Praying - What is that? 👉 An analogy for praying... communicating with God the Creator of the Universe

👉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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Praying – What is that?

 For someone who has never really prayed before – a simple approach to prayer

 Prayer is simply visiting with God – the Creator of the Universe – who is always present. Christians believe that Jesus revealed God to be a Trinity, a Community of Divine Persons: the Father, the Son – who is also the human known as Jesus – and the Holy Spirit. Here are some simple helps for visiting with God in prayer.

Okay, fine, but what the heck is prayer anyway?

Taking our cue from the Star Trek universe…

Do you feel or think prayer is something saints and mystics do but we ordinary mortals could never hope to do or experience? For people like us, isn’t prayer just turning to God in our times of need? Asking for what we or our loved ones need has always been a normal function of praying, but there is more to it than that. In the fictional Star Trek universe, the first goal of exploring space is to discover new life forms and make first contact with them in the hope of establishing ongoing relations between them and the people of Earth and the members of the United Federation of Planets. So how do they make such contact? The Starship Captain’s usual command generally goes like this: “Open all hailing frequencies.” After this the first message basically introduces them, declares peaceful intentions, and asks for a response. Prayer really is as simple as that, at least to begin with.

“Open all hailing frequencies.”

How do we “open all hailing frequencies” to God? We’re not using sophisticated tech and equipment in the exercise of prayer, but we are making us of all our human faculties: physical senses, our intellectual and psychological faculties, the faculties of our heart, and of our spirit or soul. God connects with us on the inside.

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Praying is Simply visiting with God

Every living, breathing human being has expectations, and these expectations change with incidents we experience in time. What do we expect of life, of others, of ourselves, and of God? What are God’s expectations of us? What kind of blessing do you as a married couple expect from God in your marriage? There is no escape from human suffering and death, but you might expect God to minimize your pain and delay your death to an advanced age. You may be afraid of marital difficulties and expect God to save you from friction and marriage failure. You may fear giving birth to less than perfect children and expect God to prevent deformities and other tragedies from happening. The expectations you might have of God could be as extensive as your fears about life. It is quite human to have fears, but a life primarily driven by fears would be a wretched existence. Love is a much more reliable engine for our lives, health, marriage, family, career, friendships, projects, and leisure.

Most would expect engaged and married couples to have within them deep desires that are real – for all that is true, right, good, loving, and beautiful. Taken together, these desires look like the desire for happiness, and constitute a great motor driving our decisions and choices. It is considered wise – the Bible often speaks of this – to seek the counsel and experience of our elders. Yet, we who are alive at present and belong to the 21^st century culture are so wary of being told how to live our lives, that we are loath to seek advice. We value our own competence and independence, which can hinder us from being really open to benefit from the experience of others in order to make better decisions; so bent are we on making those decisions by ourselves, alone.           

As we attach ourselves to our own motives at this level; we see that God has expectations of engaged and married couples, and of families, as of all his children. The first human beings knew what God expected of them, and they were happy to carry it out. Then they were tempted to doubt the generosity of God’s motives in the few restrictions He had put on their choices. They decided to be free from God’s expectations, and ventured into behavior they had been warned to avoid. Since they had taken back the trust they had until then put in God, the result was the loss of the harmony and peace they had enjoyed with God, with each other, and with all other creatures. To this day we are no longer in harmony with God, with each other, or with Creation. We rely far too much on our own opinions and preferences, going so far as to avoid following or even asking for advice; even when this results in pain, suffering, and death. This is why humanity and the natural environment are in trouble.

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Where Paleontology, Archaeology, Anthropology, & the Sacred Scriptures Meet

We don’t know when the first generations of human beings lived, symbolized as they are in Adam and Eve of Genesis in the Bible. Were they at the beginning of the genus “Homo” in Africa 2.5 million years ago, or 500,000 years ago when Neanderthals in Europe and the Middle East evolved bigger brains than ours today, or when the first homo sapiens developed bigger brains 300,000 years ago with the daily use of fire, or with the evolution of “Homo sapiens sapiens” 200,000 years ago in East Africa, or with the “Cognitive Revolution” 70,000 years ago and the emergence of fictive language, the ability to conceive and express abstract realities, or most recently with the agricultural revolution 14,000 years ago? We don’t know. What God reveals in Genesis, in the beginning, whenever that was, is that man left God to prefer our current state of rebellion and ignorance.

