I thought I’d end my quick survey of the Rosary this weekend. I had intended to talk generally about Marian devotion, and I think that I have so far, because the Rosary is the devotion that comes to our minds when we think of Marian devotion.
I thought I would end with practical suggestions about the Rosary:
- First of all, taking the time, and regularity – the requirement of our Lady was commitment. When the fifteen decades of the rosary every day seemed too long for us, she permitted a division into three thirds of five decades each, which we have distributed over a week: the joyful, the sorrowful and the glorious. But she calls ideally for at least the daily five decades.
- Second, do not leave the Rosary to the end of the day, for when we are tired, even acts of love become a chore.
- Third: everybody prays differently, so don’t feel that you have to say the Rosary on your knees before the crucifix, take it to the road, to the garden, wherever you can find a prayerful moment.
- Fourth, use images and music to assist you, for we as humans are a sensory species and we can better focus our minds with a good picture or some nice churchy music; use technology, these telephones with the internet on them to find classical paintings of the mysteries of the Rosary by Christian artists.
- Fifth, again following on from the suggestion about images and music, you can possibly do other things while saying the Rosary; I have looked through the illustrations of books on biblical archeology and even a child’s picture Bible while saying my daily Rosary. Television and the internet have trained us to do multiple things at once, and we should be able to use that to our spiritual advantage.
- Sixth, use the Rosary as an intercessory prayer: many of you are extremely prayerful and have prayer intentions for family members and friends, and other people in need of prayer – you may dedicate every decade of your Rosary, or every Hail Mary of every decade for a different prayer intention. Wonders may follow, for our Lady is very attentive.
- Seventh (and it’s nice to end on seven), I shall tell you of a personal practice. My life is a life of interruptions, one of the reasons why I cannot do anthing really well. So, I say the rosary sometimes not all at once within an hour, but gradually during the day in bits and pieces. I can then begin with the Annunciation at seven in the morning and end with the Coronation of the Virgin at eleven at night.
“In that city too [Paul and Barnabas] preached, and made many disciples; then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, where they fortified the spirits of the disciples, encouraging them to be true to the faith, and telling them that we cannot enter the kingdom of heaven without many trials. Then, with fasting and prayer, they appointed presbyters for them in each of the churches, and commended them to the care of the Lord in whom they had learned to believe. So they passed through Pisidia, and reached Pamphylia. They preached the word of the Lord in Perge, and went down to Attalia, taking ship there for Antioch, where they had been committed to God’s grace for the work they had now achieved. On their arrival, they called the Church together, and told the story of all God had done to aid them, and how, through faith, he had left a door open for the Gentiles. And they stayed there a considerable time with the disciples.”
Acts of the Apostles, 14: 20-27 [link]
Speaking of not being able to work well for interruptions, I find the pursuits of these Apostolic figures in our first reading to be heartening. Not because I could ever be a Paul or a Barnabas, but because these extraordinary men were able to encourage people like you and me, whom they were visiting to faith and perseverance. Note their recommendations to the local churches: prayer and fasting. Let us take our Marian and other devotions in the circumstance of that prayer and fasting, which was recommended to the Church by the Apostles. Paul and Barnabas also prayed for the local Christians to commend them to Christ, and may they pray for us too. And let us pray for each other, and encourage each other in the difficult task of building up our faith in a faithless world.
“Then I saw a new heaven, and a new earth. The old heaven, the old earth had vanished, and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw in my vision that holy city which is the new Jerusalem, being sent down by God from heaven, all clothed in readiness, like a bride who has adorned herself to meet her husband. I heard, too, a voice which cried aloud from the throne, ‘Here is God’s tabernacle pitched among men; He will dwell with them, and they will be His own people, and He will be among them, their own God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or cries of distress, no more sorrow; those old things have passed away.’ And He Who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new…'”
Book of Apocalypse of S. John, 21: 1-5 [link]
We are a holy community, sanctified by Christ to be a fitting dwelling place for His Holy Spirit. This second reading of ours (above) pictures our community in the universal Church as an actual building of living stones descending from God out of heaven, the Bride of Christ. And the angel cries out, ‘Behold the Church, where God lives among men, making His home among them, His name forever being God-with-them’ – this is a variant of Emmanuel, which means God-with-us. For when the Church has descended out of heaven through the preaching of the Apostles, the bishops and the priests and through the Sacramental system established by Christ, as the Holy One says, He has made the whole of creation new again.
As He says in the gospel extract (below), His glory began with the completion of His consecrated life on earth: it was completed in His death upon that cross. He ended His life in the way He lived it, in a great gesture of self-sacrificial love. He expects us to do the same with our lives, so that all know that we belong to Him.
“When [Judas] had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has achieved His glory, and in His glory God is exalted. Since, in His glory, God is exalted, it is for God to exalt Him in His own glory, and exalt Him without delay. It is only for a short time that I am with you, My children. You will look for Me, and now I have to tell you what I once told the Jews, you cannot reach the place where I am. I have a new commandment to give you, that you are to love one another; that your love for one another is to be like the love I have borne you. The mark by which all men will know you for My disciples will be the love you bear one another.”
Gospel of S. John, 13: 31-35 [link]
Catholic Louth and Mablethorpe 