The Rosary as a Prayer of Reparation

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 9 October 2010)

Dear brothers and sisters,

My sharing today on “The Rosary as a Prayer of Reparation” will focus on Our Lady’s messages given at her approved apparitions, with extracts and references from the Internet. Four of the apparitions featured the Rosary, amidst calls to unceasing prayer, penance and repentance.

(1) At Massabielle, near Lourdes in Southern France, Our Lady first appeared to St Bernadette Soubirous on 11^th Feb 1858 

(2) In Fatima, Portugal, to Francisco, Jacinta and Lucia in 1917

(3) In Akita, Japan, to Sr. Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa in 1973 and

(4) At Kibeho, Rwanda, to three high-school girls from late 1981 to 1983.

At Lourdes, Our Lady urgently called for penance. The rosary was prominently featured in the apparitions where St. Bernadette saw Our Lady took the rosary that she held in her hands and made the sign of the cross.

Similarly, the message of Fatima was also a call to conversion and repentance, echoing what our Saviour addressed to the whole of humanity in Mark 1:15.  (Rosary Center website: http://www.rosary-center.org/maryfatm.htm, downloaded 18 August 2010)  At Fatima, Our Lady specifically identified herself as “the Lady of the Rosary.”  Her message invites to repentance, gives a warning and calls to prayer, sacrifice and penance. She recommends the Rosary. She asked the children who saw her to say at least five decades of the Rosary and meditate on the mysteries every day, and to pray especially for peace, for poor sinners and for the Holy Father. We are to use our talents generously and make greater sacrifices for God’s greater glory and honour, especially if we have been given much by God, for Luke 12:48 says –“ From every one who has been given much, much will be required.” Our Lady of Fatima calls for  the penance of each person ‘fulfilling his or her daily duty well, obeying God’s laws, avoiding the near occasions of sin and acting in accordance with His will in all things.’ (The Fatima Network website: http://fatima.org/essentials/message/msgtoindivis.asp, downloaded 5 Oct 2009). The love and care of the Saviour’s Mother reaches out and extends to every individual of our time and to all societies, nations and peoples; societies menaced by apostasy, threatened by moral degradation. Collapse of morality brings about the collapse of societies e.g. the rising rate of divorces, adultery, promiscuity, abortions, murders and other crimes and offences. (Rosary Center website: http://www.rosary-center.org/maryfatm.htm, downloaded 18 August 2010) 

“The present state of the world attests to the fact that most individuals have chosen to ignore the requests of Our Lady of Fatima: wars rage the world over, the Church is in a state of crisis, apostasy is almost everywhere, millions of the innocent unborn are murdered every year.” (The Fatima Network website: http://fatima.org/essentials/message/msgtoindivis.asp, downloaded 5 Oct 2009)

At Akita, Japan, Our Lady told Sr. Agnes to pray in reparation for the sins of men and to pray very much for the Pope, Bishops, and Priests. Our Lady wished, with her Son our Lord Jesus Christ, that souls who by their suffering and their poverty will repair the afflictions and outrages against the Lord by sinners and ingrates. Prayer, penance and courageous sacrifices can soften the Father’s anger.  Prayer is necessary even in a secular institute. Each day the prayers of the Rosary very much need to be recited, for oneself and for the Pope, the bishops and priests. Mother Mary has asked us to trust in her powerful intercession. (Eternal World Television Network website: http://www.ewtn.com/library/mary/akita.htm, downloaded 5 October 2009)

In Kibeho, Rwanda, Our Lady lamented, “The world has become deaf and cannot hear the truth of the Word." She stressed on the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows as a means to obtain the grace for true repentance (Anderson, 29 Jan 2009). One of the seers, Marie Claire kept saying:  “One must meditate on the Passion of Jesus, and on the deep sorrows of His Mother. One must recite the Rosary every day, and also the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, to obtain the favour of repentance.” (Tardif, 2001 as cited in the Michael website: http://www.michaeljournal.org/kibeho.htm, downloaded 9 Oct 2010)

On a final note, sin has thus set itself firmly in the world; denial of God has become widespread in the ideologies, ideas and plans of human beings. For this very reason, the evangelical call to repentance and conversion, uttered in the Mother’s messages remains ever relevant.  It is still as relevant as it was in 1858, 1917, 1973, or early 1980s. IT IS EVEN MORE URGENT. Our Blessed Mother, through her apparitions, has invited us to a conversion of heart through praying the Rosary. She has never failed those who turn to her maternal intercession. We all know the world is really in need of conversion and healing. Let us pray the Rosary, offering with it, all our sufferings, in union with Christ her Son, asking Him to accept our humble offering and make it part of His redemptive mission in our world".