In time, God chose a people for himself, with a merciful plan to restore them to harmony by giving them what the first human beings had as a natural conscience before they turned away from trust in their Creator God. With Moses God gave 10 commandments and said: “Choose life or death: keep the Lord’s commandments and you shall live; break these commandments, and you shall surely die. Consider well, and choose between life and death.” It was a struggle for people to observe the Law and all that God expected of them. They felt faith in God was a burden and didn’t always feel close to God. Then, “God so loved the world that He sent his only Son.”

Jesus came to restore us to harmony with God his Father, with each other, and with all other creatures. He did not come only for the people alive on Earth when He came as man, because He continues to come to each person in every generation until the end of the world. Jesus uses various means to get our attention and then offers us life; that we might be able to live a life like his own. As we respond to Jesus and open ourselves with trust to Him, He lets us know what God expects of us, and we allow Him to have influence in our lives.      

According to John 17:3, Jesus said that eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. Jesus lived the most human life ever lived, in perfect harmony in himself, with other people, and all creatures. He lived in a way that was in divine communion with his heavenly Father. He clearly intends for us and all his disciples to learn from Him. Jesus continues to send his Holy Spirit in us to guide us into living our life as He lived his. Jesus went to Synagogue every Friday and every Saturday rested with his family before God, to study the Scriptures and discuss life. He prayed 7 times a day: on waking, before every meal, at the beginning and end of his work, and before going to bed. He lived in the peace, trust, and joy that come from knowing his Father’s love. He worked, made his contribution to society, and earned food for the family. He faced the world with courage, resisting its efforts to pull Him away from doing the Father’s will. He lived on good terms with all, was kind to the poor and suffering, and forgave all who offended Him; even with love and mercy to enemies.

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Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to help us pray and live as He did. We turn to God in prayer as we get ready for sleep and upon waking in the morning. We go to Sunday Mass and worship the Lord, resting all day with our family and friends, spending time with our spouse and playing with our children, reading, discussing, and learning more about God, and enjoying the Lord’s Day. Like Jesus we pray often during the day – bringing God into the different experiences and concerns of our day – praying alone, as a couple, and also as a family.

We live in the peace, trust, and joy that flow from our Father’s love. We work all week to make our contribution to society and support our family, face the world with courage, resist its efforts to pull us away from our family or from doing the Father’s will. We live on good terms with all, show kindness to the poor and suffering, forgive all who offend us, and give love and mercy even to those who make themselves our enemies.

Jesus did not take his standards for living from the world, but from his Father’s will, which He knew from Scripture, the Synagogue, the teaching of his parents and rabbis, and from personal prayer and converse with his Father. As his disciples, we cannot afford to take our standards for the conduct of our lives from the world, but from Jesus. Jesus sets our standards – as the Person against whom we do well to measure ourselves – for one day we will want to be able to show the Father all the fruit we have generated from all his gifts to us.    

Jesus lived his life as a vibrant, intimate, constant relationship with his Father in heaven, and He calls us to do the same. Jesus’ faith, hope, and love of his Father were out in the light of day for all to see, though He kept much of it concealed in his heart. Still, his faith in God was not occult but public. Our faith in God must likewise be open and public – not occult or hidden. When a person considers himself a Christian, yet does not participate in Sunday worship every week, does not pray alone every day, does not pray openly – at home and in public places like work, church, and society – then that person’s faith is occult or hidden and rather sterile; that limits what God can give and do for them. They push God into the shadows, the corners of their lives.

That leaves the wide-open spaces of their home and lives empty, attracting all kinds of other influences to come and set up shop. They are more easily manipulated and controlled by other people whose motives and intentions can be quite dark. This in turn can open them up to harassment by dark powers and the influence of demons – all the manifestations of evil that we associate with the “occult”. God abides by the laws He has put in place to govern our lives, including the law of freedom. This means that if we want God to actually be God in our lives; it is up to us to take Him seriously, to put our trust in Him, surrender our lives and homes to Him, pray, and openly practice our faith. These attitudes bear fruit every day as we deliberately practice them.

