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In the Heart of the Church |
 “Hail,
Full of Grace"
A reflection on Our Blessed Mother and her Holy Rosary
From the Seventh Festival Letter of Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky,
C.S.C.,
Bishop of Peoria
www.cdop.org
Our Blessed Mother
Catholics love Our Lady. Churches in every era of our
history and everywhere in the world have been named in her honor.
Her image is reverenced in our places of worship, in our classrooms,
and in our homes. Her name is praised in the liturgy, and her
prayers are requested in a multitude of our devotions. Mary is an
essential symbol of human cooperation with divine grace, and she is
honored as the first and the greatest of the Lord’s disciples. This
received tradition about Mary is firmly grounded both in the
scriptures and in the living faith of Catholic believers.
To begin at the beginning in our understanding of Mary, we need to
remember another woman mentioned in the Bible. Eve of the Old
Testament is the mother of us all. Her story is a kind of parable of
our sad human story. She heard the Word of God but believed the
promises of the evil spirit. Through disobedience Adam and Eve
brought sin and death into this world and lost paradise for their
children. In the New Testament Mary is presented as the New Eve, a
new mother of us all. Mary hears the Word of God and believes the
promises of the Holy Spirit. With her fiat the promises of paradise
are renewed for the children of grace.
Just as in the beginning, when the Holy Spirit soared over the
waters of chaos and created everything out of nothing, so also in
the fullness of time, the Holy Spirit overshadowed the virginity of
Mary and effected a whole new creation. Through the power of the
Holy Spirit Mary was made more holy than was the Holy of Holies in
the Temple of Jerusalem, because He whom the whole universe could
not contain was truly sheltered in her chaste womb.
Through the faith of this woman, the image and likeness of God was
restored to our human nature when the Word became flesh. He who was
ever consubstantial with the divinity of the Father became
consubstantial with the humanity of Mary. Everything that was human
in Jesus came from his mother, the perfect mirror of his face. Our
Lord is rightly called the Son of God and the Son of Mary. Our Lady
is rightly called the Mother of God, because the child she brought
to birth was God. This saving mystery came about through the grace
and mercy of Almighty God but also through the faith and free will
of the woman Mary.
Although Christians have always celebrated the essential role of
Mary’s maternity, they have also recognized her greater dignity as a
disciple. Just as Mary conceived by faith, so also did she walk by
faith. Predestined in grace and
preserved from every stain of sin, Mary was the true virgin daughter
of Israel. She personifies the ancient faith that first received
God’s Law and believed in God’s promises. Mary is also the beloved
bride, the New Israel of God, the type and symbol of the Christian
Church. She was the first to receive Jesus into her life, and she
was the very first to love and serve him. Preeminent among the
company of believers, Mary is everything Christians are called to
become.
Filled with the Holy Spirit, Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord who had
done such great things for her. All generations in this new era of
grace call her blessed. Mary always followed in the footsteps of
Christ. What she did not understand, she pondered prayerfully in her
heart. She was also the preface to all the miracles of the Savior.
His first great sign was manifested at her confident request, when
at the marriage feast of Cana; Jesus changed ordinary water into the
new wine of the Kingdom. Even at Calvary this woman of great valor,
whose heart was pierced with a sword of sorrow, remained entirely
faithful. It was from the cross, as if from a lofty throne, that Our
Lord gave this woman as mother to the beloved disciple, establishing
a new family of faith.
On Pentecost Sunday Mary was gathered in prayer with the Apostles in
the upper room. It was then that the Church, which is Christ’s Body,
was born into this world through another outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. In the Book of Revelation, the Blessed Mother is clothed
with the sun and all the stars, with the moon at her feet,
symbolizing the People of God waiting with hope and expectation for
the glorious Day of the Lord.
In Catholic tradition, Mary’s role in our salvation is completely
grounded in her relationship to her Son. In accord with the teaching
of the ancient Fathers of the Church, the Fathers of the Second
Vatican Council taught: “All the saving influence of the Blessed
Virgin Mary originates in the Divine pleasure. This role flows from
the superabundance of the merits of Christ, rests upon his
mediation, and depends entirely upon it. In no way does the role of
Mary impede the immediate union of the faithful with Jesus Christ.
Rather Mary fosters this union
with the Lord.”
In Christ and in the great Communion of Saints Mary continues to
pray with and for his Church. The Blessed Mother also brings the
Lord to birth in the hearts of those she inspires to know, love, and
serve him. When we imitate her faith and follow her example, we too
can bring Christ into this passing world. When we honor Our Lady in
glory as a living text of the Good News, we also catch a glimpse of
our eternal destiny in the world to come.
The Holy Rosary
It is because of these deeply Marian components of our
shared Catholic faith, that I have asked our Diocese to observe this
year as a Year of the Rosary. By praying the Rosary of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, we can in a certain sense enter into Mary’s school,
learning more about Jesus from Mary. We can become more fully
conformed to Christ in the company of Mary. Through the heart of
Mary the Rosary invites us to enter more deeply into prayer of the
heart. Through faith, silence, and attentive listening the Rosary
offers an opportunity for greater inward knowledge of the Lord. As
Pope John Paul II once observed, “a Rosary without contemplation is
like a body without a soul.”
In meditation there must always be a certain tension between our
hunger to understand and our wonder before what is truly infinite.
Every Christian mystery is entirely dependent upon God’s hidden
purposes. So in any authentic prayer there must always be a profound
sense of humility before the boundless richness of Almighty God.
John Paul II repeated the teaching of Pius XII when he described the
Mysteries of the Rosary as “a compendium of the entire Gospel.”
