20th Sunday after Pentecost 11.10.15 Rosary/Prayer
We have just celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary and October is a month dedicated to this prayer.
It is a powerful prayer which has been associated with significant military victories and other prayer campaigns.
Many are praying the Rosary in the light of the current Synod in Rome.
The Rosary leads us to focus on the life, death and resurrection of Christ, through and with Mary.
These events form the basis of all history, and all reality.
The coming of God into the world changes everything and forever.
When we pray the Rosary we are calling on the power of these events to work transformation in our midst; and to be transformed ourselves.
The more we bring ourselves into the light the more the powers of darkness are overcome.
It is a matter of perception. We would never sin if we could see God. Well, we cannot see Him, but we can perceive Him, through faith, prayer, and meditation.
The more we summon His presence the more likely we are to obey Him, and the more His good order will come into effect around us.
Even one person focusing on these mysteries will bring about a greater awareness of God and therefore enable His grace to act.
One person praying the Rosary can make a difference. Even better if many people are praying, and then the bigger objectives can be achieved. Like the conversion of Russia, the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart.
There is a humility and simplicity about the Rosary. Is it too simple? Not when we are getting back to the basics. We cannot do better than dwell on these basic truths, which do not change and do not lessen in force.
Just because we know the story we cannot think we have exhausted its power. If these things were ever true they are always true.
The presence of God grows stronger in proportion as we dare to call upon Him.
Every mystery we meditate is a deepening of our grasp on the truth of salvation.
In praying we are opening doors to grace. As St. John Vianney put it, prayer is like putting a snowball in the presence of a flame (so are our problems and anxieties when we come close to God).
To pray is to reverse completely the view we would otherwise have of the world. Unfortunately even we, who do pray, can feel overwhelmed by what we see around us.
The Rosary will keep us strong. It is not a great weapon in appearance. It is not a gun or a bomb. It would not frighten the armies of the world, not at first anyway.
Yet it invokes all the power of Heaven as we confront the power of evil.
Its power lies in its smallness. If we humble ourselves as Mary did, we are then empty vessels ready to receive the fullness of God.
Remember David’s weapons as he went into battle with Goliath? The less he took the more he was under God’s power.
As we go into spiritual battle we take nothing of ourselves but rely totally on the power of God.
The Rosary is our weapon, enabling us to draw on the humility of Mary. And she in turn brings us the presence of God.
She prays with us. She puts confidence and courage into us as we confront the host of problems on all sides.
We see the lack of faith, the immorality, the sacrilege, the apostasy... and then we see the majesty of God and His power sweeping all before it.
Let us work on this prayer, making sure we pray it each day, and take every chance to pray with others.
Good things will happen, if we do this.
No comments:
Post a Comment