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Living as a Christian, as a disciple of Jesus, includes praying individually and even openly with others. To get over the initial embarrassment and hesitations that can keep you from even trying to pray by yourself or with others, just ask God to help you and start; just do it. Keep in mind that God is alive and was the first One ever to love you. The Father loved you even before you were conceived, when you were only one possibility out of hundreds of thousands in your mother’s ovaries and your father’s testes. He picked you because He wanted you to have life and come into the world; so you might know Him and his never-ending love for you. As you begin to pray, and return to prayer each day – alone and with others – remember that you are responding to God’s invitation. He is always there first, waiting for us to reveal a little more of Himself and his love for us.

A brief reflection on God and the Holy Trinity

Our Christian faith informs and confirms our own human experience that there is only one true God. At all times as we turn to God and pray to Him we deepen this experience of the oneness and uniqueness of God. In addition, what Jesus revealed about God also progressively enters into our own personal experience. While God is a single divine being, there is so much life in God that there are actually three divine Persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Even more mysteriously, the second Person, the Son, took to Himself a human life conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary at the very moment she gave her consent to the will of God as expressed to her by the Archangel Gabriel. “Let it be done to me… as you say.”

In his humanity, Jesus of Nazareth revealed to humanity for all time through his Jewish contemporaries that this one true God is composed of three divine Persons, and that He is Himself the Son of the Father, and that He alone knows the Father and makes Him known to all who come to Him and believe in Him. Towards the end of his earthly life and ministry, Jesus told his Apostles of another, the Advocate, the Consoler, the Holy Spirit, who would continue to teach them after his departure, reminding them of all that He had taught them.

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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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© 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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Family Life Chaplain - What does he do? To whom is this service offered?

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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Portrait of the late Fr. Joseph A.E. Sullivan

What is a Family Life Chaplain? What does he do? To whom is this service offered?

Actually, "Family Life Chaplain" is in fact a "modern" term or title for the parish priest sent by Jesus to each parish through the supervisory authority of the local bishop or archbishop (in the case of an archdiocese). As Jesus received all those who came to Him with any ailment, complaint, need, or request while He walked this Earth in the Holy Land of Palestine / Israel; so now Jesus continues to receive all those who seek Him today all over this Earth through the pastoral presence and kindly services of the local parish priest. Priests don't necessarily have a charism of healer; so we continue to employ health services and all the other social services professionally offered in our day.

The priest continues to be a simple human being like all of us, a sinner; he isn't perfect yet. This means that we need to love him as we are called to love one another in our family and close personal circles; as well as our enemies and all those we don't necessarily like or enjoy.... Those we don't like give us an opportunity to practice perfect, unselfish love; since we don't expect anything good from such people. At such times God blesses us through the love we give rather than receive.

Now that the dangers of sexual predation and abuse, as well as abuse of power, have entered into the public domain and consciousness; it is obvious that at all times we must all remain vigilant to note and identify inappropriate behaviour on the part of anyone, including our priests. This is not because they are more likely to offend, because social studies indicate they aren’t. No, the reason to assure our vigilance is because our trust of clergy may reduce our inclination to be vigilant. So we must all keep our eyes and ears open and our judgement clear and fully operational. That being said, it would be a great loss not to call upon our parish priests for the services the Lord Jesus offers us in them.

When the priest offers the Holy Mass, the Holy Eucharist, it is Jesus Himself who is there, offering Himself anew to his Father for us. The Holy Spirit gathers all our prayers, adoration, supplications, praise, contrition, and thanksgiving – the whole offering of our self and our life since the last time – and places our offering on the altar with the bread and wine. Through the priest, Jesus offers us, our offering, along with himself, to the Father. Then, at Holy Communion, the Father answers our prayers by accepting our offering and in response, He gives us the best that He has to give; which is his only-begotten Son, Jesus, in Holy Communion. Jesus gives us a "transfusion" of the divine life and love He has with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Most Holy Trinity. With each Holy Communion we become more and more able to live, love, forgive, and serve as children of God, living images of Jesus in our world today; in this way He shines his divine light for the world.

It is the same with all of the sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation (Penance or Confession), the Anointing of the Sick, and Marriage. We see and hear the parish priest, but always it is Jesus who through the sacrament of Holy Orders receives us, listens to us, speaks to us, prays with us, offers us words of instruction and encouragement, extends his hands over us in blessing, anoints us with holy oil, offers us forgiveness and absolution of our sins, challenges us to make better efforts to approach God, get to know Him and his ways, and give Him a return of love for all of the love He constantly pours into us in the Holy Spirit.... No matter how "disappointing" we may find the "wrapping" – the human limits of the priest – we can be assured that it is Jesus who is there, serving and blessing us. Jesus promised He would be with us all days until the end of time, and He is faithful. Jesus, in union with his Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, ALWAYS keeps his promises.