The Rosary as an Intercessory Prayer

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 2 October 2010)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Next Thursday, 7 October, the Church celebrates the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary. It is the anniversary of the Christian’s victory in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, two years after Pope St. Pius V officially approved the Rosary. The Church celebrates it not only to commemorate the victory, but also to thank God for His providence and remember the powerful intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The Ottoman Turks were ravaging Eastern Europe then. If they succeeded in raiding the coast of Italy, they would gain control of the Mediterranean, and possibly invade Rome. As the Christian’s Holy League prepared for battle to stem this, Pope St. Pius V asked that the Rosary be recited publicly throughout Europe, for Our Lady’s intercession for victory. On the day of the battle, members of the Confraternity of the Rosary in Rome processed praying the Rosary (Feeney, downloaded 2 Oct 2009). Although outnumbered, the Christians won the battle miraculously in just a few hours.

While historians see it as a major battle of minor significance, the victory was a religious triumph to the Christians, and a psychological boost to the European world – the seemingly unbeatable Turks were beaten.

Closer to us, exactly 75 years after that, another celebration due to the intercession of Our Lady through the Rosary took place. It was the Feast of La Naval de Manila, first celebrated on 8 October 1646 in Manila. It marked the victory of the Spanish and Filipino Catholic forces against the invasion of the Dutch in 1646.

In the Battles of La Naval, the joint Filipino-Spanish forces had only two aged and ill-equipped Spanish warships to fight against the Dutch fleet that arrived in Manila. Remembering Lepanto, and as advised by the Dominican friars, the sailors prayed the Holy Rosary before each encounter with the Dutch between 15 March and 4 October. (Manila Bulletin, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009) They recited it in alternating choruses on the bridges of the two ships (Faroni and Crisostomo, 2006). Finally, the Dutch fleet gave up and left the country (Manila Bulletin, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009). In thanksgiving, the Spanish church leaders declared the first celebration of the feast in honour of Our Lady of the Rosary. Every year since then, on the second Sunday of October, there is a procession from Manila to Quezon City (Manila Bulletin, 2008). According to Fr. Marie-Dominic, as cited by Fr. Faroni and Crisostomo (2006), this victory was important because it saved Catholicism in Asia; had the Protestant Dutch won, Christendom might have been destroyed as in Sri Lanka when they conquered it in 1657.

Dear brothers and sisters, these are just two of many true and significant examples of how powerful the Rosary is. Fr. Faroni and Crisostomo wrote in “The Five Warnings” that even greater victories were won through the Rosary in the 20^th century, especially against the apostate forces of Freemasonry and Communism.

The intercessory nature of the Rosary is evident by the invocation to our Holy Mother to “pray for us, sinners, now and at the hour of our death”. St. James wrote in the Bible, “…the fervent prayer of a righteous man is very powerful.” What more the prayer of our Blessed Mother, who was sinless and Jesus’ most perfect disciple, and now living with God in heaven?

In the Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II wrote that in the Rosary, we pray to Christ with Mary. He wrote, “If Jesus, the one Mediator, is the Way of our prayer, then Mary, his purest and most transparent reflection, shows us the Way.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2679) says, “The prayer of the Church is sustained by the prayer of Mary”. As at the wedding of Cana, Mary makes our needs known to Jesus. Thus Mary, sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, fulfils her role as the Queen Mother of the Church, who prays with us and for us before the Father and the Son. (Pope JPII, 2002) And we know, that never was it known, that anyone who sought her intercession was left unaided.

Pope JPII further wrote, “To pray the Rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother”, for the psalmist says (Ps. 55:23), “Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you”.

Do we not hear of despair nowadays? Can our problems be too difficult for God? Accompanied by our Blessed Mother, we dare to go before Him and plead unceasingly. Praying the Rosary is the best way to do so.

References:

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Faroni & Crisostomo. 2006. The Five Warnings.

Feeney, R. n.d. St. Dominic & The Rosary. Downloaded on 2 October 2009 from the Catholic-pages.com website: http://www.catholic-pages.com/prayers/rosary_dominic.asp

John Paul II. 2002. Apostolic Letter: Rosarium Virginis Mariae.

Manila Bulletin (via Highbeam Research)

The Benefits of Praying the Rosary

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 25 September 2010)

My Dear Friends,

Today’s sharing is on “The Benefits of the Rosary Prayer”, and I would like to begin by sharing with you a short story…

Once, there was a boy who was living in a small hut with his mother. They were poor and had no electricity to light up their home. All they had were candles and oil lamps.

One night, it was raining heavily and the wind was strong. Their poorly lit home became dimmer as gushes wind pounded through the only few candles and oil lamps which illuminated their room.

