To the Bishops, Clergy, and Faithful on the Most Holy Rosary
Introduction
1. The Rosary of the Virgin Mary, which
gradually took form in the second millennium under the guidance
of the Spirit of God, is a prayer loved by countless Saints and
encouraged by the Magisterium. Simple yet profound, it still
remains, at the dawn of this third millennium, a prayer of great
significance, destined to bring forth a harvest of holiness. It
blends easily into the spiritual journey of the Christian life,
which, after two thousand years, has lost none of the freshness
of its beginnings and feels drawn by the Spirit of God to “set
out into the deep” (duc in altum!) in order once more to
proclaim, and even cry out, before the world that Jesus Christ
is Lord and Saviour, “the way, and the truth and the life” (Jn
14:6), “the goal of human history and the point on which the
desires of history and civilization turn”.(1)
The Rosary, though clearly Marian in
character, is at heart a Christocentric prayer. In the sobriety
of its elements, it has all the depth of the Gospel message
in its entirety, of which it can be said to be a compendium.(2)
It is an echo of the prayerof Mary, her perennial Magnificat
for the work of the redemptive Incarnation which began in
her virginal womb. With the Rosary, the Christian people sits
at the school of Mary and is led to contemplate the beauty
on the face of Christ and to experience the depths of his love.
Through the Rosary the faithful receive abundant grace, as
though from the very hands of the Mother of the Redeemer.
The Popes and the Rosary
2. Numerous predecessors of mine
attributed great importance to this prayer. Worthy of special
note in this regard is Pope Leo XIII who on 1 September 1883
promulgated the Encyclical
Supremi Apostolatus Officio,(3)
a document of great worth, the first of his many statements
about this prayer, in which he proposed the Rosary as an
effective spiritual weapon against the evils afflicting society.
Among the more recent Popes who, from the time of the Second
Vatican Council, have distinguished themselves in promoting the
Rosary I would mention Blessed John XXIII(4)
and above all Pope Paul VI, who in his Apostolic Exhortation
Marialis Cultus emphasized, in the spirit of the Second
Vatican Council, the Rosary's evangelical character and its
Christocentric inspiration. I myself have often encouraged the
frequent recitation of the Rosary. From my youthful years this
prayer has held an important place in my spiritual life. I was
powerfully reminded of this during my recent visit to Poland,
and in particular at the Shrine of Kalwaria. The Rosary has
accompanied me in moments of joy and in moments of difficulty.
To it I have entrusted any number of concerns; in it I have
always found comfort. Twenty-four years ago, on 29 October 1978,
scarcely two weeks after my election to the See of Peter, I
frankly admitted: “The Rosary is my favourite prayer. A
marvellous prayer! Marvellous in its simplicity and its depth.
[...]. It can be said that the Rosary is, in some sense, a
prayer-commentary on the final chapter of the Vatican II
Constitution
Lumen Gentium, a chapter which
discusses the wondrous presence of the Mother of God in the
mystery of Christ and the Church. Against the background of the
words Ave Maria the principal events of the life of Jesus
Christ pass before the eyes of the soul. They take shape in the
complete series of the joyful, sorrowful and glorious mysteries,
and they put us in living communion with Jesus through – we
might say – the heart of his Mother. At the same time our heart
can embrace in the decades of the Rosary all the events that
make up the lives of individuals, families, nations, the Church,
and all mankind. Our personal concerns and those of our
neighbour, especially those who are closest to us, who are
dearest to us. Thus the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the
rhythm of human life”.(5)
With
these words, dear brothers and sisters, I set the first year
of my Pontificate within the daily rhythm of the Rosary.
Today, as I begin the twenty-fifth year of my service as the
Successor of Peter, I wish to do the same. How many graces
have I received in these years from the Blessed Virgin through
the Rosary: Magnificat anima mea Dominum! I wish to lift
up my thanks to the Lord in the words of his Most Holy Mother,
under whose protection I have placed my Petrine ministry:
Totus Tuus!
October 2002 – October 2003: The Year of the Rosary
3. Therefore, in continuity with my
reflection in the Apostolic Letter
Novo Millennio Ineunte, in which,
after the experience of the Jubilee, I invited the people of God
to “start afresh from Christ”,(6)
I have felt drawn to offer a reflection on the Rosary, as a kind
of Marian complement to that Letter and an exhortation to
contemplate the face of Christ in union with, and at the school
of, his Most Holy Mother. To recite the Rosary is nothing other
than to contemplate with Mary the face of Christ. As a
way of highlighting this invitation, prompted by the forthcoming
120th anniversary of the aforementioned Encyclical of Leo XIII,
I desire that during the course of this year the Rosary should
be especially emphasized and promoted in the various Christian
communities. I therefore proclaim the year from October 2002 to
October 2003 the Year of the Rosary.
I leave this pastoral proposal to the
initiative of each ecclesial community. It is not my intention
to encumber but rather to complete and consolidate pastoral
programmes of the Particular Churches. I am confident that the
proposal will find a ready and generous reception. The Rosary,
reclaimed in its full meaning, goes to the very heart of
Christian life; it offers a familiar yet fruitful spiritual and
educational opportunity for personal contemplation, the
formation of the People of God, and the new evangelization. I am
pleased to reaffirm this also in the joyful remembrance of
another anniversary: the fortieth anniversary of the opening of
the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on October 11, 1962, the
“great grace” disposed by the Spirit of God for the Church in
our time.(7)
Objections to the Rosary
4.
The timeliness of this proposal is evident from a number of
considerations. First, the urgent need to counter a certain
crisis of the Rosary, which in the present historical and
theological context can risk being wrongly devalued, and
therefore no longer taught to the younger generation. There are
some who think that the centrality of the Liturgy, rightly
stressed by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, necessarily
entails giving lesser importance to the Rosary. Yet, as Pope
Paul VI made clear, not only does this prayer not conflict with
the Liturgy, it sustains it, since it serves as an
excellent introduction and a faithful echo of the Liturgy,
enabling people to participate fully and interiorly in it and to
reap its fruits in their daily lives.
Perhaps too, there are some who fear that
the Rosary is somehow unecumenical because of its distinctly
Marian character. Yet the Rosary clearly belongs to the kind of
veneration of the Mother of God described by the Council: a
devotion directed to the Christological centre of the Christian
faith, in such a way that “when the Mother is honoured, the Son
... is duly known, loved and glorified”.(8)
If properly revitalized, the Rosary is an aid and certainly not
a hindrance to ecumenism!
A path of contemplation
5. But the most important reason for
strongly encouraging the practice of the Rosary is that it
represents a most effective means of fostering among the
faithful that commitment to the contemplation of the
Christian mystery which I have proposed in the Apostolic
Letter
Novo Millennio Ineunte as a
genuine “training in holiness”: “What is needed is a Christian
life distinguished above all in the art of prayer”.(9)
Inasmuch as contemporary culture, even amid so many indications
to the contrary, has witnessed the flowering of a new call for
spirituality, due also to the influence of other religions, it
is more urgent than ever that our Christian communities should
become “genuine schools of prayer”.(10)
The
Rosary belongs among the finest and most praiseworthy traditions
of Christian contemplation. Developed in the West, it is a
typically meditative prayer, corresponding in some way to the
“prayer of the heart” or “Jesus prayer” which took root in the
soil of the Christian East.
