In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity (Jeremiah 31:31-34) every person can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
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DETAILED FAMILY GUIDE – HOW TO PRAY THE ROSARY – CONTEMPLATING JESUS WITH MARY - from Saint Pope John Paul II - 2002
Praying As a Family
God is the source of vitality and love for Marriage and Family life. Prayer is entertaining God’s presence in order to let Him connect us to his divine vitality. Here is how you can pray together as a Couple and Family.
Remember that prayer is a normal human activity. You will become more at ease with it the more you do it. On the other hand, because you are not alone in it, but God is there with you, prayer is not only a human activity, but also a divine activity. For this reason it doesn’t make sense to try to evaluate our prayer experiences using only human parameters or measuring sticks. In fact, it is better not to evaluate our prayer at all, but rather to pay attention to the fidelity and generosity with which we spend or “waste” time “visiting” with God every day. The ultimate rule of thumb here is the rule of love that expresses itself and gives itself in freedom and generosity.
There are many ways to pray the Rosary and contemplate the
Rosary Mysteries. Here is a useful link:
The Rosary Center & Confraternity from the Dominican Friars of the Most Holy Name of Jesus
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From the Apostolic Letter Rosarium
Virginis Mariae of the Supreme Pontiff JOHN
PAUL II
To The Bishops, Clergy and Faithful on the Most Holy Rosary
1. 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”.1
The Rosary, though clearly Marian in character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.2 It is an echo of the prayer of Mary, her perennial Magnificat for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sit at the school of Mary and are led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love. Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.
A path of contemplation
5. But the most important reason for
strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that it represents a most
effective means of fostering among the faithful that commitment to the
contemplation of the Christian mystery which I have proposed in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte as a genuine “training in
holiness”: “What is needed is a Christian life distinguished above all in the
art of prayer”.9 Inasmuch as contemporary culture, even amid so many
indications to the contrary, has witnessed the flowering of a new call for
spirituality, due also to the influence of other religions, it is more urgent
than ever that our Christian communities should become “genuine schools of
prayer”.10
The Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the “prayer of the heart” or “Jesus prayer” which took root in the soil of the Christian East.
Prayer for peace and for the family
6. A number of historical circumstances
make a revival of the Rosary quite timely. First of all, the need to implore
from God the gift of peace. The Rosary has many times been proposed by my
predecessors and myself as a prayer for peace. At the start of a millennium
which began with the terrifying attacks of 11 September 2001, a millennium
which witnesses every day in numerous parts of the world fresh scenes of
bloodshed and violence, to rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in
contemplation of the mystery of Christ who “is our peace”, since he made “the
two of us one, and broke down the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14).
Consequently, one cannot recite the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear
commitment to advancing peace, especially in the land of Jesus, still so sorely
afflicted and so close to the heart of every Christian.
A similar need for commitment and prayer arises in relation to another critical contemporary issue: the family, the primary cell of society, increasingly menaced by forces of disintegration on both the ideological and practical planes, so as to make us fear for the future of this fundamental and indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of society as a whole. The revival of the Rosary in Christian families, within the context of a broader pastoral ministry to the family, will be an effective aid to countering the devastating effects of this crisis typical of our age.
“Behold, your Mother!” (Jn 19:27)
7. Many signs indicate that still today the Blessed Virgin desires to exercise through this same prayer that maternal concern to which the dying Redeemer entrusted, in the person of the beloved disciple, all the sons and daughters of the Church: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn19:26). Well-known are the occasions in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries on which the Mother of Christ made her presence felt and her voice heard, in order to exhort the People of God to this form of contemplative prayer. I would mention in particular, on account of their great influence on the lives of Christians and the authoritative recognition they have received from the Church, the apparitions of Lourdes and of Fatima;11 these shrines continue to be visited by great numbers of pilgrims seeking comfort and hope.
CHAPTER I – CONTEMPLATING CHRIST WITH MARY
A face radiant as the sun
9. “And he was transfigured before them,
and his face shone like the sun” (Mt 17:2). The Gospel scene of Christ's
transfiguration, in which the three Apostles Peter, James and John appear
entranced by the beauty of the Redeemer, can be seen as an icon of Christian
contemplation. To look upon the face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid
the daily events and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the
divine splendour definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated in glory at
the right hand of the Father: this is the task of every follower of Christ and
therefore the task of each one of us. In contemplating Christ's face we become
open to receiving the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the
love of the Father and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul's
words can then be applied to us: “Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being
changed into his likeness, from one degree of glory to another; for this comes
from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2Cor
3:18).
