The Rosary*

(FIRST OF 2 PARTS)

*Excerpt from the pamphlet “Rosary, the Gospel Prayer” by Sr. Evangeline Canag, D.S.P. and a reprint from the souvenir program on the Solemn Dedication of the Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, New Washington, Aklan, August 16-17, 1984. 

The Rosary as a prayer is rich in history. It is a prayer that started at a time when heresy was leading many into error.

Given to St. Dominic by Our Lady, as an effective weapon against heresy and evil, during an apparition of the Blessed Virgin in 1206, it was the main reason why St. Dominic was successful in leading many people back to the church.

We are aware of the historical account on how the Mohammedan tide was repulsed 400 years ago in the battle of Lepanto, on October 7, 1571. One month before the great battle, Pope Pius V urged all Christians to pray the Rosary for the triumph of Christian forces. The same was true when the Spanish naval forces won the battle of Manila Bay against the Dutch in 1646. The Christians in Luzon were also urged to pray the Holy Rosary for the triumph of the Christian forces.

We are also aware of Our Lady’s apparitions at Lourdes and at Fatima. She asked, St. Bernadette to pray the Rosary and told the three young peasants at Fatima to do the same for the conversion of Russia. In both cases, Our Blessed Mother asked to pray the Rosary for a purpose.

But what is the Rosary? Pope Pius XVII, in his letter to the Archbishop of Manila in 1946, described this as a “compendium of the entire Gospel as it contains the substance of the essential elements of the Gospel”. Pope Paul VI said that the “Rosary draws from the Gospel the presentation of the mysteries and its main formula.

The prayer is an orderly and gradual unfolding of the word of God which mercifully enter into human affairs and brought about the redemption. The Rosary considers the harmonious succession of the principal salvific events accomplished in Christ from His virginal conception and the mystery of His birth to the culminating moments of the Passover – and to effects of this on the infant Christ; on the day of the Pentecost, and on the Virgin Mary when at the end of her earthly life, she was assumed body and soul, into her heavenly home.

When we pray the Rosary, we should contemplate the life of Jesus Christ as presented in the Gospel, and according to tradition, through the mysteries. The main objective of prayer and praise is God who did great things in Mary through her collaboration. Mary is not the goal of our prayer. It is Jesus Christ. So, even if the Rosary is often called “Mary’s Rosary”, in substance, its praise is directed to Jesus Christ.

“As a Gospel prayer centered on the mystery of the redemptive incarnation, the Rosary is a prayer with a clearly Christological orientation. Its most characteristic element, the litany-like succession of Hail Mary’s become in itself an unceasing praise of Christ, which 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 Marys 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 the mysteries proposes to us – the Son of God, the Son of the Virgin – at his birth in a stable at Bethlehem, at his presentation by his Mother in the Temple, as a youth full of zeal for the Father’s affairs, as the Redeemer in agony in the garden, carrying the cross and dying on Calvary; risen from the dead and ascended to the glory of the Father to send forth the gift of the Spirit. (to be continued next issue) /MP