Prayer for peace and for the family
6. A
number of historical circumstances also make a revival of the
Rosary quite timely. First of all, the need to implore from God
the gift of peace. The Rosary has many times been
proposed by my predecessors and myself as a prayer for peace. At
the start of a millennium which began with the terrifying
attacks of 11 September 2001, a millennium which witnesses every
day innumerous parts of the world fresh scenes of bloodshed and
violence, to rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in
contemplation of the mystery of Christ who “is our peace”, since
he made “the two of us one, and broke down the dividing wall of
hostility” (Eph 2:14). Consequently, one cannot recite
the Rosary without feeling caught up in a clear commitment to
advancing peace, especially in the land of Jesus, still so
sorely afflicted and so close to the heart of every Christian.
A
similar need for commitment and prayer arises in relation to
another critical contemporary issue: the family, the
primary cell of society, increasingly menaced by forces of
disintegration on both the ideological and practical planes, so
as to make us fear for the future of this fundamental and
indispensable institution and, with it, for the future of
society as a whole. The revival of the Rosary in Christian
families, within the context of a broader pastoral ministry to
the family, will be an effective aid to countering the
devastating effects of this crisis typical of our age.
“Behold,
your Mother!” (Jn 19:27)
7. Many signs indicate that still today
the Blessed Virgin desires to exercise through this same prayer
that maternal concern to which the dying Redeemer entrusted, in
the person of the beloved disciple, all the sons and daughters
of the Church: “Woman, behold your son!” (Jn19:26).
Well-known are the occasions in the nineteenth and the twentieth
centuries on which the Mother of Christ made her presence felt
and her voice heard, in order to exhort the People of God to
this form of contemplative prayer. I would mention in
particular, on account of their great influence on the lives of
Christians and the authoritative recognition they have received
from the Church, the apparitions of Lourdes and of Fatima;(11)
these shrines continue to be visited by great numbers of
pilgrims seeking comfort and hope.
Following the witnesses
8. It would be impossible to name all the
many Saints who discovered in the Rosary a genuine path to
growth in holiness. We need but mention Saint Louis Marie
Grignion de Montfort, the author of an excellent work on the
Rosary,(12)
and, closer to ourselves, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, whom I
recently had the joy of canonizing. As a true apostle of the
Rosary, Blessed Bartolo Longo had a special charism. His path to
holiness rested on an inspiration heard in the depths of his
heart: “Whoever spreads the Rosary is saved!”.(13)
As a result, he felt called to build a Church dedicated to Our
Lady of the Holy Rosary in Pompei, against the background of the
ruins of the ancient city, which scarcely heard the proclamation
of Christ before being buried in 79 A.D. during an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius, only to emerge centuries later from its ashes as
a witness to the lights and shadows of classical civilization.
By his whole life's work and especially by the practice of the
“Fifteen Saturdays”, Bartolo Longo promoted the Christocentric
and contemplative heart of the Rosary, and received great
encouragement and support from Leo XIII, the “Pope of the
Rosary”.
CHAPTER I
CONTEMPLATING CHRIST WITH MARY
A face radiant as the sun
9.
“And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like
the sun” (Mt 17:2). The Gospel scene of Christ's
transfiguration, in which the three Apostles Peter, James and
John appear entranced by the beauty of the Redeemer, can be seen
as an icon of Christian contemplation. To look upon the
face of Christ, to recognize its mystery amid the daily events
and the sufferings of his human life, and then to grasp the
divine splendour definitively revealed in the Risen Lord, seated
in glory at the right hand of the Father: this is the task of
every follower of Christ and therefore the task of each one of
us. In contemplating Christ's face we become open to receiving
the mystery of Trinitarian life, experiencing ever anew the love
of the Father and delighting in the joy of the Holy Spirit.
Saint Paul's words can then be applied to us: “Beholding the
glory of the Lord, we are being changed into his likeness, from
one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who
is the Spirit” (2Cor 3:18).
Mary, model of contemplation
10.
The contemplation of Christ has an incomparable model in
Mary. In a unique way the face of the Son belongs to Mary. It
was in her womb that Christ was formed, receiving from her a
human resemblance which points to an even greater spiritual
closeness. No one has ever devoted himself to the contemplation
of the face of Christ as faithfully as Mary. The eyes of her
heart already turned to him at the Annunciation, when she
conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the months
that followed she began to sense his presence and to picture his
features. When at last she gave birth to him in Bethlehem, her
eyes were able to gaze tenderly on the face of her Son, as she
“wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger” (Lk2:7).
Thereafter Mary's gaze, ever filled with adoration and wonder,
would never leave him. At times it would be a questioning
look, as in the episode of the finding in the Temple: “Son,
why have you treated us so?” (Lk 2:48); it would always
be a penetrating gaze, one capable of deeply
understanding Jesus, even to the point of perceiving his hidden
feelings and anticipating his decisions, as at Cana (cf. Jn
2:5). At other times it would be a look of sorrow,
especially beneath the Cross, where her vision would still be
that of a mother giving birth, for Mary not only shared the
passion and death of her Son, she also received the new son
given to her in the beloved disciple (cf. Jn 19:26-27).
On the morning of Easter hers would be a gaze radiant with
the joy of the Resurrection, and finally, on the day of
Pentecost, a gaze afire with the outpouring of the Spirit
(cf. Acts 1:14).
Mary's memories
11.
Mary lived with her eyes fixed on Christ, treasuring his every
word: “She kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk
2:19; cf. 2:51). The memories of Jesus, impressed upon her
heart, were always with her, leading her to reflect on the
various moments of her life at her Son's side. In a way those
memories were to be the “rosary” which she recited
uninterruptedly throughout her earthly life.
Even
now, amid the joyful songs of the heavenly Jerusalem, the
reasons for her thanksgiving and praise remain unchanged. They
inspire her maternal concern for the pilgrim Church, in which
she continues to relate her personal account of the Gospel.
Mary constantly sets before the faithful the “mysteries” of her
Son, with the desire that the contemplation of those
mysteries will release all their saving power. In the recitation
of the Rosary, the Christian community enters into contact with
the memories and the contemplative gaze of Mary.
The Rosary, a contemplative prayer
12. The Rosary, precisely because it
starts with Mary's own experience, is an exquisitely
contemplative prayer. Without this contemplative dimension,
it would lose its meaning, as Pope Paul VI clearly pointed out:
“Without contemplation, the Rosary is a body without a soul, and
its recitation runs the risk of becoming a mechanical repetition
of formulas, in violation of the admonition of Christ: 'In
praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for
they think they will be heard for their many words' (Mt
6:7). By its nature the recitation of the Rosary calls for a
quiet rhythm and a lingering pace, helping the individual to
meditate on the mysteries of the Lord's life as seen through the
eyes of her who was closest to the Lord. In this way the
unfathomable riches of these mysteries are disclosed”.(14)
It
is worth pausing to consider this profound insight of Paul VI,
in order to bring out certain aspects of the Rosary which show
that it is really a form of Christocentric contemplation.
