The Rosary: Mary's Scrapbook

From the Catholic Liturgy for the 27^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 8, 2017.  Phil 4:6-9. Theme: The Rosary: Mary’s Scrapbook.

·       Hurricanes Harvey in Texas, Nate in Florida, and Maria in Puerto Rico.

·       Fatal earthquakes in Mexico, Italy and China.

·       Massacres in Las Vegas. Terrorist attacks in Paris and London.

·       Persecution, murder and exile of Christians from their homes in the Middle East.

·       Violence in schools, in churches, in workplaces and homes.

·       Governments and judges seeking to exile God from the laws of the land.

·       Universities and Schools turning their backs on truth and justice for the sake of political correctness.

Sadly, this list is incomplete and tragically this list goes on and on…and unfortunately our daily media turns these things into hours long entertainment making it difficult to avoid the barrage of sin and suffering in the world.

In today’s second reading from his Epistle to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul tells us to have no anxiety but bring everything to God in prayer and petition, to make our requests known to God and then we will have peace of heart and mind.  He tells us that instead of being focused on the negatives, we should think about things that are good, wholesome, noble, lovely and honorable.  This is excellent advice and we Catholics have had a great way combining good and holy thoughts with intercessory prayer and petition for over 1,000 years: The Rosary of Our Lady.

Yesterday was the feast of Mary under her title of Our Lady of the Rosary and today is celebrated in many places as Rosary Sunday. So, I think that today is an excellent time for us to take a quick look at this prayer which has become such a powerful devotion and symbol of Catholicism.

There are many ways to explain and think about the Rosary, but one of my favorite is to call it “Mary’s Scrapbook”.  We are the family of God and every family has its treasured memories, often put together in a hardcopy or digital scrapbook.  It allows us to never forget and always remember the highlights of our family history. That’s what the rosary is for us Christians. And Mary our Mother opens it for us to see. Our church-family scrapbook is all about the life, death and glory of our eldest brother, Jesus, seen from the eyes and experiences of our Mother Mary.

Just as people sit down and chat, sharing stories as they look at the photos in a scrapbook, we too combine words and images in the devotion of the rosary. The words we use in our prayers are powerful because they come directly from the Word of God.  Each decade (group of 10 beads) begins with the prayer that Jesus himself taught us, the Our Father. Then we move on to recite the Hail Marys, a prayer that is basically made up of two verses from the Gospel of St. Luke. Finally we end each decade with the Glory Be, a prayer of praise and worship to the Blessed Trinity, such as St. Paul used in closing almost all his Epistles.

But the vocal prayers, important as they are, are just the skeleton of the rosary. The real heart and soul of it is in the thinking, the remembering.  To help us do this our rosary scrapbook is divided into four sections which we call Mysteries: The Joyful Mysteries that remember the birth and childhood of Jesus; the Luminous Mysteries that recall His public ministry; the Sorrowful Mysteries in which we mourn with Mary over his arrest, torture and death; and finally, the Glorious Mysteries which proclaim his victory and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

The spiritual power of the rosary lies in this combination of pondering the mysteries while presenting our petitions to God in prayer. It places before us the life of Jesus, over and over again. It teaches us how to become like Jesus. It shows us how to love like Jesus. It strengthens us in the living presence of the Risen Jesus among us.  Little by little it transforms those who recite it faithfully into people of prayer, people who do as St. Paul says and bring all their needs and anxieties to the Lord.

In addition to the personal blessings of praying the rosary, there are social benefits as well. There have been many astounding and unexplainable documented changes in historical and political events in the past 1,000 years after large groups of people united to pray the rosary as a powerful spiritual weapon in our war with sin, suffering and evil.  And don’t we need this so badly today?  I pray it daily and I hope many of you do, or plan to do, the same. We need it. Our world needs it.