OCTOBER IS THE MONTH OF THE ROSARY 

 

 

By Bishop Robert W. Finn
Bishop of Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph
October 13, 2006

October is the month of the rosary, and a good moment for us to renew our commitment to use this rich prayer to better unite ourselves with the mysteries of the life of Jesus Christ and his Blessed Mother.

It has been four years now since the Holy Father Pope John Paul II issued his Apostolic Letter "On the Most Holy Rosary."  The late pope's great devotion to Mary was well known, and he spoke of the rosary as his favorite prayer.  In his 2002 letter, the Holy Father recommended the rosary as a contemplative prayer deeply rooted in the Sacred Scriptures.  He suggested that we turn to the Bible in the course of our recitation, reading a short or longer portion of God's Word that corresponds to the mystery we reflect on while saying the beautiful prayers, the "Our Father" and the "Hail Mary," which themselves are echoes of Gospel.  In this way we unite ourselves more completely not only with the power of the revealed Word, the Scriptures.  It also becomes more likely that we will find in this prayer a meaningful coincidence between the mysteries of Christ's life and the dynamics of our own daily spiritual mysteries.

As you recall, Pope John Paul's letter on the rosary also was the occasion through which he gave the church a new set of reflections or "Luminous Mysteries."  They correspond to significant moments in the savior's work:  the Baptism of the Lord; the Miracle of Christ at Cana, in which his divinity was manifest; the Announcement of the Kingdom of God and the Call to Repentance which began Jesus' public ministry; the Transfiguration; and the Institution of the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper.

In each of these events we see a "Mystery of Light" in which we gain a better insight into the person of Jesus Christ and the purpose of his earthly ministry.

Last Saturday, October 7, was the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.  I had the privilege of leading the faithful in a Rosary Rally in front of Our Lady of Perpetual Help (Redemptorist) Church.  The feast day has been celebrated in the church for more than 400 years.  It commemorates a naval battle at Lepanto which took place on October 7, 1571.  In the midst of the Turkish invasion of Europe, a massive fleet was poised to overrun a small group of ships representing Spain and Italy.

The Christian navy, entrusted with the protection of Christian Europe against this invasion, was outnumbered 15 - 1.  They relayed a frantic message to the saintly Pope Pius V to send help, but the pontiff did not have the materials resources.  He urged them and all Europe to pray the rosary and ask the intercession of the Blessed Mother. They did, and the invasion was somehow turned away.  Mary was hailed as "Our Lady of Victories," and "Our Lady of the Rosary."

Part of our spiritual effort to foster the protection of human life against the threat of human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research has been to ask the faithful throughout Missouri (and beyond!) to pray the rosary for the intention of the defeat of Amendment 2.  Those who do so are urged to "log in" to www.morosarycrusade.org .  It is certainly true that in the battle we face less than one month from now, on November 7, we are grossly outnumbered in terms of material resources.  The millions of dollars being spent freely by the proponents of this destructive research represents an amount probably 15-20 times that which we have been able to gather throughout the whole state.

But through her title, "Our Lady of the Rosary," we ask the intercession of our Blessed Mother to implore God for his supernatural help.  We pray that the Eternal Father will enlighten minds and change hearts, and in ways of his own choosing, that he will use us to assist in the protection of human life.  May Mary, and also our great protector and patron St. Joseph, assist us in this effort.

Let us pray the rosary now and always so that in the challenges we face in all the moments of our life we will be fortified in faith and sustained in hope.