Mary, model of contemplation
10. The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months that followed she began to sense his presence and to picture his features. When at last she gave birth to him in Bethlehem, her eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she “wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger” (Lk2:7).
Thereafter Mary's gaze, ever filled with
adoration and wonder, would never leave him. At times it would be a questioning
look, as in the episode of the finding in the Temple: “Son, why have you
treated us so?” (Lk 2:48); it would always be a penetrating gaze, one capable
of deeply understanding Jesus, even to the point of perceiving his hidden
feelings and anticipating his decisions, as at Cana (cf. Jn 2:5). At other
times it would be a look of sorrow, especially beneath the Cross, where her
vision would still be that of a mother giving birth, for Mary not only shared
the passion and death of her Son, she also received the new son given to her in
the beloved disciple (cf. Jn 19:26-27). On the morning of Easter hers would be
a gaze radiant with the joy of the Resurrection, and finally, on the day of
Pentecost, a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14).
Even now, amid the joyful songs of the
heavenly Jerusalem, the reasons for her thanksgiving and praise remain
unchanged. They inspire her maternal concern for the pilgrim Church, in which
she continues to relate her personal account of the Gospel. Mary constantly
sets before the faithful the “mysteries” of her Son, with the desire that the
contemplation of those mysteries will release all their saving power. In the
recitation of the Rosary, the Christian community enters into contact with the
memories and the contemplative gaze of Mary.
13. Mary's contemplation is above all a remembering. We need to understand this word in the biblical sense of remembrance (zakar) as a making present of the works brought about by God in the history of salvation. The Bible is an account of saving events culminating in Christ himself. These events not only belong to “yesterday”; they are also part of the “today” of salvation. This making present comes about above all in the Liturgy: what God accomplished centuries ago did not only affect the direct witnesses of those events; it continues to affect people in every age with its gift of grace. To some extent this is also true of every other devout approach to those events: to “remember” them in a spirit of faith and love is to be open to the grace which Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life, death and resurrection.
Consequently, while it must be reaffirmed
with the Second Vatican Council that the Liturgy, as the exercise of the
priestly office of Christ and an act of public worship, is “the summit to which
the activity of the Church is directed and the font from which all its power
flows”,15 it is also necessary to recall that the spiritual life “is
not limited solely to participation in the liturgy. Christians, while they are
called to prayer in common, must also go to their own rooms to pray to their
Father in secret (cf. Mt 6:6); indeed, according to the teaching of the
Apostle, they must pray without ceasing (cf.1Thes 5:17)”.16 The
Rosary, in its own particular way, is part of this varied panorama of
“ceaseless” prayer. If the Liturgy, as the activity of Christ and the Church,
is a saving action par excellence, the Rosary too, as a “meditation” with Mary
on Christ, is a salutary contemplation.
By
immersing us in the mysteries of the Redeemer's life, it ensures that what he
has done and what the liturgy makes present is profoundly assimilated and shapes
our existence.
The first of the “signs” worked by Jesus –
the changing of water into wine at the marriage in Cana – clearly presents Mary
in the guise of a teacher, as she urges the servants to do what Jesus commands
(cf. Jn 2:5). We can imagine that she would have done likewise for the
disciples after Jesus' Ascension, when she joined them in awaiting the Holy
Spirit and supported them in their first mission. Contemplating the scenes of the Rosary in
union with Mary is a means of learning from her to “read” Christ, to discover
his secrets and to understand his message. This school of Mary is all the more
effective if we consider that she teaches by obtaining for us in abundance the
gifts of the Holy Spirit, even as she offers us the incomparable example of her
own “pilgrimage of faith”.17 As we contemplate each mystery of her
Son's life, she invites us to do as she did at the Annunciation: to ask humbly
the questions which open us to the light, in order to end with the obedience of
faith: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to
your word” (Lk 1:38).