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We began to employ the title Family Life Chaplain in 2013.

First, as intended in September 2013 by Auxiliary Bishop Tom Dowd, the FLC had the effect of a “ploughshare” to break open new ground as a form of “spiritual direction” for couples and families to accompany them. This new service also served as a support to parish faith communities and their parish priests, who are sent by the Lord Jesus and appointed by the Archbishop as the immediate, "front line pastors of couples and families" – the regular or "ordinary" Family Life Chaplains.

Second, the Family Life Chaplain served for 7 years as a “lightning rod” for couples and families searching for support in their faith and vocation to marriage and family life: to give them an opportunity to better understand their faith and to enter more deeply into their relationship with God and with other human beings. Faith is God's gift to all who accept it to give them "new eyes, ears, minds, and hearts" to live their life no longer as isolated individuals crushed by heavy burdens, feeling abandoned, unwanted, or unloved. They can live life as children of the one true God and Creator of all who is a triune community of divine persons who truly love them. The Most Holy Trinity offers them all the supernatural gifts they need to endure the troubles of life and to safely navigate through all the obstacles and dangers of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. When we believe in Jesus as Son of God and our Saviour and Lord, He pours into us the Holy Spirit, Lord and Giver of Life, with his supernatural gifts enabling us to follow Jesus in this life as his disciples.

Third, the Family Life Chaplain acted as “spiritual advisor” with movements that support couples and families and as needed offered them accompaniment, encouragement, and spiritual advice.

Fourth, the Family Life Chaplain served as a member of the Diocesan Center for Marriage, Life, and Family: to collaborate and help to develop within the Diocese its concerted multilingual and multicultural mission to couples, families, and society at large. The DCMLF is networking with other pastoral agents labouring courageously and generously within The Office for English Pastoral Services, Mission Jeunesse, Social Action, Faith Education, and Pastoral Home Care.

Fifth, the Family Life Chaplain served as “spiritual advisor” and member of Montreal's first English language "Team of Our Lady", a worldwide Catholic movement that forms teams of 4 to 6 married couples with their children and one priest. Jesus intends for the complementarity between these two life vocations of Marriage / Matrimony and Holy Orders / Priesthood to provide an ongoing opportunity for mutual help and encouragement in living out their respective vocations. Married couples and priests are both called to holiness as missionary disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ and enthusiastic witnesses to everyone they meet of God’s divine love and mercy in the world.

So, today, you who are engaged or married couples and parents have much to gain by developing your connection with God into a more personal relationship. The Holy Trinity – Father, Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit – are always “at work” within us. They ask that we “pay attention” and “be open” to their love, “light”, and “guidance” and allow them to "make themselves at home" within us and in our married couples and families. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by trusting in God! Don't hesitate to approach your local parish priest to get to know him and allow him to get to know you and your family. If until now you have not been offering God worship and adoration on Sunday, the Lord's Day, now would be a good time to begin. You can find your local parish by going to the Diocese of Montreal's website here. Use this search tool to find your local parish. You may find you live near two or more R.C. parishes, English and French, as well as ethnic churches.

Introduce yourself and your family to your parish priest. Remember, your parish priest is truly your Family Life Chaplain, and in him you will find Jesus present, waiting, and eager to welcome you; however imperfect the priest may be humanly speaking. Who among us is perfect, anyway, right? Make an act of faith and trust in Jesus, and open yourself to the services Jesus offers you through his priests. God bless you and your family!

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"Our Lady of Ville Marie, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Fatima, Our Mother of Perpetual Help, please pray for our married couples, for our families, for our children, parents, and siblings, and lead us into the peaceful, loving, and joyful life you lived with Joseph and Jesus in Nazareth. Amen."

Pope Leo XIII & the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls.  Amen.

Our Lady of Guadalupe - Her Apparitions

Fatima - all about the apparitions in 1917 and later

Fatima - Angel’s Prayer     “O Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore Thee profoundly. I offer Thee the most precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ present in all the tabernacles of the world, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifferences by which He is offended. By the infinite merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary I beg the conversion of poor sinners.”

“Most Holy Trinity, I adore Thee! My God, my God, I love Thee in the Most Blessed Sacrament.”