Remembering Christ with Mary
13.
Mary's contemplation is above all a remembering. We need
to understand this word in the biblical sense of remembrance (zakar)
as a making present of the works brought about by God in the
history of salvation. The Bible is an account of saving events
culminating in Christ himself. These events not only belong to
“yesterday”; they are also part of the “today” of salvation.
This making present comes about above all in the Liturgy: what
God accomplished centuries ago did not only affect the direct
witnesses of those events; it continues to affect people in
every age with its gift of grace. To some extent this is also
true of every other devout approach to those events: to
“remember” them in a spirit of faith and love is to be open to
the grace which Christ won for us by the mysteries of his life,
death and resurrection.
Consequently, while it must be reaffirmed
with the Second Vatican Council that the Liturgy, as the
exercise of the priestly office of Christ and an act of public
worship, is “the summit to which the activity of the Church is
directed and the font from which all its power flows”,(15)
it is also necessary to recall that the spiritual life “is not
limited solely to participation in the liturgy. Christians,
while they are called to prayer in common, must also go to their
own rooms to pray to their Father in secret (cf. Mt 6:6);
indeed, according to the teaching of the Apostle, they must pray
without ceasing (cf.1Thes 5:17)”.(16)
The Rosary, in its own particular way, is part of this varied
panorama of “ceaseless” prayer. If the Liturgy, as the activity
of Christ and the Church, is a saving action par excellence,
the Rosary too, as a “meditation” with Mary on Christ, is a
salutary contemplation. By immersing us in the mysteries of
the Redeemer's life, it ensures that what he has done and what
the liturgy makes present is profoundly assimilated and shapes
our existence.
Learning Christ from Mary
14.
Christ is the supreme Teacher, the revealer and the one
revealed. It is not just a question of learning what he taught
but of “learning him”. In this regard could we have any
better teacher than Mary? From the divine standpoint, the Spirit
is the interior teacher who leads us to the full truth of Christ
(cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:13). But among creatures no one
knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a
profound knowledge of his mystery better than his Mother.
The
first of the “signs” worked by Jesus – the changing of water
into wine at the marriage in Cana – clearly presents Mary in the
guise of a teacher, as she urges the servants to do what Jesus
commands (cf. Jn 2:5). We can imagine that she would have
done likewise for the disciples after Jesus' Ascension, when she
joined them in awaiting the Holy Spirit and supported them in
their first mission. Contemplating the scenes of the Rosary in
union with Mary is a means of learning from her to “read”
Christ, to discover his secrets and to understand his message.
This school of Mary is all the more
effective if we consider that she teaches by obtaining for us in
abundance the gifts of the Holy Spirit, even as she offers us
the incomparable example of her own “pilgrimage of faith”.(17)
As we contemplate each mystery of her Son's life, she invites us
to do as she did at the Annunciation: to ask humbly the
questions which open us to the light, in order to end with the
obedience of faith: “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it
done to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).
Being conformed to Christ with Mary
15.
Christian spirituality is distinguished by the disciple's
commitment to become conformed ever more fully to his Master
(cf. Rom 8:29; Phil 3:10,12). The outpouring of
the Holy Spirit in Baptism grafts the believer like a branch
onto the vine which is Christ (cf. Jn 15:5) and makes him
a member of Christ's mystical Body (cf.1Cor 12:12; Rom
12:5). This initial unity, however, calls for a growing
assimilation which will increasingly shape the conduct of the
disciple in accordance with the “mind” of Christ: “Have this
mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil
2:5). In the words of the Apostle, we are called “to put on the
Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Rom 13:14; Gal 3:27).
In the spiritual journey of the Rosary,
based on the constant contemplation – in Mary's company – of the
face of Christ, this demanding ideal of being conformed to him
is pursued through an association which could be described in
terms of friendship. We are thereby enabled to enter naturally
into Christ's life and as it were to share his deepest feelings.
In this regard Blessed Bartolo Longo has written: “Just as two
friends, frequently in each other's company, tend to develop
similar habits, so too, by holding familiar converse with Jesus
and the Blessed Virgin, by meditating on the mysteries of the
Rosary and by living the same life in Holy Communion, we can
become, to the extent of our lowliness, similar to them and can
learn from these supreme models a life of humility, poverty,
hiddenness, patience and perfection”.(18)
In this process of being conformed to
Christ in the Rosary, we entrust ourselves in a special way to
the maternal care of the Blessed Virgin. She who is both the
Mother of Christ and a member of the Church, indeed her
“pre-eminent and altogether singular member”,(19)
is at the same time the “Mother of the Church”. As such, she
continually brings to birth children for the mystical Body of
her Son. She does so through her intercession, imploring upon
them the inexhaustible outpouring of the Spirit. Mary is the
perfect icon of the motherhood of the Church.
The Rosary mystically transports us to
Mary's side as she is busy watching over the human growth of
Christ in the home of Nazareth. This enables her to train us and
to mold us with the same care, until Christ is “fully formed” in
us (cf. Gal 4:19). This role of Mary, totally grounded in
that of Christ and radically subordinated to it, “in no way
obscures or diminishes the unique mediation of Christ, but
rather shows its power”.(20)
This is the luminous principle expressed by the Second Vatican
Council which I have so powerfully experienced in my own life
and have made the basis of my episcopal motto: Totus Tuus.(21)
The motto is of course inspired by the teaching of Saint Louis
Marie Grignion de Montfort, who explained in the following words
Mary's role in the process of our configuration to Christ:
“Our entire perfection consists in being conformed, united and
consecrated to Jesus Christ. Hence the most perfect of all
devotions is undoubtedly that which conforms, unites and
consecrates us most perfectly to Jesus Christ. Now, since Mary
is of all creatures the one most conformed to Jesus Christ, it
follows that among all devotions that which most consecrates and
conforms a soul to our Lord is devotion to Mary, his Holy
Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to her the more
will it be consecrated to Jesus Christ”.(22)
Never as in the Rosary do the life of Jesus and that of Mary
appear so deeply joined. Mary lives only in Christ and for
Christ!
Praying to Christ with Mary
16.
Jesus invited us to turn to God with insistence and the
confidence that we will be heard: “Ask, and it will be given to
you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to
you” (Mt 7:7). The basis for this power of prayer is the
goodness of the Father, but also the mediation of Christ himself
(cf. 1Jn 2:1) and the working of the Holy Spirit who
“intercedes for us” according to the will of God (cf. Rom
8:26-27). For “we do not know how to pray as we ought” (Rom
8:26), and at times we are not heard “because we ask wrongly”
(cf. Jas 4:2-3).
In support of the prayer which Christ and
the Spirit cause to rise in our hearts, Mary intervenes with her
maternal intercession. “The prayer of the Church is sustained by
the prayer of Mary”.(23)
If Jesus, the one Mediator, is the Way of our prayer, then Mary,
his purest and most transparent reflection, shows us the Way.