Reflecting upon the Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious, and Luminous
Mysteries is a most effective way to assimilate the grace and
awesome truth of the Gospels into our everyday lives.
Patiently repeating simple prayers taken almost entirely from the
words of the scriptures is rather like repeating words of love. The
circling of these inspired words invites us to embrace the core
images of our faith and the most profound hopes of our human
existence. The Rosary helps us to calm our minds that are so often
impatient and distracted. The Rosary invites us to see Jesus through
the luminous eyes of Mary and to rest more fully in his peace. The
Rosary humbly and simply makes a space to savor the great goodness
of the Lord.
The Rosary is a most accessible means of reflection and
intercession. You can pray the Rosary recollected or distracted. You
can pray the Rosary wide awake or half asleep. You can pray the
Rosary in deep trouble or in great joy. You can pray the Rosary in
churches and cathedrals, in the city or the country, at home, in
cars, trains, subways, boats, or planes. The healthy and the sick
can pray the Rosary. Both the young and the old can pray the Rosary,
but sometimes near the end of life, the Rosary may be the only
prayer some folks are still able to pray.
In its origins the Rosary is derived from the very ancient practice
of counting prayers by the means of pebbles or beads. By the time of
Saint Benedict and his “Rule for Monks,” the Our Father and somewhat
later the Hail Mary (at least the first half of the prayer we now
say) was connected with the conclusion of specific liturgical hours,
and multiple repetition of these prayers were encouraged for those
monks and nuns who could neither read nor chant. In the passage of
time this series of prayers came to serve as a kind of psalter for
the whole body of the faithful. Praying the Paters and Aves helped
to mark the liturgical seasons and related personal prayers to the
official prayers of the Divine Office. What eventually was called
the Psalter of the Blessed Virgin Mary soon entered into the shared
piety of nearly all Catholics, including priests and laity, the rich
and the poor, the highly educated and the illiterate, saints and
sinners.
There were and still are various traditions of this prayer
associated with different religious orders, congregations,
confraternities, and their related devotions. It was the Dominicans
who promoted the basic form as we now know it. It was only in the
late Middle Ages that this popular prayer with its prayer beads
connected by a chain came to be called the Rosary; a word derived
from rosarium or rose garden.
The Rosary appears rather frequently in religious art. In
Michelangelo’s dramatic depiction of the Last Judgment in the
Sistine Chapel, a Rosary can be seen pulling a sinner up from the
grasp of hell. Almost every Pope since Saint Pius V and the Battle
of Lepanto has strongly recommended the Rosary and enriched this
important Catholic prayer with indulgences. In every year of his
long pontificate Leo XIII issued an encyclical letter promoting the
Rosary. Blessed Pope John XXIII once declared that “the only wasted
Rosary is the one never said.” Peoria’s own Servant of God Fulton J.
Sheen encouraged: “Learn to sanctify the idle moments of life. It
can be done thanks to the Rosary.” Most significantly for Catholic
believers, Our Blessed Mother at Lourdes, Fatima, and in other great
occurrences of vision and grace, has herself recommended this prayer
as a means of conversion, renewal, and intercession.
Very sadly, fifty percent of marriages today end in divorce, but
when a married couple shares even a brief daily prayer, that
statistic is reduced to less than one in one thousand. Certainly if
husbands and wives prayed even a part of the Rosary together, their
love and commitment for one another would be enormously enriched. If
children see their parents pray together, they would themselves be
more easily drawn to lifelong habits of prayer and personal
devotion. Father Patrick Peyton from my Holy Cross religious family
insistently and accurately taught: “The family that prays together
stays together.”
In the midst of culture wars, the deconstruction of marriage, a
moral meltdown, the mass media’s intense hatred for the Catholic
Church, the economic crisis, foreign wars, and a culture of death,
perhaps we now need the Rosary in our arsenal of prayers more than
ever. It is often said that more people own Bibles than read them. I
am also afraid that many of the Rosaries that are blessed at
Baptisms, Confirmations, First Communions, graduations, and
marriages remain in their cases rather than are used for prayer. I
have therefore asked that all our Catholic primary and secondary
schools, religious education programs, Newman Centers, Koinonia
retreats, and TEC programs, annually teach our young people how to
pray the Rosary. I have also asked that all our parishes, our
Catholic hospitals, Cursillo, all our adult renewal programs, Bible
studies, prayer groups, RCIA programs, this year and every
subsequent year, teach about the Rosary.
As a Holy Cross religious who is so undeservedly blessed to live
under Mary’s loving patronage, as a priest once privileged to serve
at the University of Our Lady, as a bishop whose cathedral and
diocese proudly honors by name
Mary’s Immaculate Conception, I entrust my ministry and my whole
life to Mary’s maternal protection. With the help of God may the
entire Catholic Diocese of Peoria renew our love for the Blessed
Mother and our appreciation for her Holy Rosary.
Given at my Chancery,
January 4, 2009
Solemnity of the Epiphany
Most Reverend Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C.
BISHOP OF PEORIA
In
October of 1997, Pope John Paul II appointed him as Auxiliary Bishop
of Fort Wayne-South Bend and titular Bishop of Amantia. In January
of 2002, His Holiness appointed Daniel R. Jenky as the eighth Bishop
of Peoria, Illinois, and on April 10, 2002, he was installed in the
Cathedral of Saint Mary. He has introduced the cause for the
canonization of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, and has worked to
increase the resources that support Catholic schools. Bishop Jenky
serves as a Fellow and Trustee of the University of Notre Dame.
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
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