CATECHESIS BY ROSARY

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by Brother John M. Samaha, S.M.

At Fatima, as at Lourdes before, Our Lady prayed the rosary with the seers and taught them how to do so devoutly.

          Consider the rosary as a catechetical tool.  This thought arises from many bishops and lay catechists and all the religious and lay educator groups in between.

          Religious educators and parents often comment that many today – youth and adults – are lacking in Christian formation.  A certain religious illiteracy has infiltrated the family, school, and society in general.  Children especially lack a strong basic understanding of fundamentals of our faith and of how to pray.  The challenge is clear for catechists at all age levels.  In addition, we must remember that faith and virtue are caught more than taught.  We must model what we teach.  We must echo Christ; resound faith, hope, and charity by walking the talk.

          Catechists and parents often seek new methods, programs, and books of religious instruction, and we are at a loss for knowing any.  But one sure-fired and time-tested method is centuries old, tried and true, and easy to handle – the rosary.

          If youngsters and adults learn the rosary, they are learning the basics of the Christian faith as well as learning how to pray.  They would know from memory the Apostles’ Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be – the latter three lifted literally from the Gospel.  By praying the rosary they would be reviewing the fundamental truths handed on by Jesus and practicing the art of praying.  By teaching the rosary we help others to learn that prayer is simple, Biblical, done in union with our Mother Mary, and leads us to become absorbed in the mysteries of the life of Christ and of salvation history.

          To know how to pray the twenty mysteries of the rosary means that we know the basics about the life of Jesus and his teachings – his life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension; the meaning of Jesus’ Incarnation and Redemption.  This challenges us to ponder what these mysteries mean for us today.   In reality the rosary is a compendium of the Gospel; it is the Gospel strung on beads.

          The rosary is not a panacea; it does not solve all the challenges of catechesis and faith formation.  But it is one effective catechetical tool for teaching and praying.  In the past noted saints and teachers have utilized it successfully.  It worked for St. Dominic and his companions in combating the Albigensian heresy in his day.

          Let’s try again.

Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary with Excerpts from Pope Leo XIII's Encyclicals on the Rosary

"Battle of Lepanto"

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...it is clearly evident that this form of prayer is particularly pleasing to the Blessed Virgin, and that it is especially suitable as a means of defence for the Church and all Christians..." - Pope Leo XIII

Today we commemorate the triumphal victory in the Battle of Lepanto, thanks to the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Rosary Madonna Fresco detail

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Battle of Lepanto


On October 7, 1571, a great victory over the mighty Turkish fleet was won by Catholic naval forces primarily from Spain, Venice, and Genoa under the command of Don Juan of Austria. It was the last battle at sea between "oared" ships, which featured the most powerful navy in the world, a Moslem force with between 12,000 to 15,000 Christian slaves as rowers. The patchwork team of Catholic ships was powered by the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary.


Knowing that the Christian forces were at a distinct material disadvantage, the holy pontiff, St. Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory. We know today that the victory was decisive, prevented the Islamic invasion of Europe, and evidenced the Hand of God working through Our Lady. At the hour of victory, St. Pope Pius V, who was hundreds of miles away at the Vatican, is said to have gotten up from a meeting, went over to a window, and exclaimed with supernatural radiance: "The Christian fleet is victorious!" and shed tears of thanksgiving to God.

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"Legend of the Rosary of St. Dominic by Geergen tot Sin Jans

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Even before that time, prayers to the Rosary were instrumental in defeating heresies and other enemies of the Church.

"...who will not remember how great trouble and grief God's Holy Church suffered from the Albigensian heretics, who sprung from the sect of the later Manicheans, and who filled the South of France and other portions of the Latin world with their pernicious errors, and carrying everywhere the terror of their arms, strove far and wide to rule by massacre and ruin. Our merciful God, as you know, raised up against these most direful enemies a most holy man, the illustrious parent and founder of the Dominican Order. Great in the integrity of his doctrine, in his example of virtue, and by his apostolic labours, he proceeded undauntedly to attack the enemies of the Catholic Church, not by force of arms; but trusting wholly to that devotion which he was the first to institute under the name of the Holy Rosary, which was disseminated through the length and breadth of the earth by him and his pupils. Guided, in fact, by divine inspiration and grace, he foresaw that this devotion, like a most powerful warlike weapon, would be the means of putting the enemy to flight, and of confounding their audacity and mad impiety. Such was indeed its result. Thanks to this new method of prayer-when adopted and properly carried out as instituted by the Holy Father St. Dominic-piety, faith, and union began to return, and the projects and devices of the heretics to fall to pieces. Many wanderers also returned to the way of salvation, and the wrath of the impious was restrained by the arms of those Catholics who had determined to repel their violence..."