15. Christian spirituality is distinguished by the disciple's commitment to become conformed ever more fully to his Master (cf. Rom 8:29; Phil 3:10,12). The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Baptism grafts the believer like a branch onto the vine which is Christ (cf. Jn 15:5) and makes him a member of Christ's mystical Body (cf.1Cor 12:12; Rom 12:5). This initial unity, however, calls for a growing assimilation which will increasingly shape the conduct of the disciple in accordance with the “mind” of Christ: “Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5). In the words of the Apostle, we are called “to put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27).
In the spiritual journey of the Rosary,
based on the constant contemplation – in Mary's company – of the face of
Christ, this demanding ideal of being conformed to him is pursued through an
association which could be described in terms of friendship. We are thereby
enabled to enter naturally into Christ's life and as it were to share his
deepest feelings. In this regard Blessed Bartolo Longo has written: “Just as
two friends, frequently in each other's company, tend to develop similar
habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus and the Blessed Virgin,
by meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary and by living the same life in
Holy Communion, we can become, to the extent of our lowliness, similar to them
and can learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty,
hiddenness, patience and perfection”.18
In this process of being conformed to
Christ in the Rosary, we entrust ourselves in a special way to the maternal
care of the Blessed Virgin. She who is both the Mother of Christ and a member
of the Church, indeed her “pre-eminent and altogether singular member”,19
is at the same time the “Mother of the Church”. As such, she continually brings
to birth children for the mystical Body of her Son. She does so through her
intercession, imploring upon them the inexhaustible outpouring of the Spirit.
Mary is the perfect icon of the motherhood of the Church.
The Rosary mystically transports us to
Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of Christ in the home
of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and to mold us with the same care,
until Christ is “fully formed” in us (cf. Gal 4:19). This role of Mary, totally
grounded in that of Christ and radically subordinated to it, “in no way
obscures or diminishes the unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows its
power”.20 This is the luminous principle expressed by the Second
Vatican Council which I have so powerfully experienced in my own life and have
made the basis of my episcopal motto: Totus Tuus.21
The motto is of course inspired by the
teaching of Saint Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort, who explained in the
following words Mary's role in the process of our configuration to Christ: “Our
entire perfection consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus
Christ. Hence the most perfect of all devotions is undoubtedly that which
conforms, unites and consecrates us most perfectly to Jesus Christ. Now, since
Mary is of all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it follows
that among all devotions that which most consecrates and conforms a soul to our
Lord is devotion to Mary, his Holy Mother, and that the more a soul is
consecrated to her the more will it be consecrated to Jesus Christ”.22
Never as in the Rosary do the life of Jesus and that of Mary appear so deeply
joined. Mary lives only in Christ and for Christ!
16. Jesus invited us to turn to God with insistence and the confidence that we will be heard: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7). The basis for this power of prayer is the goodness of the Father, but also the mediation of Christ himself (cf. 1Jn 2:1) and the working of the Holy Spirit who “intercedes for us” according to the will of God (cf. Rom 8:26-27). For “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom 8:26), and at times we are not heard “because we ask wrongly” (cf. Jas 4:2-3).
In support of the prayer which Christ and
the Spirit cause to rise in our hearts, Mary intervenes with her maternal
intercession. “The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary”.23
If Jesus, the one Mediator, is the Way of our prayer, then Mary, his purest and
most transparent reflection, shows us the Way. “Beginning with Mary's unique
cooperation with the working of the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their
prayer to the Holy Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ
manifested in his mysteries”.24 At the wedding of Cana the Gospel
clearly shows the power of Mary's intercession as she makes known to Jesus the
needs of others: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).
The Rosary is both meditation and
supplication. Insistent prayer to the Mother of God is based on confidence that
her maternal intercession can obtain all things from the heart of her Son. She
is “all-powerful by grace”, to use the bold expression, which needs to be
properly understood, of Blessed Bartolo Longo in his Supplication to Our Lady.25
This is a conviction which, beginning with the Gospel, has grown ever more firm
in the experience of the Christian people. The supreme poet Dante expresses it
marvellously in the lines sung by Saint Bernard: “Lady, thou art so great and
so powerful, that whoever desires grace yet does not turn to thee, would have
his desire fly without wings”.26 When in the Rosary we plead with
Mary, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35), she intercedes for us
before the Father who filled her with grace and before the Son born of her
womb, praying with us and for us.
