Our Lady of the Rosary

Individually, we have prayed the Rosary every day for a few years, and for two and a half months (since we were married), we have been praying it together sometime after dinner and before bed. What a blessing! We hope to do this for the rest of our lives and make it an important family tradition. It might need to be modified a bit when there are tiny people running around. :-)

“All the supreme teachers, the popes, have been unanimous in proclaiming that the devotion to the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Holy Rosary are the hope and

salvation of the world in our evil and dangerous era.

They have endeavored, by word and example, to bring

the faithful more closely to Jesus Christ in the

Most Blessed Sacrament and to Our Lady’s Rosary.”

From The Eucharist and the Rosary:

The Power to Change the World

More on...the FEAST of Our Lady of Victory (the Rosary)

To commemorate the victory of the Christian Armada over the Turks on Oct 7, 1571, Pope Pius V introduced the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. Christian Europe had been at risk of being conquered by the Ottoman Empire (Muslim). The year leading up to the battle had been declared the Year of the Rosary. At the beginning of that year, each mariner of the Holy League was given a rosary and instructed to pray it daily. The rosary also served to unite the contentious factions of the Holy League during the year of its formation and proved equally important for getting the Holy League to the battle as winning the battle. When faced with unfavorable wind at the onset of the battle, the men picked up their rosaries and began praying. Miraculously the winds shifted and served to be a key factor in the ensuing victory.

The Feast's name was changed in 1969 to “Our Lady of the Rosary” and it is now a mandatory memorial. It is now attached to and starts Respect For Life Month.

Many complain that the Mass and Rosary are repetitious. However, the “repetition” of the Mass and Rosary alike can work a slow but deep transformation of one's heart. One could also point out that repetition is not necessarily a sign of a lack of imagination. It may be sheer exuberant pleasure that makes us repeat an activity. G. K. Chesterton argued that repetition is a characteristic of the vitality of children. They like the same stories, the same words, time and time again, not because they are bored and unimaginative but because they delight in life.

Chesterton wrote:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead, for grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes each daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg."

Pray the Rosary. Pray the Mass.

Exult in the monotony. Transform your heart.