Queen of the Holy Rosary

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 14, 15 April 1925, Page 15

Queen of the Holy Rosary

t There is no exaggeration in speaking of * the Rosary as "Most Holy," This devotion centres on Him Who is the very source andi'ountainhead of all holiness, Christ Jesus, the Son of the living God. It, moreover, includes her who is God's masterpiece among all creatures, and whom He Himself greeted, through His ambassador, as "full of grace." To recite the Rosary devoutly and with due meditation upon its mysteries, as will be pointed out below, means to face the great fact of Redemption,: purchased lor man at the price of the life-Mood of the Man-God, the; Saviour of the world. The October devotions are to be a renewed call to all the faithful to enlist the. help of Heaven in getting rid of at least some of the ills of earth. In the night of passion and lowliness, of hatred and feuds, the Rosary mysteries will send out a light to again' reveal the sacredness of life as intended by the Creator, to reveal the blessedness of universal brotherhood in Christ and the final triumph of those who persevere in fighting His cause.

Pope Leo XIII. When the great Pope Leo XIII, of blessed memory, had reached the fiftieth anniversary of his consecration as a Bishop, and the Catholic World was rejoicing with him, the theme he chose in the Encyclical which he addressed to the faithful on the happy event was the Rosary. Time and again,' with his learning and insight into the needs of society, he extolled the Rosary as a preservative against the evils of the times. To these evils, he said, there was a triple root: first, the growing disinclination to a life of honest toil, and a. dislike for labor in a simple regular life free from excesses and luxuries' secondly, the .shrinking from all pains and sufferings incidental to human existencethirdly, the forgetting of the eternal happiness to which God calls man. Alas! No one can deny that present conditions show these sources of evil to be still rampant in the world and Possibly in a greater measure. It would hardly seem necessary to remind any Catholic that October is set apart as the month of the Most Holy Rosary, but in the mad scramble for the things of this world, many are so prone to forget the things of the spirit that recalling this devotion to the minds of our readers may not be out of place; The sign of the Cross with which the Rosary begins is the mark of the Catholic. The Apostles' Creed is the profession of faith which the martyrs recited at their baptise and under the axe of the executioner. The Our Father is the prayer which our Lord Himself deigned to teach us. The Hail Mary, begun by an Archangel in the name of Heaven, was continued by the holy mother of St. John the Baptist and finished by the Church. The Gloria Patri is the everlasting cry of praise that goes up to the Adorable Trinity from men and angels, from all places and from all times. The fifteen mysteries proposed for our meditation are an abridgement of the Gospels and adapted.for devotion in prayer and for meditation of mind and heart. I One Decade.

Few peorjje like long,..prayers. The Rosary is so arranged that'a person can say one decade at a time, [ or with each decade there a connected a different mystery of our holy

religion, thereby giving variety to the devotion, and avoiding monotony that might otherwise easily creep in. The Rosary may be said anywhere and everywhere without attracting the attention of the outer world. The Catholic is at home anywhere and everywhereon sea or land, in the desert or on the: mountain. He may go off alone to a quiet altar in a church, to say his beads, or he may join with, the congregation of thousands and mingle his prayers with the prayers of every tongue on earth. The Rosary also invites 1 the ''return of a nearly lost art—the art of. meditation. We are living in a world that no -longer wants to think, but the Rosary properly recited shuts out the world and its distractions and turns the mind to the holy mysteries contained therein. What a mine of graces is that little pair of beads to the devout and intelligent Catholic ! With what variety of feelings they slip through the fingers of all lovers of Mary, the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary! Perhaps out of the fullness of a heart flows in thanksgiving the continuous stream of praise; perhaps a heart, cold with fear, turns appealingly to the Mother of Mercy; or a repentant one, prostrate at the feet of the "Refuge of Sinners," seeks solace in the repetition: "Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us." In May-time our Rosaries are bouquets to deck, as it were, the altar of Our Lady, the Queen of May; in October, they should become the incense of supplication for ourselves and in behalf of those who as yet do not know her Divine Son nor herself. True, to the prosaic minds of our nonCatholic neighbors, the Rosary is something they cannot and never will understand nor appreciate, until the grace of God lifts the scales from their eyes and discovers to them the beauty of the true faith, and its many ways of giving. adoration to God, and honor to those whom He has associated with Himself in the realms of the blessed. Their idea of public prayer is a labored and long drawn out rhetorical effort and by a minister often more intent on winning the applause of his congregation than of pleasing the Divine Being to Whom the supplication is supposed to be addressed.