18. The only way to approach the
contemplation of Christ's face is by listening in the Spirit to the Father's
voice, since “no one knows the Son except the Father” (Mt 11:27). In the region
of Caesarea Philippi, Jesus responded to Peter's confession of faith by
indicating the source of that clear intuition of his identity: “Flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mt 16:17). What
is needed, then, is a revelation from above. In order to receive that
revelation, attentive listening is indispensable: “Only the experience of
silence and prayer offers the proper setting for the growth and development of
a true, faithful and consistent knowledge of that mystery”.27
The Rosary is one of the traditional paths
of Christian prayer directed to the contemplation of Christ's face. Pope Paul
VI described it in these words: “As a Gospel prayer, centred on the mystery of
the redemptive Incarnation, the Rosary is a prayer with a clearly
Christological orientation. Its most characteristic element, in fact, the
litany- like succession of Hail Mary’s, becomes in itself an unceasing praise
of Christ, who is the ultimate object both of the Angel's announcement and of
the greeting of the Mother of John the Baptist: 'Blessed is the fruit of your
womb' (Lk 1:42). We would go further and say that the succession of Hail Mary’s
constitutes the warp on which is woven the contemplation of the mysteries. The
Jesus that each Hail Mary recalls is the same Jesus whom the succession of
mysteries proposes to us now as the Son of God, now as the Son of the Virgin”.28
I believe, however, that to bring out fully
the Christological depth of the Rosary it would be suitable to make an addition
to the traditional pattern which, while left to the freedom of individuals and
communities, could broaden it to include the mysteries of Christ's public
ministry between his Baptism and his Passion. In the course of those mysteries
we contemplate important aspects of the person of Christ as the definitive
revelation of God. Declared the beloved Son of the Father at the Baptism in the
Jordan, Christ is the one who announces the coming of the Kingdom, bears
witness to it in his works and proclaims its demands. It is during the years of
his public ministry that the mystery of Christ is most evidently a mystery of
light: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (Jn 9:5).
Consequently, for the Rosary to become more
fully a “compendium of the Gospel”, it is fitting to add, after reflecting on
the Incarnation and the hidden life of Christ (the joyful mysteries) and before
focusing on the sufferings of his Passion (the sorrowful mysteries) and the
triumph of his Resurrection (the glorious mysteries), a meditation on certain
particularly significant moments in his public ministry (the mysteries of
light). This addition of these new mysteries, without prejudice to any
essential aspect of the prayer's traditional format, is meant to give it fresh
life and to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary's place within Christian
spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the Heart of Christ, ocean of
joy and of light, of suffering and of glory.
The Rosary is at the service of this ideal; it offers the “secret” which leads easily to a profound and inward knowledge of Christ. We might call it Mary's way. It is the way of the example of the Virgin of Nazareth, a woman of faith, of silence, of attentive listening. It is also the way of a Marian devotion inspired by knowledge of the inseparable bond between Christ and his Blessed Mother: the mysteries of Christ are also in some sense the mysteries of his Mother, even when they do not involve her directly, for she lives from him and through him. By making our own the words of the Angel Gabriel and Saint Elizabeth contained in the Hail Mary, we find ourselves constantly drawn to seek out afresh in Mary, in her arms and in her heart, the “blessed fruit of her womb” (cf Lk 1:42).
In the light of what has been said so far
on the mysteries of Christ, it is not difficult to go deeper into this
anthropological significance of the Rosary, which is far deeper than may appear
at first sight. Anyone who contemplates
Christ through the various stages of his life cannot fail to perceive in him
the truth about man. This is the great affirmation of the Second Vatican
Council which I have so often discussed in my own teaching since the Encyclical
Letter Redemptor Hominis: “it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh
that the mystery of man is seen in its true light”.32 The Rosary
helps to open up the way to this light. Following in the path of Christ, in
whom man's path is “recapitulated”,33 revealed and redeemed,
believers come face to face with the image of the true man.
