Rosary Reflection - Its Beauty

"The entire Rosary has the beauty of reproducing the theological thoughts concerning Mary, they are reproduced in the entire dialectic of truth and deduction. Marian theology and the Rosary are two poems that are united into one, two hymns forming one hymn, two magnificent temples, two cathedrals of thought and piety, that come together as one...

Here in the Rosary, piety speaks in the language of theologians. Here meditation rises to the heights attained by scholars. Here prayer dwells where the scholars are brought to a halt.

Marian theology and the Rosary are therefore similar to two temples having at the same height their pinnacles and spires. The people of God in the Church have found the Rosary, its Book of Psalms. The clergy have the Divine Office, the people have the Rosary. Like The Divine Comedy, the Rosary is a trilogy: it recalls the joys, sorrows, and triumphs of Jesus and in perfect symmetry, for each part it has five chants, and each chant in turn is an episode. 

The Rosary could very well be called the poem of human redemption. The Rosary is a poem that takes its lively but simplistic hues from the pure palette of the Gospel; while at the same time it draws its logical ties, its harmonious responses, its entire intimate dialectic from the highest theology."

                         

  (Blessed Bartolo Longo)

Rosary Reflection - Receive a Never-Fading Crown of Glory

"If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins 'you shall receive a never-fading crown of glory'. Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if - and mark well what I say - if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins."

(St. Louis Marie de Montfort)

Rosary Reflection - Rosary Is The Book of The Blind

(Photo©Michael Seagriff)

"The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next.  The power of the rosary is beyond description."    

               (Venerable Fulton J. Sheen)

Our Lady of the Rosary, Adoration and My Friend Mike

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Today we celebrate the memorial of our Lady of the Rosary, instituted by Pope Pius V. He attributed the naval victory over the Turks at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 to the Blessed Mother's intercession after the Christian world sought her aid through the Rosary. The Nashville Dominicans provide an interesting summary of this miraculous event and of Pius V. I encourage you to read their article here.

As a Lay Dominican, I have come to treasure the rosary, contemplating the richness of its mysteries every day.

But I also have a fondness for this particular memorial beyond my love of the rosary. You will understand why after reading about my friend Mike. The article that follows is one of twenty stories from my book, Fleeting Glimpses of the Silly, Sentimental and Sublime:

Rosary Reflection - When Parents Pray The Rosary

"The faults of children are not always imputed to the parents, especially when they have instructed them and given good example. Our Lord, in His wondrous Providence, allows children to break the hearts of devout fathers and mothers. Thus the decisions your children have made don't make you a failure as a parent in God's eyes. You are entitled to feel sorrow, but not necessarily guilt. Do not cease praying for your children; God's grace can touch a hardened heart. Commend your children to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. When parents pray the Rosary, at the end of each decade they should hold the Rosary aloft and say to her, 'With these beads bind my children to your Immaculate Heart"'. She will attend to their souls."

(St. Louise de Marillac)

October - The Month of the Rosary - Calling Upon Mary

(Image source)

October is the month dedicated to the most Holy Rosary of our Blessed Mother Mary. 

We Dominicans love Mary. We treasure her Rosary and make it a priority in our daily prayer lives. Devotion to Mother Mary and the Rosary go hand in hand.