“Beginning with Mary's unique cooperation with the working of
the Holy Spirit, the Churches developed their prayer to the Holy
Mother of God, centering it on the person of Christ manifested
in his mysteries”.(24)
At the wedding of Cana the Gospel clearly shows the power of
Mary's intercession as she makes known to Jesus the needs of
others: “They have no wine” (Jn 2:3).
The Rosary is both meditation and
supplication. Insistent prayer to the Mother of God is based on
confidence that her maternal intercession can obtain all things
from the heart of her Son. She is “all-powerful by grace”, to
use the bold expression, which needs to be properly understood,
of Blessed Bartolo Longo in his Supplication to Our Lady.(25)
This is a conviction which, beginning with the Gospel, has grown
ever more firm in the experience of the Christian people. The
supreme poet Dante expresses it marvellously in the lines sung
by Saint Bernard: “Lady, thou art so great and so powerful, that
whoever desires grace yet does not turn to thee, would have his
desire fly without wings”.(26)
When in the Rosary we plead with Mary, the sanctuary of the Holy
Spirit (cf. Lk 1:35), she intercedes for us before the
Father who filled her with grace and before the Son born of her
womb, praying with us and for us.
Proclaiming Christ with Mary
17.
The Rosary is also a path of proclamation and increasing
knowledge, in which the mystery of Christ is presented again
and again at different levels of the Christian experience. Its
form is that of a prayerful and contemplative presentation,
capable of forming Christians according to the heart of Christ.
When the recitation of the Rosary combines all the elements
needed for an effective meditation, especially in its communal
celebration in parishes and shrines, it can present a
significant catechetical opportunity which pastors should
use to advantage. In this way too Our Lady of the Rosary
continues her work of proclaiming Christ. The history of the
Rosary shows how this prayer was used in particular by the
Dominicans at a difficult time for the Church due to the spread
of heresy. Today we are facing new challenges. Why should we not
once more have recourse to the Rosary, with the same faith as
those who have gone before us? The Rosary retains all its power
and continues to be a valuable pastoral resource for every good
evangelizer.
CHAPTER II
MYSTERIES OF CHRIST –
MYSTERIES OF HIS MOTHER
The Rosary, “a compendium of the Gospel”
18. The only way to approach the
contemplation of Christ's face is by listening in the Spirit to
the Father's voice, since “no one knows the Son except the
Father” (Mt 11:27). In the region of Caesarea Philippi,
Jesus responded to Peter's confession of faith by indicating the
source of that clear intuition of his identity: “Flesh and blood
has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Mt
16:17). What is needed, then, is a revelation from above. In
order to receive that revelation, attentive listening is
indispensable: “Only the experience of silence and prayer
offers the proper setting for the growth and development of a
true, faithful and consistent knowledge of that mystery”.(27)
The Rosary is one of the traditional paths
of Christian prayer directed to the contemplation of Christ's
face. Pope Paul VI described it in these words: “As a Gospel
prayer, centred on the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation,
the Rosary is a prayer with a clearly Christological
orientation. Its most characteristic element, in fact, the
litany- like succession of Hail Marys, becomes in itself
an unceasing praise of Christ, who is the ultimate object both
of the Angel's announcement and of the greeting of the Mother of
John the Baptist: 'Blessed is the fruit of your womb' (Lk
1:42). We would go further and say that the succession of
Hail Marys constitutes the warp on which is woven the
contemplation of the mysteries. The Jesus that each Hail Mary
recalls is the same Jesus whom the succession of mysteries
proposes to us now as the Son of God, now as the Son of the
Virgin”.(28)
A proposed addition to the traditional pattern
19.
Of the many mysteries of Christ's life, only a few are indicated
by the Rosary in the form that has become generally established
with the seal of the Church's approval. The selection was
determined by the origin of the prayer, which was based on the
number 150, the number of the Psalms in the Psalter.
I
believe, however, that to bring out fully the Christological
depth of the Rosary it would be suitable to make an addition to
the traditional pattern which, while left to the freedom of
individuals and communities, could broaden it to include the
mysteries of Christ's public ministry between his Baptism and
his Passion. In the course of those mysteries we contemplate
important aspects of the person of Christ as the definitive
revelation of God. Declared the beloved Son of the Father at the
Baptism in the Jordan, Christ is the one who announces the
coming of the Kingdom, bears witness to it in his works and
proclaims its demands. It is during the years of his public
ministry that the mystery of Christ is most evidently a
mystery of light: “While I am in the world, I am the light
of the world” (Jn 9:5).
Consequently, for the Rosary to become more fully a “compendium
of the Gospel”, it is fitting to add, following reflection on
the Incarnation and the hidden life of Christ (the joyful
mysteries) and before focusing on the sufferings of his
Passion (the sorrowful mysteries) and the triumph of his
Resurrection (the glorious mysteries), a meditation on
certain particularly significant moments in his public ministry
(the mysteries of light). This addition of these new
mysteries, without prejudice to any essential aspect of the
prayer's traditional format, is meant to give it fresh life and
to enkindle renewed interest in the Rosary's place within
Christian spirituality as a true doorway to the depths of the
Heart of Christ, ocean of joy and of light, of suffering and of
glory.
The Joyful Mysteries
20.
The first five decades, the “joyful mysteries”, are marked by
the joy radiating from the event of the Incarnation. This is
clear from the very first mystery, the Annunciation, where
Gabriel's greeting to the Virgin of Nazareth is linked to an
invitation to messianic joy: “Rejoice, Mary”. The whole of
salvation history, in some sense the entire history of the
world, has led up to this greeting. If it is the Father's plan
to unite all things in Christ (cf. Eph 1:10), then the
whole of the universe is in some way touched by the divine
favour with which the Father looks upon Mary and makes her the
Mother of his Son. The whole of humanity, in turn, is embraced
by the fiat with which she readily agrees to the will of
God.
Exultation is the keynote of the encounter with Elizabeth, where
the sound of Mary's voice and the presence of Christ in her womb
cause John to “leap for joy” (cf. Lk 1:44). Gladness also
fills the scene in Bethlehem, when the birth of the divine
Child, the Saviour of the world, is announced by the song of the
angels and proclaimed to the shepherds as “news of great joy” (Lk
2:10).
The
final two mysteries, while preserving this climate of joy,
already point to the drama yet to come. The Presentation in the
Temple not only expresses the joy of the Child's consecration
and the ecstasy of the aged Simeon; it also records the prophecy
that Christ will be a “sign of contradiction” for Israel and
that a sword will pierce his mother's heart (cf Lk
2:34-35). Joy mixed with drama marks the fifth mystery, the
finding of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple. Here he
appears in his divine wisdom as he listens and raises questions,
already in effect one who “teaches”. The revelation of his
mystery as the Son wholly dedicated to his Father's affairs
proclaims the radical nature of the Gospel, in which even the
closest of human relationships are challenged by the absolute
demands of the Kingdom. Mary and Joseph, fearful and anxious,
“did not understand” his words (Lk 2:50).
To
meditate upon the “joyful” mysteries, then, is to enter into the
ultimate causes and the deepest meaning of Christian joy. It is
to focus on the realism of the mystery of the Incarnation and on
the obscure foreshadowing of the mystery of the saving Passion.