Contemplating Christ's birth, they learn of
the sanctity of life; seeing the household of Nazareth, they learn the original
truth of the family according to God's plan; listening to the Master in the
mysteries of his public ministry, they find the light which leads them to enter
the Kingdom of God; and following him on the way to Calvary, they learn the
meaning of salvific suffering. Finally, contemplating Christ and his Blessed
Mother in glory, they see the goal towards which each of us is called, if we
allow ourselves to be healed and transformed by the Holy Spirit. It could be
said that each mystery of the Rosary, carefully meditated, sheds light on the
mystery of man.
At the same time, it is natural to bring to
this encounter with the sacred humanity of the Redeemer all the problems,
anxieties, labours and endeavours which go to make up our lives. “Cast your
burden on the Lord and he will sustain you” (Ps 55:23). To pray the Rosary is
to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother.
Twenty-five years later, thinking back over the difficulties which have also
been part of my exercise of the Petrine ministry, I feel the need to say once
more, as a warm invitation to everyone to experience it personally: the Rosary
does indeed “mark the rhythm of human life”, bringing it into harmony with the
“rhythm” of God's own life, in the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's
destiny and deepest longing.
In Christ, God has truly assumed a “heart
of flesh”. Not only does God have a divine heart, rich in mercy and in
forgiveness, but also a human heart, capable of all the stirrings of affection.
If we needed evidence for this from the Gospel, we could easily find it in the
touching dialogue between Christ and Peter after the Resurrection: “Simon, son
of John, do you love me?” Three times this question is put to Peter, and three
times he gives the reply: “Lord, you know that I love you” (cf. Jn 21:15-17). Over and above the specific meaning of this
passage, so important for Peter's mission, none can fail to recognize the
beauty of this triple repetition, in it the insistent request and the
corresponding reply are expressed in terms familiar from the universal
experience of human love. To understand the Rosary, one has to enter into the
psychological dynamic proper to love.
One thing is clear: although the repeated
Hail Mary is addressed directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love is
ultimately directed, with her and through her. The repetition is nourished by
the desire to be conformed ever more completely to Christ, the true programme
of the Christian life. Saint Paul
expressed this project with words of fire: “For me to live is Christ and to die
is gain” (Phil 1:21). “It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me”
(Gal 2:20). The Rosary helps us be conformed ever more closely to Christ until
we attain true holiness.
communicates
himself to us respecting our human nature and its vital rhythms. Hence, while
Christian spirituality is familiar with the most sublime forms of mystical
silence in which images, words and gestures are all, so to speak, superseded by
an intense and ineffable union with God, it normally engages the whole person
in all his complex psychological, physical and relational reality.
This becomes apparent in the Liturgy.
Sacraments and sacramentals are structured as a series of rites which bring
into play all the dimensions of the person. The same applies to non-liturgical
prayer. This is confirmed by the fact
that, in the East, the most characteristic prayer of Christological meditation,
centred on the words “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a
sinner”34 is traditionally linked to the rhythm of breathing; while
this practice favours perseverance in the prayer, it also in some way embodies
the desire for Christ to become the breath, the soul and the “all” of one's
life.
In effect, the Rosary is simply a method of
contemplation. As a method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an
end in itself. All the same, as the fruit of centuries of experience, this
method should not be undervalued. In its favour one could cite the experience
of countless Saints. This is not to say,
however, that the method cannot be improved. Such is the intent of the addition
of the new series of mysteria lucis to the overall cycle of mysteries and of
the few suggestions which I am proposing in this Letter regarding its manner of
recitation. These suggestions, while respecting the well-established structure
of this prayer, are intended to help the faithful to understand it in the
richness of its symbolism and in harmony with the demands of daily life.
Otherwise there is a risk that the Rosary would not only fail to produce the
intended spiritual effects, but even that the beads, with which it is usually
said, could come to be regarded as some kind of amulet or magic object, thereby
radically distorting their meaning and function.
This need for concreteness finds further
expression in the announcement of the various mysteries of the Rosary.
Obviously these mysteries neither replace the Gospel nor exhaust its content.
The Rosary, therefore, is no substitute for lectio divina; on the contrary, it
presupposes and promotes it. Yet, even
though the mysteries contemplated in the Rosary, even with the addition of the
mysteria lucis, do no more than outline the fundamental elements of the life of
Christ, they easily draw the mind to a more expansive reflection on the rest of
the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is prayed in a setting of prolonged
recollection.
