Rosary Reflection - The Rosary Will Bring A Harvest of Holiness

(Image Source: Marge Hendry

Photo©Michael Seagriff)

[Another prophetic but ignored excerpt and plea from the Apostolic Letter On The  Rosary of The Virgin Mary]

The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life, which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6), “the goal of human history and the point on which the desires of history and civilization turn”.

Rosary Reflection -Contemplating The Face of Christ While Praying for Peace

God willing, every Saturday in the month of May, I will share some short reflection on the Rosary.

I begin with this insightful and prophetic excerpt from St. John Paul II’s 2002 Apostolic Letter on The Rosary of the Virgin Mary:

“The Rosary is a way of contemplating the face of Christ seeing him – we may say – with the eyes of Mary. For this reason, it is a prayer that drawing upon the core of the Gospel is in full accord with the inspiration of the Second Vatican Council and very much in keeping with the direction I gave in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio ineunte: the Church has to launch out "into the deep" in the new millennium beginning with the contemplation of the face of Christ…

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:

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.