Mary leads us to discover the secret of Christian joy, reminding
us that Christianity is, first and foremost, euangelion,
“good news”, which has as its heart and its whole content the
person of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the one Saviour of
the world.
The Mysteries of Light
21.
Moving on from the infancy and the hidden life in Nazareth to
the public life of Jesus, our contemplation brings us to those
mysteries which may be called in a special way “mysteries of
light”. Certainly the whole mystery of Christ is a mystery of
light. He is the “light of the world” (Jn 8:12). Yet this
truth emerges in a special way during the years of his public
life, when he proclaims the Gospel of the Kingdom. In proposing
to the Christian community five significant moments – “luminous”
mysteries – during this phase of Christ's life, I think that the
following can be fittingly singled out: (1) his Baptism in the
Jordan, (2) his self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana, (3)
his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with his call to
conversion, (4) his Transfiguration, and finally, (5) his
institution of the Eucharist, as the sacramental expression of
the Paschal Mystery.
Each
of these mysteries is a revelation of the Kingdom now present
in the very person of Jesus. The Baptism in the Jordan is
first of all a mystery of light. Here, as Christ descends into
the waters, the innocent one who became “sin” for our sake (cf.
2Cor 5:21), the heavens open wide and the voice of the
Father declares him the beloved Son (cf. Mt 3:17 and
parallels), while the Spirit descends on him to invest him with
the mission which he is to carry out. Another mystery of light
is the first of the signs, given at Cana (cf. Jn 2:1-
12), when Christ changes water into wine and opens the hearts of
the disciples to faith, thanks to the intervention of Mary, the
first among believers. Another mystery of light is the preaching
by which Jesus proclaims the coming of the Kingdom of God, calls
to conversion (cf. Mk 1:15) and forgives the sins of all
who draw near to him in humble trust (cf. Mk 2:3-13;
Lk 7:47- 48): the inauguration of that ministry of mercy
which he continues to exercise until the end of the world,
particularly through the Sacrament of Reconciliation which he
has entrusted to his Church (cf. Jn 20:22-23). The
mystery of light par excellence is the Transfiguration,
traditionally believed to have taken place on Mount Tabor. The
glory of the Godhead shines forth from the face of Christ as the
Father commands the astonished Apostles to “listen to him” (cf.
Lk 9:35 and parallels) and to prepare to experience with
him the agony of the Passion, so as to come with him to the joy
of the Resurrection and a life transfigured by the Holy Spirit.
A final mystery of light is the institution of the Eucharist, in
which Christ offers his body and blood as food under the signs
of bread and wine, and testifies “to the end” his love for
humanity (Jn 13:1), for whose salvation he will offer
himself in sacrifice.
In
these mysteries, apart from the miracle at Cana, the presence
of Mary remains in the background. The Gospels make only the
briefest reference to her occasional presence at one moment or
other during the preaching of Jesus (cf. Mk 3:31-5; Jn
2:12), and they give no indication that she was present at the
Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. Yet the role
she assumed at Cana in some way accompanies Christ throughout
his ministry. The revelation made directly by the Father at the
Baptism in the Jordan and echoed by John the Baptist is placed
upon Mary's lips at Cana, and it becomes the great maternal
counsel which Mary addresses to the Church of every age: “Do
whatever he tells you” (Jn 2:5). This counsel is a
fitting introduction to the words and signs of Christ's public
ministry and it forms the Marian foundation of all the
“mysteries of light”.
The Sorrowful Mysteries
22.
The Gospels give great prominence to the sorrowful mysteries of
Christ. From the beginning Christian piety, especially during
the Lenten devotion of the Way of the Cross, has focused
on the individual moments of the Passion, realizing that here is
found the culmination of the revelation of God's love and
the source of our salvation. The Rosary selects certain moments
from the Passion, inviting the faithful to contemplate them in
their hearts and to relive them. The sequence of meditations
begins with Gethsemane, where Christ experiences a moment of
great anguish before the will of the Father, against which the
weakness of the flesh would be tempted to rebel. There Jesus
encounters all the temptations and confronts all the sins of
humanity, in order to say to the Father: “Not my will but yours
be done” (Lk 22:42 and parallels). This “Yes” of Christ
reverses the “No” of our first parents in the Garden of Eden.
And the cost of this faithfulness to the Father's will is made
clear in the following mysteries; by his scourging, his crowning
with thorns, his carrying the Cross and his death on the Cross,
the Lord is cast into the most abject suffering: Ecce homo!
This
abject suffering reveals not only the love of God but also the
meaning of man himself.
Ecce homo: the meaning, origin and fulfilment of man is to
be found in Christ, the God who humbles himself out of love
“even unto death, death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). The
sorrowful mysteries help the believer to relive the death of
Jesus, to stand at the foot of the Cross beside Mary, to enter
with her into the depths of God's love for man and to experience
all its life-giving power.
The Glorious Mysteries
23. “The contemplation of Christ's face
cannot stop at the image of the Crucified One. He is the Risen
One!”(29)
The Rosary has always expressed this knowledge born of faith and
invited the believer to pass beyond the darkness of the Passion
in order to gaze upon Christ's glory in the Resurrection and
Ascension. Contemplating the Risen One, Christians rediscover
the reasons for their own faith (cf. 1Cor 15:14) and
relive the joy not only of those to whom Christ appeared – the
Apostles, Mary Magdalene and the disciples on the road to Emmaus
– but also the joy of Mary, who must have had an equally
intense experience of the new life of her glorified Son. In the
Ascension, Christ was raised in glory to the right hand of the
Father, while Mary herself would be raised to that same glory in
the Assumption, enjoying beforehand, by a unique privilege, the
destiny reserved for all the just at the resurrection of the
dead. Crowned in glory – as she appears in the last glorious
mystery – Mary shines forth as Queen of the Angels and Saints,
the anticipation and the supreme realization of the
eschatological state of the Church.
At
the centre of this unfolding sequence of the glory of the Son
and the Mother, the Rosary sets before us the third glorious
mystery, Pentecost, which reveals the face of the Church as a
family gathered together with Mary, enlivened by the powerful
outpouring of the Spirit and ready for the mission of
evangelization. The contemplation of this scene, like that of
the other glorious mysteries, ought to lead the faithful to an
ever greater appreciation of their new life in Christ, lived in
the heart of the Church, a life of which the scene of Pentecost
itself is the great “icon”. The glorious mysteries thus lead the
faithful to greater hope for the eschatological goal
towards which they journey as members of the pilgrim People of
God in history. This can only impel them to bear courageous
witness to that “good news” which gives meaning to their entire
existence.