In our lives and relationship with God, Our Lady of Fatima teaches us about the importance of silence + + + and also about penance & Penance

Fatima - Pardon Prayer              “My God, I believe, I adore, I hope and I love Thee! I beg pardon for all those that do not believe, do not adore, do not hope and do not love Thee.”

Our Lady of Fatima's plan for peace - Faith, Prayer, Penance, Devotion, and Consecration of Russia, the World, and us.... Our Lady of Fatima’s Plan for Peace requires devotion on our part – See how Saint Pope John Paul II responded to Mary with his collegial consecration of 1984

Fatima - Decade Prayer (at end of each decade of the Rosary)       “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy. Amen.”

Blog:    https://fathergilles.blogspot.com/         Blogue :    https://lafractiondupain.blogspot.com/

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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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© 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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DETAILED FAMILY GUIDE – HOW TO PRAY THE ROSARY – CONTEMPLATING JESUS WITH MARY

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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 PDF version file    

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.

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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.

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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).

 Mary's memories

     11. Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every word: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; cf. 2:51). The memories of Jesus, impressed upon her heart, were always with her, leading her to reflect on the various moments of her life at her Son's side. In a way those memories were to be the “rosary” which she recited uninterruptedly throughout her earthly life.

    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.

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 The Rosary, a contemplative prayer

     12. The Rosary, precisely because it starts with Mary's own experience, is an exquisitely contemplative prayer. Without this contemplative dimension, it would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly pointed out: “Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: 'In praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think they will be heard for their many words' (Mt 6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping one to meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed”.¹⁴  It is worth considering this profound insight of Paul VI, in order to bring out certain aspects of the Rosary which show that it is really a form of Christocentric contemplation.

 Remembering Christ with 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.

 Learning Christ from Mary

     14. Christ is the supreme Teacher, the revealer and the one revealed. It is not just a question of learning what he taught but of “learning him”. In this regard could we have any better teacher than Mary? From the divine standpoint, the Spirit is the interior teacher who leads us to the full truth of Christ (cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:13). But among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of his mystery better than his Mother.

    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).

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 Being conformed to Christ with Mary

     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!

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 Praying to Christ with Mary

     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.

 Proclaiming Christ with Mary

     17. The Rosary is also a path of proclamation and increasing knowledge, in which the mystery of Christ is presented again and again at different levels of the Christian experience. Its form is that of a prayerful and contemplative presentation, capable of forming Christians according to the heart of Christ. When the recitation of the Rosary combines all the elements needed for an effective meditation, especially in its communal celebration in parishes and shrines, it can present a significant catechetical opportunity which pastors should use to advantage. In this way too Our Lady of the Rosary continues her work of proclaiming Christ. The history of the Rosary shows how this prayer was used in particular by the Dominicans at a difficult time for the Church due to the spread of heresy. Today we are facing new challenges. Why should we not once more have recourse to the Rosary, with the same faith as those who have gone before us? The Rosary retains all its power and continues to be a valuable pastoral resource for every good evangelizer.

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 CHAPTER II – MYSTERIES OF CHRIST – MYSTERIES OF HIS MOTHER

 The Rosary, “a compendium of the Gospel”

    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

 A proposed addition to the traditional pattern

     19. Of the many mysteries of Christ's life, only a few are indicated by the Rosary in the form that has become generally established with the seal of the Church's approval. The selection was determined by the origin of the prayer, which was based on the number 150, the number of the Psalms in the Psalter.

    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.

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 From “mysteries” to the “Mystery”: Mary's way

     24. The cycles of meditation proposed by the Holy Rosary are by no means exhaustive, but they do bring to mind what is essential and they awaken in the soul a thirst for a knowledge of Christ continually nourished by the pure source of the Gospel. Every individual event in the life of Christ, as narrated by the Evangelists, is resplendent with the Mystery that surpasses all understanding (cf. Eph 3:19): the Mystery of the Word made flesh, in whom “all the fullness of God dwells bodily” (Col 2:9).  For this reason the Catechism of the Catholic Church places great emphasis on the mysteries of Christ, pointing out that “everything in the life of Jesus is a sign of his Mystery”.³⁰ The “duc in altum” of the Church of the third millennium will be determined by the ability of Christians to enter into the “perfect knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col 2:2-3). The Letter to the Ephesians makes this heartfelt prayer for all the baptized: “May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith, so that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power... to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:17-19).