One after another, the faint flickers of fire burning at the candles were blown off. But the oil lamps continued burning and emitting light without being affected by the gale-force wind, unlike the candles.

In an excitement, the boy asked his mother, "Mummy, mummy, why doesn’t the fire in oil lamps get blown off like the candles?”

The boy’s mother replied, "Son, that’s because the fires burning in the oil lamps are shielded by the glass. No strong wind can blow off the fire unless the oil runs out. ”

The boy smiled at his mother’s explanation. Smartly, he added, "…and, Mummy, the oil lamp is brighter because it has a piece of reflector at the bottom which helps magnify the brightness from the fire.”

My Dear Friends,

Praying is like fuel to the fire. The more we pray, the stronger the fire gets.

But, it is not enough to pray on our own. Like the candle whose fire gets blown-off when winds are strong, life’s challenges and temptations to our faith can sometimes derail us.

We need a “shield” to protect us from such agents which dent our prayer lives. We also need a reflector to magnify the “fire” of our prayers. In other words, we need a lamp, rather than a candle.

Praying the Rosary is like the lamp in the story of the boy above:

· Praying the Rosary shields us from temptations and hurts by the evil    one.

· Praying the Rosary also magnifies our prayers, for we are not alone. But rather, Mother Mary is there to pray with us and for us. The more we pray, the stronger the ‘fire’ will be and the brighter the lamp will shine as the ‘reflector’ works as strong as the burning fire.

God will always grant our request if it is beneficial for our soul, and Our Lady will only intercede for us when our request is good for our salvation. (Lumen Gentium chapter VIII - Our Lady)

As revealed to St. Dominic and Blessed Alan de la Roche, Our Lady has given 15 Promises for Praying

the Rosary. They are, in short:

· Special Graces

· Special Protection

· Armour against hell

· Sanctification of souls

· Not perish

· Not be conquered by misfortune

· Sacraments

· Light of God

· Deliverance from purgatory

· Glory in Heaven

· Answer to Prayers

· Help in necessities

· Communion of Saints

· Promise of a Holy Family

· Salvation

In Philippians 4:6, the Bible tells us “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God…”

Praying the Rosary is a good start as Our Lady is there to constantly shield us and magnify our intentions, like the oil-lamp protecting the fire inside.

Editorial note: The 15 promises do not amount to a "Get out of gaol free" card. However, these promises make the connexion between what we believe and how we ought to live. This means that by faithfully and devoutly praying the Rosary, Our Lady will obtain for us the necessary graces contained in the said promises. It is still up to each individual soul to respond to those graces in order to obtain salvation. 

Meditating on the Mysteries of the Rosary

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 11 Sept 2010)

Last week’s sharing was an introduction to our series of sharings about the Rosary. Today we begin with the beautiful way of praying the Rosary which perhaps some of you are not aware of, which is meditating on the mysteries as reminded to us by St Ignatius of Loyola. This is compiled from an article by Fr Albert Shamon and other sources.

One of the greatest objections to the Rosary is because it is all about thinking. Some will say, “I don’t like to think.” Or “I can’t concentrate on the mysteries.” “My mind will wander off whenever I pray the Rosary, that’s why I quit saying the Rosary.”
 

The trouble here may be that too often, we try to intellectualise the mysteries. We peer into them to extract lessons from them. Rather, St Ignatius said that we should just look at the mysteries of the Rosary imagining we are looking at the scenes of Our Lord’s life, like watching a movie.

 

For example, when you watch a movie, you just look and normally don’t think of how the story applies to you. Later, a friend may ask how you liked it. As you gave your answer, you were unconsciously analysing the picture, without even being aware of it. You were able to draw conclusions about the movie just by looking at it.

So too in the Rosary, just look at the scenes of Our Lord’s life with Our lady for the length of 10 Hail Marys. Like a movie, they will begin to say something to you without your having to do anything but look. While you are looking at the scenes, God is working in your heart.

Let us take an example. Let us meditate on the 5^th Joyful Mystery: the finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple…

Are you ready? Ok, we begin: Hail Mary full of grace…. (say as if the Hail Mary is being recited in the background)

The first thought that comes to my mind is the scene of the Child Jesus, 12 years old, walking with Mary and Joseph to the temple in Jerusalem at the feast of the Passover.

Jesus, too, prayed. He said His life was all for His Heavenly Father.

After the Feast was over, everyone returned to their homes, but Jesus remained in Jerusalem. He was discussing with the doctors of the Law, who wondered at His wisdom.

Meanwhile, Mary and Joseph went on their journey home separately. To their horror, they realised that Jesus was not with either of them at the end of the first day.

