, “Tell them that the rosary is like the repeated strokes of the sculptor’s chisel. To sculpt the true Christ face into us, His true features, His true splendour, His true look”.
Sister Lucy’s Testimony
The Holy Virgin Mary appeared in Fatima (Portugal) 6 successive times between May 13, 1917 and October 13, 1917 to three shepherds, among whom Lucy dos Santos 11 years old. We report below the passages concerning the rosary.
The importance of the daily prayer
“Pray the rosary everyday. Our Lady has repeated that in all her apparitions, as to warn us against these time of diabolic bewilderment, not to be deceived by false doctrines, and, by the prayer, not to reduce our soul elevation towards God”.
“It is necessary…not to let us be dragged by the lost dissenters’ doctrines […]. The campaign is diabolic. We must face it without being in conflict. We must say the souls that, now more than ever, we have to pray for ourselves and for those who are against us! We must pray the rosary everyday. It is the prayer Our Lady mostly recommended, as to warn us, in anticipation of these days of diabolic campaign! Satan knows we will save ourselves by the prayer. It is even against it he leads his campaign to ruin us (…)”
The necessity of praying to fight the evil forces
“The world decadence is undoubtedly the consequence of the lack of the spirit of praying. It has been in anticipation of this bewilderment that the Virgin has recommended with so much insistence to pray the rosary. As the rosary is (…) the most suitable prayer to keep faith in the souls, Satan has sparked off his war against it. Unfortunately, we see the disasters he had caused…We must defend the souls from the mistakes that could stray them from the right way. I cannot help them but by my poor and humble prayers and sacrifices (…). Neither we can stop, neither we must stop, nor we can let, as Our Lord says, the darkness children be shrewder than the light children…The rosary is the most powerful weapon to defend ourselves in the battler field”.
“The devil is very sly and he searches for our weak points to attack us. If we don’t apply ourselves to, and if we don’t make sure to obtain from God the strength, we will fall, as ours is a really wicked time, and we are weak. God’s strength only can let us stand”.
“So the small sheet of paper [it is a text about the rosary written by Sister Lucy] go close to the souls, as an eco of Our Lady’s voice, to remind them of the insistence by which she has so much recommend us to pray the rosary. The matter is that she already knew there would have come these times, when the devil and his supporters would have fought so much this prayer to move the souls away from God. Without God, who will be saved?! That’s why we should do everything which is within our power to get souls closer to God”.
The importance of the repetition
God has created everything that exists so that to keep it through the continuous and ceaseless repetition of the same actions. Then, to keep the natural life we inspire and expire always in the same way; heart beats continuously following always the same rhythm. The stars, the sun, the moon, the planets, the earth follow always the same path God has fixed them. The day follows the night, year by year, always in the same way. The sunlight shines on us and warms us, always in the same way. For many plants, leaves come up in spring, then they are covered with flowers, they bear fruits, and they loose again their leaves in fall or winter.
So, everything follows the law God has fixed, and no one had yet the idea to say it is dull, and that we should do without! Indeed, we need it to live! Well, in the spiritual life, we need similarly to repeat continuously the same prayers, the same acts of faith, hope and charity, to have life, as our life is a perpetual participation to God’s life.
When the disciples asked Christ Jesus to teach them to pray, He taught them (…) the beautiful words of the “Lord’s Prayer”, by saying: “When you pray, this is what to say: Father…” (Luke 11,2). The Lord made us pray like that, without telling that after a certain number of years, we should have had to look for a new formula of prayer, because this one would have become obsolete and dull.
(…) Those who find the prayer of the rosary dull lack Love; and all is done with no love is worthless. Finally, “To those, who claim the rosary being a obsolete and monotonous prayer for the repetition of the prayers composing it, I ask whether exists something living without the ceaseless repetition of the same actions”.
The Rosary, a way to reach God though Our Mum
“All good-will people can and must pray the rosary everyday. And why? To be in contact with God, to thank Him for everything we benefit from, and ask Him the graces we need. This praying of the rosary leads us to the familiar meeting with God, like a son goes to see his father to thank him for all the benefits received, to discuss with him about his personal business, to receive his advices, his help, his support, and his blessing.
As we all need to pray, God asks us as a daily measure (…) the praying of the rosary, that one can do either in the community or in private, in the church as well as at home, in the family or alone, while travelling or walking peacefully through the fields (…) Day is composed of 24 hours … It is not exaggerated to dedicate a quarter of a hour to the spiritual life, to linger on, intimately and in a very friendly way, with God!”
Conclusion
The rosary is the privileged mean to touch our Mum’s heart to obtain her assistance in all our acts. As She says in Her apparition in Marienfried: “Pray and offer through me! Pray continually! Pray the Rosary! Ask the Father for everything through my Immaculate Heart!” or still in Fatima: “let them pray the Rosary… There is no personal, familial, national or international problem which I can not solve if one asks me by the Rosary”.
15.06.11