    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).

 Mystery of Christ, mystery of man

     25. In my testimony of 1978 mentioned above, where I described the Rosary as my favourite prayer, I used an idea to which I would like to return. I said then that “the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human life”.³¹

    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.   

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 CHAPTER III – “FOR ME, TO LIVE IS CHRIST”

 The Rosary, a way of assimilating the mystery

     26. Meditation on the mysteries of Christ is proposed in the Rosary by means of a method designed to assist in their assimilation. It is a method based on repetition. This applies above all to the Hail Mary, repeated ten times in each mystery. If this repetition is considered superficially, there could be a temptation to see the Rosary as a dry and boring exercise. It is quite another thing, however, when the Rosary is thought of as an outpouring of that love which tirelessly returns to the person loved with expressions similar in their content but ever fresh in terms of the feeling pervading them.

    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.

  A valid method...

     27. We should not be surprised that our relationship with Christ makes use of a method. God

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.

 ... which can nevertheless be improved

     28. I mentioned in my Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte that the West is now experiencing a renewed demand for meditation, which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of other religions.³⁵ Some Christians, limited in their knowledge of the Christian contemplative tradition, are attracted by those forms of prayer. While the latter contain many elements which are positive and at times compatible with Christian experience, they are often based on ultimately unacceptable premises. Much in vogue among these approaches are methods aimed at attaining a high level of spiritual concentration by using techniques of a psychophysical, repetitive and symbolic nature. The Rosary is situated within this broad gamut of religious phenomena, but it is distinguished by characteristics of its own which correspond to specifically Christian requirements.

    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.

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 Announcing each mystery

     29. Announcing each mystery, and perhaps even using a suitable icon to portray it, is as it were to open up a scenario on which to focus our attention. The words direct the imagination and the mind towards a particular episode or moment in the life of Christ. In the Church's traditional spirituality, the veneration of icons and the many devotions appealing to the senses, as well as the method of prayer proposed by Saint Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises, make use of visual and imaginative elements (the compositio loci), judged to be of great help in concentrating the mind on the particular mystery. This is a methodology, moreover, which corresponds to the inner logic of the Incarnation: in Jesus, God wanted to take on human features. It is through his bodily reality that we are led into contact with the mystery of his divinity.

    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.

 Listening to the word of God

     30. In order to supply a Biblical foundation and greater depth to our meditation, it is helpful to follow the announcement of the mystery with the proclamation of a related Biblical passage, long or short, depending on the circumstances. No other words can ever match the efficacy of the inspired word. As we listen, we are certain that this is the word of God, spoken for today and spoken “for me”.

    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.

 Silence

     31. Listening and meditation are nourished by silence. After the announcement of the mystery and the proclamation of the word, it is fitting to pause and focus one's attention for a suitable period of time on the mystery concerned, before moving into vocal prayer. A discovery of the importance of silence is one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and meditation. One drawback of a society dominated by technology and the mass media is the fact that silence becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Just as moments of silence are recommended in the Liturgy, so too in the recitation of the Rosary it is fitting to pause briefly after listening to the word of God, while the mind focuses on the content of a particular mystery.

 The “Our Father”

     32. After listening to the word and focusing on the mystery, it is natural for the mind to be lifted up towards the Father. In each of his mysteries, Jesus always leads us to the Father, for as he rests in the Father's bosom (cf. Jn 1:18) he is continually turned towards him. He wants us to share in his intimacy with the Father, so that we can say with him: “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). By virtue of his relationship to the Father he makes us brothers and sisters of himself and of one another, communicating to us the Spirit which is both his and the Father's. Acting as a kind of foundation for the Christological and Marian meditation which unfolds in the repetition of the Hail Mary, the Our Father makes meditation upon the mystery, even when carried out in solitude, an ecclesial experience.

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 The ten “Hail Marys”

     33. This is the most substantial element in the Rosary and also the one which makes it a Marian prayer par excellence. Yet when the Hail Mary is properly understood, we come to see clearly that its Marian character is not opposed to its Christological character, but that it actually emphasizes and increases it. The first part of the Hail Mary, drawn from the words spoken to Mary by the Angel Gabriel and by Saint Elizabeth, is a contemplation in adoration of the mystery accomplished in the Virgin of Nazareth. These words express, so to speak, the wonder of heaven and earth; they could be said to give us a glimpse of God's own wonderment as he contemplates his “masterpiece” – the Incarnation of the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary. If we recall how, in the Book of Genesis, God “saw all that he had made” (Gen 1:31), we can find here an echo of that “pathos with which God, at the dawn of creation, looked upon the work of his hands”.³⁶  The repetition of the Hail Mary in the Rosary gives us a share in God's own wonder and pleasure: in jubilant amazement we acknowledge the greatest miracle of history. Mary's prophecy here finds its fulfilment: “Henceforth all generations will call me blessed” (Lk 1:48).