From “mysteries” to the “Mystery”: Mary's way
24. The cycles of meditation proposed by
the Holy Rosary are by no means exhaustive, but they do bring to
mind what is essential and they awaken in the soul a thirst for
a knowledge of Christ continually nourished by the pure source
of the Gospel. Every individual event in the life of Christ, as
narrated by the Evangelists, is resplendent with the Mystery
that surpasses all understanding (cf. Eph 3:19): the
Mystery of the Word made flesh, in whom “all the fullness of God
dwells bodily” (Col 2:9). For this reason the
Catechism of the Catholic Church
places great emphasis on the
mysteries of Christ, pointing out that “everything in the life
of Jesus is a sign of his Mystery”.(30)
The “duc in altum” of the Church of the third millennium
will be determined by the ability of Christians to enter into
the “perfect knowledge of God's mystery, of Christ, in whom are
hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col
2:2-3). The Letter to the Ephesians makes this heartfelt prayer
for all the baptized: “May Christ dwell in your hearts through
faith, so that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have
power... to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:17-19).
The
Rosary is at the service of this ideal; it offers the “secret”
which leads easily to a profound and inward knowledge of Christ.
We might call it Mary's way. It is the way of the example
of the Virgin of Nazareth, a woman of faith, of silence, of
attentive listening. It is also the way of a Marian devotion
inspired by knowledge of the inseparable bond between Christ and
his Blessed Mother: the mysteries of Christ are also in
some sense the mysteries of his Mother, even when they do
not involve her directly, for she lives from him and through
him. By making our own the words of the Angel Gabriel and Saint
Elizabeth contained in the Hail Mary, we find ourselves
constantly drawn to seek out afresh in Mary, in her arms and in
her heart, the “blessed fruit of her womb” (cf Lk 1:42).
Mystery of Christ, mystery of man
25. In my testimony of 1978 mentioned
above, where I described the Rosary as my favourite prayer, I
used an idea to which I would like to return. I said then that
“the simple prayer of the Rosary marks the rhythm of human
life”.(31)
In the light of what has been said so far
on the mysteries of Christ, it is not difficult to go deeper
into this anthropological significance of the Rosary,
which is far deeper than may appear at first sight. Anyone who
contemplates Christ through the various stages of his life
cannot fail to perceive in him the truth about man. This
is the great affirmation of the Second Vatican Council which I
have so often discussed in my own teaching since the Encyclical
Letter
Redemptor
Hominis: “it is only in the
mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man is seen
in its true light”.(32)
The Rosary helps to open up the way to this light. Following in
the path of Christ, in whom man's path is “recapitulated”,(33)
revealed and redeemed, believers come face to face with the
image of the true man. Contemplating Christ's birth, they learn
of the sanctity of life; seeing the household of Nazareth, they
learn the original truth of the family according to God's plan;
listening to the Master in the mysteries of his public ministry,
they find the light which leads them to enter the Kingdom of
God; and following him on the way to Calvary, they learn the
meaning of salvific suffering. Finally, contemplating Christ and
his Blessed Mother in glory, they see the goal towards which
each of us is called, if we allow ourselves to be healed and
transformed by the Holy Spirit. It could be said that each
mystery of the Rosary, carefully meditated, sheds light on the
mystery of man.
At
the same time, it becomes natural to bring to this encounter
with the sacred humanity of the Redeemer all the problems,
anxieties, labours and endeavours which go to make up our lives.
“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. Twenty-five years
later, thinking back over the difficulties which have also been
part of my exercise of the Petrine ministry, I feel the need to
say once more, as a warm invitation to everyone to experience it
personally: 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.
CHAPTER III
“FOR ME, TO LIVE IS CHRIST”
The Rosary, a way of assimilating the mystery
26.
Meditation on the mysteries of Christ is proposed in the Rosary
by means of a method designed to assist in their assimilation.
It is a method based on repetition. This applies above
all to the Hail Mary, repeated ten times in each mystery.
If this repetition is considered superficially, there could be a
temptation to see the Rosary as a dry and boring exercise. It is
quite another thing, however, when the Rosary is thought of as
an outpouring of that love which tirelessly returns to the
person loved with expressions similar in their content but ever
fresh in terms of the feeling pervading them.
In
Christ, God has truly assumed a “heart of flesh”. Not only does
God have a divine heart, rich in mercy and in forgiveness, but
also a human heart, capable of all the stirrings of affection.
If we needed evidence for this from the Gospel, we could easily
find it in the touching dialogue between Christ and Peter after
the Resurrection: “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Three
times this question is put to Peter, and three times he gives
the reply: “Lord, you know that I love you” (cf. Jn
21:15-17). Over and above the specific meaning of this passage,
so important for Peter's mission, none can fail to recognize the
beauty of this triple repetition, in which the insistent request
and the corresponding reply are expressed in terms familiar from
the universal experience of human love. To understand the
Rosary, one has to enter into the psychological dynamic proper
to love.
One
thing is clear: although the repeated Hail Mary is
addressed directly to Mary, it is to Jesus that the act of love
is ultimately directed, with her and through her. The repetition
is nourished by the desire to be conformed ever more completely
to Christ, the true programme of the Christian life. Saint Paul
expressed this project with words of fire: “For me to live is
Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). And again: “It is
no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal
2:20). The Rosary helps us to be conformed ever more closely to
Christ until we attain true holiness.
A valid method...
27.
We should not be surprised that our relationship with Christ
makes use of a method. God communicates himself to us respecting
our human nature and its vital rhythms. Hence, while Christian
spirituality is familiar with the most sublime forms of mystical
silence in which images, words and gestures are all, so to
speak, superseded by an intense and ineffable union with God, it
normally engages the whole person in all his complex
psychological, physical and relational reality.
This becomes apparent in the Liturgy.
Sacraments and sacramentals are structured as a series of
rites which bring into play all the dimensions of the person.
The same applies to non-liturgical prayer. This is confirmed by
the fact that, in the East, the most characteristic prayer of
Christological meditation, centred on the words “Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”(34)
is traditionally linked to the rhythm of breathing; while this
practice favours perseverance in the prayer, it also in some way
embodies the desire for Christ to become the breath, the soul
and the “all” of one's life.
... which can nevertheless be improved
28. I mentioned in my Apostolic Letter
Novo Millennio Ineunte that the
West is now experiencing a renewed demand for meditation,
which at times leads to a keen interest in aspects of other
religions.(35)
Some Christians, limited in their knowledge of the Christian
contemplative tradition, are attracted by those forms of prayer.
While the latter contain many elements which are positive and at
times compatible with Christian experience, they are often based
on ultimately unacceptable premises. Much in vogue among these
approaches are methods aimed at attaining a high level of
spiritual concentration by using techniques of a psychophysical,
repetitive and symbolic nature. The Rosary is situated within
this broad gamut of religious phenomena, but it is distinguished
by characteristics of its own which correspond to specifically
Christian requirements.
In
effect, the Rosary is simply a method of contemplation.
As a method, it serves as a means to an end and cannot become an
end in itself. All the same, as the fruit of centuries of
experience, this method should not be undervalued. In its favour
one could cite the experience of countless Saints. This is not
to say, however, that the method cannot be improved. Such is the
intent of the addition of the new series of mysteria lucis
to the overall cycle of mysteries and of the few suggestions
which I am proposing in this Letter regarding its manner of
recitation. These suggestions, while respecting the
well-established structure of this prayer, are intended to help
the faithful to understand it in the richness of its symbolism
and in harmony with the demands of daily life. Otherwise there
is a risk that the Rosary would not only fail to produce the
intended spiritual effects, but even that the beads, with which
it is usually said, could come to be regarded as some kind of
amulet or magic object, thereby radically distorting their
meaning and function.