If received in this way, the word of God
can become part of the Rosary's methodology of repetition without giving rise
to the ennui derived from the simple recollection of something already well
known. It is not a matter of recalling
information but of allowing God to speak. In certain solemn communal
celebrations, this word can be appropriately illustrated by a brief commentary.
The centre of gravity in the Hail Mary, the
hinge as it were which joins its two parts, is the name of Jesus. Sometimes, in
hurried recitation, this centre of gravity can be overlooked, and with it the
connection to the mystery of Christ being contemplated. Yet it is precisely the
emphasis given to the name of Jesus and to his mystery that is the sign of a
meaningful and fruitful recitation of the Rosary. Pope Paul VI drew attention, in his Apostolic
Exhortation Marialis Cultus, to the custom in certain regions of highlighting
the name of Christ by the addition of a clause referring to the mystery being
contemplated.37 This is a praiseworthy custom, especially during
public recitation. It gives forceful expression to our faith in Christ,
directed to the different moments of the Redeemer's life. It is at once a
profession of faith and an aid in concentrating our meditation, since it
facilitates the process of assimilation to the mystery of Christ inherent in
the repetition of the Hail Mary. When we repeat the name of Jesus – the only
name given to us by which we may hope for salvation (cf. Acts 4:12) – in close
association with the name of his Blessed Mother, almost as if it were done at
her suggestion, we
set out
on a path of assimilation meant to help us enter more deeply into the life of
Christ.
From Mary's uniquely privileged
relationship with Christ, which makes her the Mother of God, Theotókos, derives
the forcefulness of the appeal we make to her in the second half of the prayer,
as we entrust to her maternal intercession our lives and the hour of our death.
To the extent that meditation on the
mystery is attentive and profound, and to the extent that it is enlivened –
from one Hail Mary to another – by love for Christ and for Mary, the
glorification of the Trinity at the end of each decade, far from being a
perfunctory conclusion, takes on its proper contemplative tone, raising the
mind as it were to the heights of heaven and enabling us in some way to relive
the experience of Tabor, a foretaste of the contemplation yet to come: “It is
good for us to be here!” (Lk 9:33).
Such a final prayer could take on a
legitimate variety of forms, as indeed it already does. In this way the Rosary
can be better adapted to different spiritual traditions and different Christian
communities. It is to be hoped, then,
that appropriate formulas will be widely circulated, after due pastoral
discernment and possibly after experimental use in centres and shrines
particularly devoted to the Rosary, so that the People of God may benefit from
an abundance of authentic spiritual riches and find nourishment for their
personal contemplation.
36. The traditional aid used for the recitation of the Rosary is the set of beads. At the most superficial level, the beads often become a simple counting mechanism to mark the succession of Hail Marys. Yet they can also take on a symbolism which can give added depth to contemplation. Here the first thing to note is the way the beads converge upon the Crucifix, which both opens and closes the unfolding sequence of prayer. The life and prayer of believers is centred upon Christ. Everything begins from him, everything leads towards him, everything, through him, in the Holy Spirit, attains to the Father.
As a counting mechanism, marking the
progress of the prayer, the beads evoke the unending path of contemplation and
of Christian perfection. Blessed Bartolo Longo saw them also as a “chain” which
links us to God. A chain, yes, but a sweet chain; for sweet indeed is the bond
to God who is also our Father. A “filial” chain which puts us in tune with
Mary, the “handmaid of the Lord” (Lk 1:38) and, most of all, with Christ himself,
who, though he was in the form of God, made himself a “servant” out of love for
us (Phil 2:7).
A fine way to expand the symbolism of the
beads is to let them remind us of our many relationships, of the bond of
communion and fraternity which unites us all in Christ.
If prayed in this way, the Rosary truly
becomes a spiritual itinerary in which Mary acts as Mother, Teacher and Guide,
sustaining the faithful by her powerful intercession. Is it any wonder, then,
that the soul feels the need, after saying this prayer and experiencing so
profoundly the motherhood of Mary, to burst forth in praise of the Blessed
Virgin, either in that splendid prayer the Salve Regina or in the Litany of
Loreto? This is the crowning moment of an inner journey which has brought the
faithful into living contact with the mystery of Christ and his Blessed Mother.
