Thursday, October 1, 2009

October: the month of the rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary

As with May, October is a month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially the rosary. I encourage everyone to pray the rosary everyday, beginning today with the Luminous mysteries



The Luminous mysteries draw attention to significant events in the life our Lord, specifically the

Baptism in the Jordan
The Wedding at Cana
Proclamation of the Kingdom
The Transfiguration
The Institution of the Eucharist

The Luminious mysteries were instituted on 16 October 2002 by the Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, among the many important things the late pontiff wrote about the rosary is his letter is this:

"To pray the Rosary for children, and even more, with children, training them from their earliest years to experience this daily 'pause for prayer' with the family, is admittedly not the solution to every problem, but it is a spiritual aid which should not be underestimated. It could be objected that the Rosary seems hardly suited to the taste of children and young people of today. But perhaps the objection is directed to an impoverished method of praying it. Furthermore, without prejudice to the Rosary's basic structure, there is nothing to stop children and young people from praying it – either within the family or in groups – with appropriate symbolic and practical aids to understanding and appreciation. Why not try it? With God's help, a pastoral approach to youth which is positive, impassioned and creative – as shown by the World Youth Days! – is capable of achieving quite remarkable results. If the Rosary is well presented, I am sure that young people will once more surprise adults by the way they make this prayer their own and recite it with the enthusiasm typical of their age group."

Today also marks the Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, a Doctor of the Church and our beloved Little Flower.

Veni Sancti Spiritus, veni per Mariam.

5 comments:

  1. May I ask for specific scripture references pertaining to the use of items in prayer?

    Or those pertaining to prayers to Mary?

    I would imagine that if they were so important to God, he would have mentioned them in the Bible someplace.

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  2. Hi Scott,
    You post in this regard on FB this morning has prompted my family to resurrect our family rosary for this month. Thanks. We needed that.

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  3. Baptism in the Jordan- Matt 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22;

    Miracle at Cana- John 2:1-11

    Proclamation of the Kingdom- pick any of the four Gospels, choose a place after his baptism, or, in the case of John, after his identification by the Baptist as "the Lamb of God" and before the Last Supper

    Transfiguration- Matt. 17:1-9; Mark 9:2-8; Luke 9:28-36

    Institution of the Euchrist-Luke 22:7-22; Mark 14:12-25; Matt 26:17-29

    In the first chapter Luke Mary is hailed by Gabriel as being "full of grace" (verses 26-28) and in her Magnificat, she declares "all generations will call me blessed" (verse 48).

    Marie, us too. We prayed a decade every hundred miles!

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  4. I really don't see any references to the use of items such as a rosary or "icons" in those verses, perhaps you could highlight?

    May I also have Biblical references to a prayer to Mary.

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  5. Son3, you may have noticed that this is not an apologetics blog. I do touch on apologetic issues from time-to-time, but I write from an unapologetically Catholic perspective. There are plenty of places on the internet for you to go if you want to have a sustained discussion about the role of Mary in the economy of salvation, which is indispensible.

    Beyond all this, you seem to have an impoverished view of revelation. Scripture and Tradition together make this up from one source. In The Catechism of the Catholic Church, we read: "'Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.' Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own 'always, to the close of the age'.

    ". . . two distinct modes of transmission.

    "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."

    "and [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching”
    (par. 80-81).

    Mary has been venerated from the very beginning of the church. As to the biblical basis of the church ancient devotion, in addition to the verses I gave you from Luke chapter one, I would also add John 19;26-27.

    It is also important not read Scripture two dimensionally.
    With all that, if you are genuinely interested in how we view the Blessed Virgin, I encourage you, again, to reference the Catechism, you can begin by reading paragraphs 484-507.

    I will end with what Bl. Teresa of Calcutta said of Mary when challenged about her effacious and on-going role in Christ's redemption of the world: "No Mary, no Jesus". To which I'll add Know Mary, know Jesus.

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