Announcing each mystery
29.
Announcing each mystery, and perhaps even using a suitable icon
to portray it, is as it were to open up a scenario on
which to focus our attention. The words direct the imagination
and the mind towards a particular episode or moment in the life
of Christ. In the Church's traditional spirituality, the
veneration of icons and the many devotions appealing to the
senses, as well as the method of prayer proposed by Saint
Ignatius of Loyola in the Spiritual Exercises, make use of
visual and imaginative elements (the compositio loci),
judged to be of great help in concentrating the mind on the
particular mystery. This is a methodology, moreover, which
corresponds to the inner logic of the Incarnation: in Jesus,
God wanted to take on human features. It is through his bodily
reality that we are led into contact with the mystery of his
divinity.
This
need for concreteness finds further expression in the
announcement of the various mysteries of the Rosary. Obviously
these mysteries neither replace the Gospel nor exhaust its
content. The Rosary, therefore, is no substitute for lectio
divina; on the contrary, it presupposes and promotes it.
Yet, even though the mysteries contemplated in the Rosary, even
with the addition of the mysteria lucis, do no more than
outline the fundamental elements of the life of Christ, they
easily draw the mind to a more expansive reflection on the rest
of the Gospel, especially when the Rosary is prayed in a setting
of prolonged recollection.
Listening to the word of God
30.
In order to supply a Biblical foundation and greater depth to
our meditation, it is helpful to follow the announcement of the
mystery with the proclamation of a related Biblical passage,
long or short, depending on the circumstances. No other words
can ever match the efficacy of the inspired word. As we listen,
we are certain that this is the word of God, spoken for today
and spoken “for me”.
If
received in this way, the word of God can become part of the
Rosary's methodology of repetition without giving rise to the
ennui derived from the simple recollection of something already
well known. It is not a matter of recalling information but of
allowing God to speak. In certain solemn communal
celebrations, this word can be appropriately illustrated by a
brief commentary.
Silence
31.
Listening and meditation are nourished by silence. After
the announcement of the mystery and the proclamation of the
word, it is fitting to pause and focus one's attention for a
suitable period of time on the mystery concerned, before moving
into vocal prayer. A discovery of the importance of silence is
one of the secrets of practicing contemplation and meditation.
One drawback of a society dominated by technology and the mass
media is the fact that silence becomes increasingly difficult to
achieve. Just as moments of silence are recommended in the
Liturgy, so too in the recitation of the Rosary it is fitting to
pause briefly after listening to the word of God, while the mind
focuses on the content of a particular mystery.
The “Our Father”
32.
After listening to the word and focusing on the mystery, it is
natural for the mind to be lifted up towards the Father.
In each of his mysteries, Jesus always leads us to the Father,
for as he rests in the Father's bosom (cf. Jn 1:18) he is
continually turned towards him. He wants us to share in his
intimacy with the Father, so that we can say with him: “Abba,
Father” (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). By virtue of his
relationship to the Father he makes us brothers and sisters of
himself and of one another, communicating to us the Spirit which
is both his and the Father's. Acting as a kind of foundation for
the Christological and Marian meditation which unfolds in the
repetition of the Hail Mary, the Our Father makes
meditation upon the mystery, even when carried out in solitude,
an ecclesial experience.
The ten “Hail Marys”
33. This is the most substantial element
in the Rosary and also the one which makes it a Marian prayer
par excellence. Yet when the Hail Mary is properly
understood, we come to see clearly that its Marian character is
not opposed to its Christological character, but that it
actually emphasizes and increases it. The first part of the
Hail Mary, drawn from the words spoken to Mary by the Angel
Gabriel and by Saint Elizabeth, is a contemplation in adoration
of the mystery accomplished in the Virgin of Nazareth. These
words express, so to speak, the wonder of heaven and earth; they
could be said to give us a glimpse of God's own wonderment as he
contemplates his “masterpiece” – the Incarnation of the Son in
the womb of the Virgin Mary. If we recall how, in the Book of
Genesis, God “saw all that he had made” (Gen 1:31), we
can find here an echo of that “pathos with which God, at the
dawn of creation, looked upon the work of his hands”.(36)
The repetition of the Hail Mary in the Rosary gives us a
share in God's own wonder and pleasure: in jubilant amazement we
acknowledge the greatest miracle of history. Mary's prophecy
here finds its fulfilment: “Henceforth all generations will call
me blessed” (Lk 1:48).
The centre of gravity in the Hail Mary,
the hinge as it were which joins its two parts, is the name
of Jesus. Sometimes, in hurried recitation, this centre of
gravity can be overlooked, and with it the connection to the
mystery of Christ being contemplated. Yet it is precisely the
emphasis given to the name of Jesus and to his mystery that is
the sign of a meaningful and fruitful recitation of the Rosary.
Pope Paul VI drew attention, in his Apostolic Exhortation
Marialis Cultus, to the custom in certain regions of
highlighting the name of Christ by the addition of a clause
referring to the mystery being contemplated.(37)
This is a praiseworthy custom, especially during public
recitation. It gives forceful expression to our faith in Christ,
directed to the different moments of the Redeemer's life. It is
at once a profession of faith and an aid in concentrating
our meditation, since it facilitates the process of assimilation
to the mystery of Christ inherent in the repetition of the
Hail Mary. When we repeat the name of Jesus – the only name
given to us by which we may hope for salvation (cf. Acts
4:12) – in close association with the name of his Blessed
Mother, almost as if it were done at her suggestion, we set out
on a path of assimilation meant to help us enter more deeply
into the life of Christ.
From
Mary's uniquely privileged relationship with Christ, which makes
her the Mother of God, Theotókos, derives the
forcefulness of the appeal we make to her in the second half of
the prayer, as we entrust to her maternal intercession our lives
and the hour of our death.
The “Gloria”
34.
Trinitarian doxology is the goal of all Christian contemplation.
For Christ is the way that leads us to the Father in the Spirit.
If we travel this way to the end, we repeatedly encounter the
mystery of the three divine Persons, to whom all praise, worship
and thanksgiving are due. It is important that the Gloria,
the high-point of contemplation, be given due prominence
in the Rosary. In public recitation it could be sung, as a way
of giving proper emphasis to the essentially Trinitarian
structure of all Christian prayer.
To
the extent that meditation on the mystery is attentive and
profound, and to the extent that it is enlivened – from one
Hail Mary to another – by love for Christ and for Mary, the
glorification of the Trinity at the end of each decade, far from
being a perfunctory conclusion, takes on its proper
contemplative tone, raising the mind as it were to the heights
of heaven and enabling us in some way to relive the experience
of Tabor, a foretaste of the contemplation yet to come: “It is
good for us to be here!” (Lk 9:33).