According to current practice, Monday and
Thursday are dedicated to the “joyful mysteries”,
Tuesday
and Friday to the “sorrowful mysteries”, and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday to
the “glorious mysteries”. Where might the “mysteries of light” be inserted? If
we consider that the “glorious mysteries” are said on both Saturday and Sunday,
and that Saturday has always had a special Marian flavour, the second weekly
meditation on the “joyful mysteries”, mysteries in which Mary's presence is
especially pronounced, could be moved to Saturday. Thursday would then be free
for meditating on the “mysteries of light”.
This indication is not intended to limit a
rightful freedom in personal and community prayer, where account needs to be
taken of spiritual and pastoral needs and of the occurrence of particular
liturgical celebrations which might call for suitable adaptations. What is
really important is that the Rosary should always be seen and experienced as a
path of contemplation. In the Rosary, in a way similar to what takes place in
the Liturgy, the Christian week, centred on Sunday, the day of Resurrection,
becomes a journey through the mysteries of the life of Christ, and he is
revealed in the lives of his disciples as the Lord of time and of history.
The Church has always attributed particular
efficacy to this prayer, entrusting to the Rosary, to its choral recitation and
to its constant practice, the most difficult problems. At times when
Christianity itself seemed under threat, its deliverance was attributed to the
power of this prayer, and Our Lady of the Rosary was acclaimed as the one whose
intercession brought salvation.
Today I willingly entrust to the power of
this prayer – as I mentioned at the beginning – the cause of peace in the world
and the cause of the family.
The Rosary is by its nature a prayer for
peace, since it consists in the contemplation of Christ, the Prince of Peace,
the one who is “our peace” (Eph 2:14). Anyone who assimilates the mystery of
Christ – and this is clearly the goal of the Rosary – learns the secret of
peace and makes it his life's project. Moreover, by virtue of its meditative
character, with the tranquil succession of Hail Mary’s, the Rosary has a peaceful
effect on those who pray it, disposing them to receive and experience in their
innermost depths, and to spread around them, that true peace which is the
special gift of the Risen Lord (cf. Jn 14:27; 20.21).
The Rosary is also a prayer for
peace because of the fruits of charity which it produces. When
prayed
well in a truly meditative way, the Rosary leads to an encounter with Christ in
his mysteries and so cannot fail to draw attention to the face of Christ in
others, especially in the most afflicted.
How could one possibly contemplate the mystery of the Child of
Bethlehem, in the joyful mysteries, without experiencing the desire to welcome,
defend and promote life, and to shoulder the burdens of suffering children all
over the world? How could one possibly follow in the footsteps of Christ the
Revealer, in the mysteries of light, without resolving to bear witness to his
“Beatitudes” in daily life? And how
could one contemplate Christ carrying the Cross and Christ Crucified, without
feeling the need to act as a “Simon of Cyrene” for our brothers and sisters
weighed down by grief or crushed by despair? Finally, how could one possibly
gaze upon the glory of the Risen Christ or of Mary Queen of Heaven, without
yearning to make this world more beautiful, more just, more closely conformed
to God's plan?
In a word, by focusing our eyes on Christ,
the Rosary also makes us peacemakers in the world. By its nature as an
insistent choral petition in harmony with Christ's invitation to “pray
ceaselessly” (Lk 18:1), the Rosary allows us to hope that, even today, the
difficult “battle” for peace can be won. Far from offering an escape from the
problems of the world, the Rosary obliges us to see them with responsible and
generous eyes, and obtains for us the strength to face them with the certainty
of God's help and the firm intention of bearing witness in every situation to
“love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14).
In my Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio
Ineunte I encouraged the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours by the lay
faithful in the ordinary life of parish communities and Christian groups;39
I now wish to do the same for the Rosary. These two paths of Christian
contemplation are not mutually exclusive; they complement one another. I would
therefore ask those who devote themselves to the pastoral care of families to
recommend heartily the recitation of the Rosary.
The family that prays together stays
together. The Holy Rosary, by age-old tradition, has shown itself particularly
effective as a prayer which brings the family together. Individual family
members, in turning their eyes towards Jesus, also regain the ability to look
one another in the eye, to communicate, to show solidarity, to forgive one
another and to see their covenant of love renewed in the Spirit of God.