"The Celebration of the Rosary" by Albrecht Dürer

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Source: Pope Leo XIII's Supremi Apostolatus Officio


In his encyclical Supremi Apostolatus Officio, Pope Leo XIII also shared what his predecessors had to say about the Holy Rosary:

- Urban IV: "every day the Rosary obtained fresh boon for Christianity."
- Sixtus IV: "redounded to the honour of God and the Blessed Virgin, and was well suited to obviate impending dangers;"
- Leo X: "it was instituted to oppose pernicious heresiarchs and heresies;"
- Julius III: "the glory of the Church."
- St. Pius V: "with the spread of this devotion the meditations of the faithful have begun to be more inflamed, their prayers more fervent, and they have suddenly become different men; the darkness of heresy has been dissipated, and the light of Catholic faith has broken forth again."
- Gregory XIII: "the Rosary had been instituted by St. Dominic to appease the anger of God and to implore the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary."

"Institution of the Holy Rosary" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

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Pope Leo XIII wrote another encyclical on the Rosary the year following the first one. In it he wrote:

"In as much as the enemies of Christianity are so stubborn in their aims, its defenders must be equally staunch, especially as the heavenly help and the benefits which are bestowed on us by God are the more usually the fruits of our perseverance..."


"...Care must be taken, therefore, that, in these times of mourning for the Church, the most holy devotion of the Rosary of Mary be assiduously and piously observed, the more so that this method of prayer being so arranged as to recall in turn all the mysteries of our salvation, is eminently fitted to foster the spirit of piety...."


"With respect to Italy, it is now most necessary to implore the intercession of the most powerful Virgin through the medium of the Rosary, since a misfortune, and not an imaginary one, is threatening-nay, rather is among us..."

He also clearly stated how the Church was to observe and commemorate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary in his encyclical Superior Anno.

"...We therefore decree and make order that from the 1st of October to the 2nd of November following in all the parish churches [curialibus templis], in all public churches dedicated to the Mother of God, or in such as are appointed by the Ordinary, five decades at least of the Rosary be recited, together with the Litany..."

Please sure to read it in its entirety!

"...Now, to appease the might of an outraged God and to bring that health of soul so needed by those who are sorely afflicted, there is nothing better than devout and persevering prayer, provided it be joined with a love for and practice of Christian life. And both of these, the spirit of prayer and the practice of Christian life, are best attained through the devotion of the Rosary of Mary..."

- Pope Leo XIII's Magnae Dei Matris

"...For We are convinced that the Rosary, if devoutly used, is bound to benefit not only the individual but society at large..." 

The Holy Father also wrote a beautiful fourth encyclical on the Rosary entitled Laetitiae Sanctae or Sacred Joy.

The Month of October: Dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary

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Meditation on the Rosary

"Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God. We should PRAY the Rosary rather than say it. Counting prayers on beads was in vogue before St. Dominic's time. When Mary gave the Rosary to him,t he new thing added was meditation on the mysteries. This method of teaching the mysteries of religion produces in souls the life of Christ.

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Contemplation of the Christian ideal is to be followed by action, or Christian living. Jesus and Mary want you to join them each day to SHARE THEIR JOYS, SORROWS, and GLORIES.

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First of all it is necessary to UNDERSTAND the mysteries and to have a clear picture of them in mind...

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Here is a suggestion. Put yourself in the place of Jesus or Mary and live the mysteries with them. Be either on actor or a sympathetic spectator. For example, in the scene of the Annunciation imagine that you are present and listening to Mary and the Angel talking together. Or imagine that you are the Angel Gabriel sent by God to announce to the Blessed Virgin that she is to be the Mother of His Son. Then silently receive her message and bear it back to God.

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Or again, at the third joyful mystery imagine that you are one of the shepherds adoring the newborn Babe in the stable of Bethlehem. At the third sorrow mystery feel that you are one of the soldiers forcing the crown of thorns into the Head of Christ by your many sins.

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A sincere effort to meditate, even if the effort fails, suffices to gain the indulgences...

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A little practice will lead to satisfactory meditation. Much practice may lead to high contemplation.

Source: Booklet: The Rosary Crusade, by a Dominican Father

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary - A Red Rose - For Sinners

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary by Guido Reni

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POOR MEN AND WOMEN who are sinners, I, a greater sinner than you, wish to give to you this rose----a crimson one, because the Precious Blood of Our Lord has fallen upon it. Please God that it will bring true fragrance into your lives----but above all may it save you from the danger that you are in. Every day unbelievers and unrepentant sinners cry: "Let us crown ourselves with roses." [1] But our cry should be: "Let us crown ourselves with roses of the Most Holy Rosary."

How different are theirs from ours! Their roses are pleasures of the flesh, worldly honors and passing riches which wilt and decay in no time, but ours, which are the Our Father and Hail Mary which we have said devoutly over and over again and to which we have added good penitential acts, will never wilt or die and they will be just as exquisite thousands of years from now as they are today.

On the contrary, sinners' roses only look like roses, while in point of fact they are cruel thorns which prick them during life by giving them pangs of conscience, at their death they pierce them with bitter regret and, still worse, in eternity, they turn to burning shafts of anger and despair. But if our roses have thorns, they are the thorns of Jesus Christ Who changes them into roses. If our roses prick us, it is only for a short time----and only in order to cure the illness of sin and to save our souls.