    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.

 The “Gloria”

     34. Trinitarian doxology is the goal of all Christian contemplation. For Christ is the way that leads us to the Father in the Spirit. If we travel this way to the end, we repeatedly encounter the mystery of the three divine Persons, to whom all praise, worship and thanksgiving are due. It is important that the Gloria, the high-point of contemplation, be given due prominence in the Rosary. In public recitation it could be sung, as a way of giving proper emphasis to the essentially Trinitarian structure of all Christian prayer.

    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).

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 The concluding short prayer

     35. In current practice, the Trinitarian doxology is followed by a brief concluding prayer which varies according to local custom. Without in any way diminishing the value of such invocations, it is worthwhile to note that the contemplation of the mysteries could better express their full spiritual fruitfulness if an effort were made to conclude each mystery with a prayer for the fruits specific to that particular mystery. In this way the Rosary would better express its connection with the Christian life. One fine liturgical prayer suggests as much, inviting us to pray that, by meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary, we may come to “imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise”.³⁸

    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.

 The Rosary beads

     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.

 The opening and closing

     37.At present, in different parts of the Church, there are many ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places, it is customary to begin with the opening words of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my aid; O Lord, make haste to help me”, as if to nourish in those who are praying a humble awareness of their own insufficiency. In other places, the Rosary begins with the recitation of the Creed, as if to make the profession of faith the basis of the contemplative journey about to be undertaken. These and similar customs, to the extent that they prepare the mind for contemplation, are all equally legitimate.  The Rosary is then ended with a prayer for the intentions of the Pope, as if to expand the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of the Church. It is precisely in order to encourage this ecclesial dimension of the Rosary that the Church has seen fit to grant indulgences to those who recite it with the required dispositions.

    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.

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 Distribution over time

     38. The Rosary can be recited in full every day, and there are those who most laudably do so. In this way it fills with prayer the days of many a contemplative, or keeps company with the sick and the elderly who have abundant time at their disposal. Yet it is clear – and this applies all the more if the new series of mysteria lucis is included – that many will not be able to recite more than a part of the Rosary, according to a certain weekly pattern. This weekly distribution has the effect of giving the different days of the week a certain spiritual “colour”, by analogy with the way in which the Liturgy colours the different seasons of the liturgical year.

    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.

 CONCLUSION

 “Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain linking us to God”

     39. What has been said so far makes abundantly clear the richness of this traditional prayer, which has the simplicity of a popular devotion but also the theological depth of a prayer suited to those who feel the need for deeper contemplation.

    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.

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 Peace

     40. The grave challenges confronting the world at the start of this new Millennium lead us to think that only an intervention from on high, capable of guiding the hearts of those living in situations of conflict and those governing the destinies of nations, can give reason to hope for a brighter future.

    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).

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 The family: parents...

     41. As a prayer for peace, the Rosary is also, and always has been, a prayer of and for the family.  At one time this prayer was particularly dear to Christian families, and it certainly brought them closer together. It is important not to lose this precious inheritance. We need to return to the practice of family prayer and prayer for families, continuing to use the Rosary.

    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.

 ... and children

     42. It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this prayer the growth and development of children.  Does the Rosary not follow the life of Christ, from his conception to his death, and then to his Resurrection and his glory? Parents are finding it ever more difficult to follow the lives of their children as they grow to maturity. In a society of advanced technology, of mass communications and globalization, everything has become hurried, and the cultural distance between generations is growing ever greater.

    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.

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 The Rosary, a treasure to be rediscovered

     43. Dear brothers and sisters! A prayer so easy and yet so rich truly deserves to be rediscovered by the Christian community. Let us do so, especially this year, as a means of confirming the direction outlined in my Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte, from which the pastoral plans of so many particular Churches have drawn inspiration as they look to the immediate future.

    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.

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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.

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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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© 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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