But the prayers of the Rosary are not the invention of some, we will admit, well intended but perhaps over-enthusiastic individual unknown and unauthorised. Why the "Our Father" is the model prayer given to us by Jesus Christ Himself, and is taken, word for word, from the New Testament. The first part of the "Hail Mary" is also scriptural, embracing in part the salutations given to the Blessed Virgin by the Angel Gabriel, and by her cousin, St. Elizabeth, as recorded in the gospel of St. Luke. The second half was instituted by the Church to recall the joyous enthusiasm of the people .of Ephesus, who paraded the streets, crying out: "Hail Mary, Mother of God, pray for us," when it was announced that the general council held in that city A.D. 431, had condemned the heretic Nestorius, who had denied that Mary is the "Mother of God." ' "' The "Glory be to the Father" recited at the close of each decade was also institute*

by the Church in honor of the Holy Trinity., •._ These prayers are scriptural, historical, and..,. sanctified by the Spirit of Wisdom, Who abides with God's Holy Church to the end of days. The full Rosary is composed of fifteen decades, and each of. these decades, or divisions of ten times "Hail Mary" is consecrated to the consideration of some mystery connected with Our Saviour and His Mother. ,; Thus the first five decades are known as | the "Joyful Mysteries," and are the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation and the Finding in the Temple. The second five are called the "Sorrowful Mysteries" and embrace the Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning with Thorns, the Carrying of the Cross, and the Crucifixion. Finally we have the "Glorious Mysteries," viz: The Resurrection, the Ascension, the Descent of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and her Coronation. By a decree under date of August 20, 1885, the then gloriously reigning Holy Father, Leo XIII, exhorted all the faithful to have a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in keeping with this decree he dedicated the month of October to the Most Holy Rosary. He also directed the Rosary, the Litany of Loreto and the prayers of St. Joseph composed by himself to be recited from the first of October to the second of November in all the parish churches and public oratories; these prayers to be said during Holy Mass, if they are recited in the morning, or during the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament if they are said in the afternoon or evening. The Holy Father granted an indulgence of seven years and seven times 40 days to all who attend the public recitation, and a plenary indulgence to those that during the month assist at it ten times. To gain the plenary indulgence in addition to reciting the aforementioned prayers, it is also required to go to'Confession and receive Holy Communion, and to pray for the intention of the Holy Father. A plenary indulgence is also offered to those, who, on the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary, or any date 'within the Octave, spend some time within a church and pray for the intention of the Holy Father. There is really no reason why every Catholic, cannot say his Rosary every day. It may be done at odd moments, on the way to or from work, while waiting for a car or a meal, thus utilising some of the .numerous and valuable moments we so easily and frequently waste. But in the month of October particularly all should make an especial effort to recite it either in company with others, or privately, as a testimony to our faith and as a. stimulus to our devotion to Christ and His Blessed Mother. ' It is a sure mark of salvation to love the Rosary and to say it often, for no true lover of Mary can continuously offend her Son, and she will ever cast her mantle of protection around those who are devoted to her. Catholic tradition and usage have idealised in the Rosary, all the sentiments of love and veneration for the Virgin Mother; a neglect, in this mode of prayer inevitably weakens the zeal in all other devotions. God alone knows how deep and vital a part the Rosary i plays in Catholic thought and action, I Messcnaer.ot the Frccinus- Blond.