So by all means we should eagerly crown ourselves with these roses from Heaven, and recite the entire Rosary every day, that is to say three Rosaries each of five decades which are like three little wreaths or crowns of flowers: and there are two reasons for doing this: First of all to honor the three crowns of Jesus and Mary----Jesus' crown of grace at the time of His incarnation, His crown of thorns during His passion and His crown of glory in Heaven, and of course the three-fold crown which the Most Blessed Trinity gave Mary in Heaven.

Secondly, we should do this so that we ourselves may receive three crowns from Jesus and Mary. The first is a crown of merit during our lifetime, the second, a crown of peace at our death, and the third, a crown of glory in Heaven.

If you say the Rosary faithfully until death, I do assure you that, in spite of the gravity of your sins "you shall receive a never fading crown of glory." [2] Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in Hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practise black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if----and mark well what I say----if you say the Holy Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.

In this book there are several stories of great sinners who were converted through the power of the Holy Rosary. Please read and meditate upon them.

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From The Secret of the Rosary by St. Luis De Montfort, Montfort Publications

Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary

"It could be said that each mystery of the Rosary, carefully meditated, sheds light on the mystery of man. "Cast your burden on the Lord and he will sustain you" (Ps. 55:23). To pray the rosary is to hand over our burdens to the merciful hearts of Christ and his Mother.

The rosary does indeed 'mark the rhythm of human life, bringing it into harmony with the 'rhythm' of God's own life, in the joyful communion of the Holy Trinity, our life's destiny and deepest longing.

Through the rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer." - Venerable John Paul II.

- from October 2010 The Magnificat

Our Lady of Victories

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Lepanto

by G.K.Chesterton

White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary

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Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,

Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,

Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,

The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,

The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,

That once went singing southward when all the world was young.

In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,

Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,

Don John of Austria is going to the war,

Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold

In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,

Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,

Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,

Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,

Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Love-light of Spain--hurrah!

Death-light of Africa!

Don John of Austria

Is riding to the sea.

Pope Pius V's Vision of the Victory at Lepanto
by Lazzaro Baldi

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Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,

His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.

He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,

And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring

Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.

Giants and the Genii,

Multiplex of wing and eye,

Whose strong obedience broke the sky

When Solomon was king.

Pope Pius V Credits Our Lady of the Rosary with the Victory at the Battle of Lepanto
by Grazio Cossali

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They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,

From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;

They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea

Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,

On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,

Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;

They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,--

They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.

And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,

And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,

And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,

For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,

Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know

The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago:

It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,

Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

Sudden and still--hurrah!

Bolt from Iberia!

Don John of Austria

Is gone by Alcalar.

Our Lady of the Rosary

St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north

(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)

Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift

And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;

The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,--

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse

Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,

Trumpet that sayeth ha!

    Domino gloria!

Don John of Austria

Is shouting to the ships.

Madonna of the Rosary

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck

(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)

The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,

And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.

He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,

He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,

And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey

Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,

And death is in the phial and the end of noble work,

But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed--

Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!

Gun upon gun, hurrah!

Don John of Austria

Has loosed the cannonade. 

Our Lady of Victories

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The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,

(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)

The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year,

The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea

The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;

They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,

They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;

And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,

And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,

Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines

Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung

The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.

They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on

Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell

Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,

And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign--

(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,

Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,

Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,

Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,

Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea

White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty. 

Our Lady of Victories

Vivat Hispania!

Domino Gloria!

Don John of Austria

Has set his people free! 

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary

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Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,

Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

 

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Our Lady of the Holy Rosary - O Queen of Peace

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"O Queen of Peace, it is you who have placed the Rosary in our hands. It is you who bid us to recite it daily. By the power of the Family Rosary, we beseech you to obtain peace for us - peace within our hearts, our homes, our country and throughout the world. Through the daily recitation of the family Rosary we beg you to keep sin from our souls, enmities from our hearts and war from our shores. By the graces received from the devotion of the Family Rosary we pray to be made helpful to one another in following the paths of virtue so that we may be found worthy to be called children of your family, children of your home. Amen." - Cardinal Spellman

The Prayer Book, Catholic Press

Our Lady of the Rosary - O Queen of Homes

"O Queen of Homes by the power of the Rosary we beseech you to embrace all the members of our family in the love of your Immaculate Heart.  May you abide with us and we with you, praying to you while you pray for us. May you preside in our homes as once you did at Nazareth with Jesus and Joseph, filling them with the holiness of your presence and inspiration...." - Cardinal Spellman

The Prayer Book, Catholic Press

To the Queen of the Holy Rosary

Queen of the most holy Rosary, in these time of such brazen impiety, manifest thy power with the signs of thine ancient victories, and from thy throne, whence thou dost dispense pardon and graces, mercifully regard the Church of thy Son, His Vicar on earth, and every order of clergy and laity, who are sore oppressed in the mighty conflict. Do thou, who art the powerful vanquisher of all heresies, hasten the hour of mercy, even though the hour of God's justice is every day provoked by the countless sins of men. For me who arm the least of men, kneeling before thee in supplication, do thou obtain the grace I need to live righteously upon earth and to reign among the just in heaven, the while in company with all faithful Christians throughout the world, I salute thee and acclaim thee as Queen of the most holy Rosary.

Queen of the most holy Rosary, pray for us.

- The Prayer Book, Catholic Press