Glorifying the Trinity

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 23 October 2010)

Our sharing this week will be the first of two-parts on how praying the Rosary glorifies our worship of the Blessed Trinity  and our contemplation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Why is this necessary?

Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte  at the turn of the millenium, said that “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 as a genuine ‘training in holiness’.

What is needed is a Christian life distinguished above all in the art of prayer”.

It is more urgent than ever that our Christian communities should become “genuine schools of prayer”.

In the Apostolic letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae of Pope John Paul II, the Rosary, under guidance of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints.

Simple yet profound, it still remains, after two millenia of the spiritual journey of Christian life, a prayer of great significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness.

It has lost none of the freshness of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to “set out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in order once more to proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6).

To recite the Rosary is nothing other than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ.

Today we shall read into three of the Rosary prayers, the Apostles Creed, Our Father and Glory Be.

The Secret of the Rosary by St Louis de Montfort contains a beautiful explanation of the significance of the Rosary Prayers and is strongly recommended to improve our understanding of the importance of praying the Rosary.

The Creed or the Symbol of the Apostles is a holy summary of all Christian truths.

It is a prayer that has great merit because faith is the root, foundation and beginning of all Christian virtues, of all eternal virtues and also of all prayers that are pleasing to Almighty God.

"He that cometh to God, must believe...."

The first few words "I believe in God" are marvelously effective as a means of sanctifying our souls and of putting devils to rout, because these three words contain the acts of the three theological virtues of faith, hope and charity.

The holy Rosary contains the mysteries of Jesus.

Faith is the only key which opens up these mysteries for us.

We must begin the Rosary by saying the Creed very devoutly.

The stronger our faith the more merit our Rosary will have.

St Thomas Aquinas wrote in the Pange lingua in the 13th century that “Faith will tell us Christ is present when our human senses fail”, that is, “Faith alone suffices”.

To pray the rosary with strong and constant faith, good intention and charity, is to be in search of God’s grace.

After listening to the word and focusing on the mystery, it is natural for the mind to be lifted up towards the Father. In each of his mysteries, Jesus always leads us to the Father.

God the Father listens more willingly to the Prayer that we have learned from His Son rather than those of our own making which have all our human limitations.

The eternal father will hear it because it is the prayer of His Son whom He always hears and we are his members.

In John 1:18, Jesus rests in the Father's bosom and is continually turned towards him. Jesus wants us to share in his intimacy with the Father, so that we can say with him: “Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). 

By virtue of His relationship to the Father, Jesus makes us brothers and sisters of Himself and of one another, communicating to us the Spirit of Love for God and our neighbour, and heaven our homeland and heritage, freeing us from attachment to the things of this world.

The Our Father makes meditation upon the mystery an ecclesial experience.

Christian contemplation points towards Trinitarian doxology.  Christ is the way that leads us to the Father in the Spirit. If we travel this way to the end, we encounter the mystery of the three Divine persons, to whom all praise, worship and thanksgiving are due. The Gloria, the high point of contemplation, should be given due prominence in the Rosary.

The glorification of the Trinity at the end of each decade, far from being a perfunctory conclusion, takes on its proper contemplative tone, raising the mind as it were to the heights of heaven and enabling us in some way to relive the experience of Tabor, a foretaste of the contemplation yet to come: “It is good for us to be here!” (Lk 9:33).

Next week our sharing at the Novena to our Mother of Perpetual Help will continue the theme of exploring the Rosary prayers through the contemplation of Mary.