A Sunday Thought About the Rosary To Start the Week Off Right
In October we Catholics renew our devotion to recitation of the rosary. This past week, we observed the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, a feast that derives from the great victory of the Christians over the armada of the Muslim Ottoman Empire at Lepanto in 1571. Pope Pius V had asked Christians to pray the rosary begging Our Lady's intercession, so that the Turks, who wanted to conquer Western Europe, would be repelled. They were.
Originally, the feast was dedicated to Our Lady of Victory. Pius had attributed the military victory to Our Blessed Mother's intercession, although he also recognized the efforts of the Christian forces under the extraordinary leadership of Don Juan, illegitimate son of Charles V. Much has been written about this historic battle. I can heartily recommend The Galleys at Lepanto by Jack Beeching, a masterful narrative that not only describes the events in great detail, but also the characters, especially Don Juan, a remarkable, fascinating, and appealing military leader, about whom most of us know very little.
This critical victory over the Muslims proved extraordinary not only because the Ottoman navy was virtually invincible until the ships of the Holy League utterly vanquished them, but also because it drew together both feuding Catholic monarchs as well as Protestants to oppose a common enemy. In time, the name of the feast was changed from Our Lady of Victory to Our Lady of the Rosary. And in time we Catholics dedicated the entire month of October to this remarkable prayer. If you don't pray the rosary regularly, you might consider this month a time to develop the habit.
While some may feel the rosary to be repetitious (it is), and therefore kind of "mindless" (it is not), don't let that hold you back. When you pray the rosary as intended, you will understand why this prayer served to defend the Body or Christ against its mortal enemies at Lepanto. Pretty powerful stuff. Meditating upon the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries in turn and the intentions associated with each, you will do more than just repeat words over and over again. You will be engaged in a form of meditative prayer.
But why rely on my explanation of the Rosary? Here's what one of our great spiritual writers, Father Edward Leen C.S.Sp. (1885-1944) has to say about this most powerful prayer:
Originally, the feast was dedicated to Our Lady of Victory. Pius had attributed the military victory to Our Blessed Mother's intercession, although he also recognized the efforts of the Christian forces under the extraordinary leadership of Don Juan, illegitimate son of Charles V. Much has been written about this historic battle. I can heartily recommend The Galleys at Lepanto by Jack Beeching, a masterful narrative that not only describes the events in great detail, but also the characters, especially Don Juan, a remarkable, fascinating, and appealing military leader, about whom most of us know very little.
This critical victory over the Muslims proved extraordinary not only because the Ottoman navy was virtually invincible until the ships of the Holy League utterly vanquished them, but also because it drew together both feuding Catholic monarchs as well as Protestants to oppose a common enemy. In time, the name of the feast was changed from Our Lady of Victory to Our Lady of the Rosary. And in time we Catholics dedicated the entire month of October to this remarkable prayer. If you don't pray the rosary regularly, you might consider this month a time to develop the habit.
While some may feel the rosary to be repetitious (it is), and therefore kind of "mindless" (it is not), don't let that hold you back. When you pray the rosary as intended, you will understand why this prayer served to defend the Body or Christ against its mortal enemies at Lepanto. Pretty powerful stuff. Meditating upon the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorious Mysteries in turn and the intentions associated with each, you will do more than just repeat words over and over again. You will be engaged in a form of meditative prayer.
But why rely on my explanation of the Rosary? Here's what one of our great spiritual writers, Father Edward Leen C.S.Sp. (1885-1944) has to say about this most powerful prayer:
“The Rosary is a compendium of our faith…. We begin the Rosary with the Creed – a compendium of all the mysteries of our faith down to the Four Last Things. The ‘Our Father’ establishes the relation of the father and son between us and God. The mysteries follow as a consequence of that, and in the ‘Hail Mary’ we have a glorification of Mary for starting the whole train of these mysteries. Like children who delight in the reiteration of what they find satisfactory, we never tire of the repetition of this chant of her greatness. …
“The Rosary is the prayer of the child repeating over and over again the intensely satisfying fact that a human person found favor with God. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.’ This is the reality of all time, and we charm ourselves and our Lady by repeating over and over again that she has won favor with God, that she is the cause of all our weal, all our happiness. It is an inexhaustible wonder, how we owe all to her. Then, the ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners’ expresses her power of intercession. ‘We are not like you…Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.’
“Tertullian says very beautifully somewhere, that when we are praying together we are like a group of children catching hands and surrounding a father to ask for something. In the Rosary – a ‘corona’ – we surround our Blessed Lady as children and coax her; it is a coaxing prayer, calling to her mind all that was hers, the glories and benefits bestowed on her, so that she may give us all we desire. We constrain her by our reiteration. The Rationalists cannot understand this, they have a supreme scorn for such reiteration…But that is the child’s way and the way God meant for us. This is the Way of the Rosary.”
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