They went looking for him among relatives and friends but to no avail. Finally, they went back to the temple and were so relieved to find Him there.

Mary approached Jesus and asked Him why He did this. When Jesus replied that He must be about His Father’s business, she didn’t understand, but kept it in her heart.

Wow! Before we can go on to finish the story, we have finished the 10 Hail Marys.

If you just look, almost leisurely, at the scenes of Our Lord’s life, you will reap fruit you never expected. For our sights, God will give us insight.

The 10 Hail Marys are like background music while you are watching Our Lord’s life. Background music helps us when reading or working. We don’t pay much attention to the music, but it helps us. So in praying the Hail Marys, you don’t pay much attention to them; they are the background music to help us contemplate the mysteries of Our Lord’s life.

Having understood or refreshed with this Ignatian method of praying the Rosary, I’m sure you will look forward to next week, when you will hear about how this prayer came about.

The Holy Rosary

(Sharing at the Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help on 4 Sept 2010)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Next Wednesday will be the birthday of Mother Mary. Have you ever thought of what gift to give her this time? Don’t forget, our Blessed Mother is also a queen.

If flowers are for the feminine,
Carnations for mothers we’ve reserved.
If the queen deserves the flower queen,
What would the Queen Mother deserve?
A crown of roses, no less; the Rosary!

Every time we devoutly pray five decades of the Rosary, we weave a little crown of heavenly roses for Jesus and Mary, so St. Louis de Montfort wrote in The Secret of the Rosary. This means contemplating on the mysteries of the life, death and glory of Jesus Christ and of His Blessed Mother as we pray, for the Rosary without contemplation is like a body without its soul. A complete Rosary of 15 or 20 mysteries makes a large crown of roses.

Yes, a crown of roses, the queen of flowers, is most fitting a gift to our Blessed Mother, the Queen Mother. How do we know?

The Rosary is Our Lady’s favourite prayer. At Fatima, she called herself the “Lady of the Rosary”. In her many apparitions, notably at Fatima, Lourdes and Akita, she implored mankind to pray the Rosary as penance to appease the wrath of God. In praying the Rosary, which is made up of two divine parts: the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, we honour the most Blessed Trinity, Jesus Christ our Saviour and His most holy Mother. As St. Louis de Montfort pointed out, could there be any prayer more pleasing to God and also to Our Lady, since she would only desire what pleases God?

As a birthday gift aside, why pray the Rosary? Concisely, besides honouring God and Mother Mary, it is to live a holy life, die a happy death and gain happy eternity. Pope John XXIII said that “the Rosary is a magnificent and universal prayer for the needs of the Church, the nations and the entire world.” In these times when evil, sin and despair seem to reign, the Rosary is very relevant. Besides, praying the Rosary lessens the sufferings of souls in Purgatory.

Even before the grace-filled Year for Priests ended, the Church was confronted with scandals involving her priests. Clearly, the “enemy” is very displeased, as Pope Benedict XVI said in his homily at the close of the special Year. Hence, the end of the Year for Priests calls for even more prayers to combat the increased attack by the “enemy”. What better prayer than the Rosary, to implore the intercession of Our Lady, who has a special love for her Son’s priests? Thus, in the next few months we will expound on the Rosary which, St. Louis de Montfort wrote, is the rose of all devotions and the most important of all.

In answer to the scandals, each of us is called to holiness to show forth the true face of Christ to the world. And the surest way to holiness is through the Rosary prayer. In his Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Pope John Paul II wrote that it is a genuine “training in holiness”, in the school of Mary. In praying the Rosary, we contemplate Christ through her who was closest to Him. Ultimately, it helps us answer our Christian call to be conformed to Christ.

Being a powerful weapon against Satan, you can be sure that he increases his attacks on those who pray the Rosary. No wonder one needs more devotion to persevere in praying the Rosary than any other prayer. We will share on ways to overcome difficulties in saying this powerful prayer.

Indeed, many popes and saints have attributed great merits to the Rosary. How can it be otherwise? We will rebut the claims of those who oppose the Rosary, as well as share on Our Lady’s messages in approved apparitions.

As our parish journey towards our Golden Jubilee, it is appropriate that we seek the help of our Blessed Mother to help us remain faithful to Christ as Church. After all, she was His most faithful Disciple. And the best way to follow our Mother is to kindle fervour in the Rosary devotion, by far the simplest and the surest way to Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

So don’t forget your gift of five decades of the Rosary next Wednesday, 8 September to our Blessed Mother. You are also invited to pray the Rosary with us at 5.20 p.m. here every Saturday. We hope to see you next week.