Luceat!

October 7^th marks the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on the liturgical calendars.  I thought it would be good for us to take a moment and reflect upon the importance of the Rosary in the life of a Christian.

In recent years the Rosary has become the topic of much debate among scholars and theologians in the Church.  Should we pray it?  Is it Christ-centered?  Does it conflict our approach to the liturgy?  These are questions of people seeking truth and fervor in their daily prayer and desiring to commune with God intimately. 

It is true that praying the Rosary is not necessary for salvation nor a devotion to our Lady.  (Don’t stop reading yet!)  Yet it seems that by reading the signs of the times that the Rosary is a necessary devotional practice within in our own times.  John Paul II says this about the Rosary, in Rosarium Virginis Mariae (His Apostolic Letter on the Rosary in October of 2002)

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. 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 sits at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.

 

In this short paragraph, our late Holy Father answers many of the proposed questions above.  John Paul II is drawing of the tradition of the great saint of the Rosary!  St. Louis was most known through his common used phrase “To Jesus through Mary, something that lead to John Paul’s motto “Totus Tuus” (Totally Yours)

When our Lady appeared to St Dominic and gave him the Rosary and the mission to promote the Rosary, she said that it was the Rosary was the divine weapon that the Blessed Trinity had chosen to bring souls to God.  Padre Pio adopted this understanding and was commonly known for calling his Rosary, “His Weapon.”

Finally for all those who might not think that the Rosary is not relevant to our modern times, I give you the 300 year challenge.  Find one canonized saint in the last 300 years who was not devoted to the Rosary.  The Rosary will bring people to understand the Gospel more deeply.  As John Paul II says, “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”