Many of the problems facing contemporary
families, especially in economically developed societies, result from their
increasing difficulty in communicating. Families seldom manage to come
together, and the rare occasions when they do are often taken up with watching
television.
To return to the recitation of the family
Rosary means filling daily life with very different images, images of the
mystery of salvation: the image of the Redeemer, the image of his most Blessed
Mother. The family that recites the Rosary together reproduces something of the
atmosphere of the household of Nazareth: its members place Jesus at the centre,
they share his joys and sorrows, they place their needs and their plans in his
hands, they draw from him the hope and the strength to go on.
The most diverse messages and the most
unpredictable experiences rapidly make their way into the lives of children and
adolescents, and parents can become quite anxious about the dangers their
children face. At times parents suffer acute disappointment at the failure of
their children to resist the seductions of the drug culture, the lure of an
unbridled hedonism, the temptation to violence, and the manifold expressions of
meaninglessness and despair.
To pray the Rosary for children, and even
more, with children, training them from their earliest years to experience this
daily “pause for prayer” with the family, is admittedly not the solution to
every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated. It
could be objected that the Rosary seems hardly suited to the taste of children
and young people of today. But perhaps the objection is directed to an
impoverished method of praying it.
Furthermore, without prejudice to the
Rosary's basic structure, there is nothing to stop children and young people
from praying it – either within the family or in groups – with appropriate
symbolic and practical aids to understanding and appreciation.
Why not try it? With God's help, a pastoral
approach to youth which is positive, impassioned and creative – as shown by the
World Youth Days! – is capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the
Rosary is well presented, I am sure that young people will once more surprise
adults by the way they make this prayer their own and recite it with the
enthusiasm typical of their age group.
I turn particularly to you, my dear Brother
Bishops, priests and deacons, and to you, pastoral agents in your different
ministries: through your own personal experience of the beauty of the Rosary,
may you come to promote it with conviction.
I also place my trust in you, theologians:
by your sage and rigorous reflection, rooted in the word of God and sensitive
to the lived experience of the Christian people, may you help them to discover
the Biblical foundations, the spiritual riches and the pastoral value of this
traditional prayer.
I count on you, consecrated men and women,
called in a particular way to contemplate the face of Christ at the school of
Mary.
I look to all of you, brothers and sisters
of every state of life, to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and
elderly, and to you, young people: confidently take up the Rosary once again.
Rediscover the Rosary in the light of Scripture, in harmony with the Liturgy,
and in the context of your daily lives.
May this appeal of mine not go unheard! At
the start of the twenty-fifth year of my Pontificate, I entrust this Apostolic
Letter to the loving hands of the Virgin Mary, prostrating myself in spirit
before her image in the splendid Shrine built for her by Blessed Bartolo Longo,
the apostle of the Rosary. I willingly make my own the touching words with
which he concluded his well-known Supplication to the Queen of the Holy Rosary:
“O Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain which unites us to God, bond of love
which unites us to the angels, tower of salvation against the assaults of Hell,
safe port in our universal shipwreck, we will never abandon you. You will be
our comfort in the hour of death: yours our final kiss as life ebbs away. And
the last word from our lips will be your sweet name, O Queen of the Rosary of
Pompei, O dearest Mother, O Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the
Afflicted. May you be everywhere blessed, today and always, on earth and in
heaven”.
From the Vatican, on the 16th day of October in the year 2002, the beginning of the twenty-fifth year of my Pontificate.
JOHN PAUL
II
Endnotes – see Pope John Paul’s full letter On the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Following the publication by Saint Pope John Paul II of his "Letter on the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary" in 2002, I first wrote notes in 2003 for the faithful, families, and all people of good will to help them pray to God with Our Blessed Mother Mary and contemplate the Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary - so many "windows" into the life, ministry, mission, passion, death, and resurrection of her son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord. I periodically updated this document in 2005, 2010, 2015, 2018, and most recently in 2020 for these web pages.
In the "New Covenant" made by our Creator God with humanity (Jeremiah 31:31-34) every person can know God from within - because the Holy Spirit is revealing our Creator to all who are willing to know the Lord and trust in Him. We can still help each other along the way; so may you be pleased to find here a variety of helps to the life of faith in God through Jesus Christ. G.S.
© 2006-2021 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2021 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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