Oct 7 Mon
Today is Our Lady of the Rosary. The praying of the Rosary is pleasing to our heavenly Mother. It truly reaches her heart, as we see from the many graces Christians received when they recited this prayer.
Your rosary is like a ladder that you climb, step by step, drawing closer to our Lady, which means finding Christ. Through Mary, the rosary leads us to Christ. Christ is the goal of this long, repeated invocation to Mary. We speak to Mary to reach Christ. She is our Lord's Mother and brought him into the world. And she brings us to Him if we are devoted to her.
The rosary consists of vocal prayer, and meditation on the mysteries. It requires explicit attention, since it not only involves an elevation of our soul to God but also reflection upon the realities contemplated, to draw out consequences for our life and nourishment for our piety.
Though, indeed, we always say the same things in the rosary, don't people in love always say the same things to each other...? We contemplate our Lord's life and that of his holy Mother in the mysteries of the rosary.
In our meditation, “We look at Him and know that He is looking at us. At other times we will consider God's greatness and our littleness. Still other times we tell Him, in detail, things that He knows so well, things which may and even ought to overwhelm us, things that are for his glory and not for our interest since He is more concerned about them than we are."
St. Josemaría gave some general guidelines to meditate on the mysteries: “It's a matter of saying ten aspirations, one for each mystery, preferably five in the morning and five in the afternoon. A brief consideration of each mystery is enough. This will give rise to some internal words in our hearts: some words from Scripture, an aspiration we know, or anything else that comes to our mind and heart at that moment. It doesn't matter if it's always the same. What's important is that we pray briefly each day about the mysteries of the rosary."
Contemplation of the mysteries is what gives life to the rosary. “The holy Rosary is like a handshake, a greeting. The strength of the handshake depends upon the affection one has for the other person," said St. Josemaría. Though the external gesture is always the same, the meaning differs. With the same words, each tells our Lady his most intimate thoughts and expresses his personal, child-like affection.
The rosary is a brief but light-filled contemplation of the life of our Lord and our Lady; a contemplation that is always very personal. In it, “We share in the holy family conversation. We see the Messiah growing up. We admire his thirty years of hidden life. We are present at his Passion and Death. We become amazed at the glory of His Resurrection. In a word: carried away by Love (the only real love is Love), we contemplate every moment of the life of Christ."
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