The concluding short prayer
35. In current practice, the Trinitarian
doxology is followed by a brief concluding prayer which varies
according to local custom. Without in any way diminishing the
value of such invocations, it is worthwhile to note that the
contemplation of the mysteries could better express their full
spiritual fruitfulness if an effort were made to conclude each
mystery with a prayer for the fruits specific to that
particular mystery. In this way the Rosary would better
express its connection with the Christian life. One fine
liturgical prayer suggests as much, inviting us to pray that, by
meditation on the mysteries of the Rosary, we may come to
“imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise”.(38)
Such
a final prayer could take on a legitimate variety of forms, as
indeed it already does. In this way the Rosary can be better
adapted to different spiritual traditions and different
Christian communities. It is to be hoped, then, that appropriate
formulas will be widely circulated, after due pastoral
discernment and possibly after experimental use in centres and
shrines particularly devoted to the Rosary, so that the People
of God may benefit from an abundance of authentic spiritual
riches and find nourishment for their personal contemplation.
The Rosary beads
36.
The traditional aid used for the recitation of the Rosary is the
set of beads. At the most superficial level, the beads often
become a simple counting mechanism to mark the succession of
Hail Marys. Yet they can also take on a symbolism which can
give added depth to contemplation.
Here
the first thing to note is the way the beads converge upon
the Crucifix, which both opens and closes the unfolding
sequence of prayer. The life and prayer of believers is centred
upon Christ. Everything begins from him, everything leads
towards him, everything, through him, in the Holy Spirit,
attains to the Father.
As a
counting mechanism, marking the progress of the prayer, the
beads evoke the unending path of contemplation and of Christian
perfection. Blessed Bartolo Longo saw them also as a “chain”
which links us to God. A chain, yes, but a sweet chain; for
sweet indeed is the bond to God who is also our Father. A
“filial” chain which puts us in tune with Mary, the “handmaid of
the Lord” (Lk 1:38) and, most of all, with Christ
himself, who, though he was in the form of God, made himself a
“servant” out of love for us (Phil 2:7).
A
fine way to expand the symbolism of the beads is to let them
remind us of our many relationships, of the bond of communion
and fraternity which unites us all in Christ.
The opening and closing
37.At present, in different parts of the Church, there are many
ways to introduce the Rosary. In some places, it is customary to
begin with the opening words of Psalm 70: “O God, come to my
aid; O Lord, make haste to help me”, as if to nourish in those
who are praying a humble awareness of their own insufficiency.
In other places, the Rosary begins with the recitation of the
Creed, as if to make the profession of faith the basis of the
contemplative journey about to be undertaken. These and similar
customs, to the extent that they prepare the mind for
contemplation, are all equally legitimate. The Rosary is then
ended with a prayer for the intentions of the Pope, as if to
expand the vision of the one praying to embrace all the needs of
the Church. It is precisely in order to encourage this ecclesial
dimension of the Rosary that the Church has seen fit to grant
indulgences to those who recite it with the required
dispositions.
If
prayed in this way, the Rosary truly becomes a spiritual
itinerary in which Mary acts as Mother, Teacher and Guide,
sustaining the faithful by her powerful intercession. Is it any
wonder, then, that the soul feels the need, after saying this
prayer and experiencing so profoundly the motherhood of Mary, to
burst forth in praise of the Blessed Virgin, either in that
splendid prayer the Salve Regina or in the Litany of
Loreto? This is the crowning moment of an inner journey
which has brought the faithful into living contact with the
mystery of Christ and his Blessed Mother.
Distribution over time
38.
The Rosary can be recited in full every day, and there are those
who most laudably do so. In this way it fills with prayer the
days of many a contemplative, or keeps company with the sick and
the elderly who have abundant time at their disposal. Yet it is
clear – and this applies all the more if the new series of
mysteria lucis is included – that many people will not be
able to recite more than a part of the Rosary, according to a
certain weekly pattern. This weekly distribution has the effect
of giving the different days of the week a certain spiritual “colour”,
by analogy with the way in which the Liturgy colours the
different seasons of the liturgical year.
According to current practice, Monday and Thursday are dedicated
to the “joyful mysteries”, Tuesday and Friday to the “sorrowful
mysteries”, and Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday to the “glorious
mysteries”. Where might the “mysteries of light” be inserted? If
we consider that the “glorious mysteries” are said on both
Saturday and Sunday, and that Saturday has always had a special
Marian flavour, the second weekly meditation on the “joyful
mysteries”, mysteries in which Mary's presence is especially
pronounced, could be moved to Saturday. Thursday would then be
free for meditating on the “mysteries of light”.
This
indication is not intended to limit a rightful freedom in
personal and community prayer, where account needs to be taken
of spiritual and pastoral needs and of the occurrence of
particular liturgical celebrations which might call for suitable
adaptations. What is really important is that the Rosary should
always be seen and experienced as a path of contemplation. In
the Rosary, in a way similar to what takes place in the Liturgy,
the Christian week, centred on Sunday, the day of Resurrection,
becomes a journey through the mysteries of the life of Christ,
and he is revealed in the lives of his disciples as the Lord of
time and of history.
CONCLUSION
“Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain linking us to God”
39.
What has been said so far makes abundantly clear the richness of
this traditional prayer, which has the simplicity of a popular
devotion but also the theological depth of a prayer suited to
those who feel the need for deeper contemplation.
The
Church has always attributed particular efficacy to this prayer,
entrusting to the Rosary, to its choral recitation and to its
constant practice, the most difficult problems. At times when
Christianity itself seemed under threat, its deliverance was
attributed to the power of this prayer, and Our Lady of the
Rosary was acclaimed as the one whose intercession brought
salvation.
Today I willingly entrust to the power of this prayer – as I
mentioned at the beginning – the cause of peace in the world and
the cause of the family.
Peace
40.
The grave challenges confronting the world at the start of this
new Millennium lead us to think that only an intervention from
on high, capable of guiding the hearts of those living in
situations of conflict and those governing the destinies of
nations, can give reason to hope for a brighter future.
The Rosary is by its nature a prayer for peace, since it
consists in the contemplation of Christ, the Prince of Peace,
the one who is “our peace” (Eph 2:14). Anyone who
assimilates the mystery of Christ – and this is clearly the goal
of the Rosary – learns the secret of peace and makes it his
life's project. Moreover, by virtue of its meditative character,
with the tranquil succession of Hail Marys, the Rosary
has a peaceful effect on those who pray it, disposing them to
receive and experience in their innermost depths, and to spread
around them, that true peace which is the special gift of the
Risen Lord (cf. Jn 14:27; 20.21).
The
Rosary is also a prayer for peace because of the fruits of
charity which it produces. When prayed well in a truly
meditative way, the Rosary leads to an encounter with Christ in
his mysteries and so cannot fail to draw attention to the face
of Christ in others, especially in the most afflicted. How could
one possibly contemplate the mystery of the Child of Bethlehem,
in the joyful mysteries, without experiencing the desire to
welcome, defend and promote life, and to shoulder the burdens of
suffering children all over the world? How could one possibly
follow in the footsteps of Christ the Revealer, in the mysteries
of light, without resolving to bear witness to his “Beatitudes”
in daily life? And how could one contemplate Christ carrying the
Cross and Christ Crucified, without feeling the need to act as a
“Simon of Cyrene” for our brothers and sisters weighed down by
grief or crushed by despair? Finally, how could one possibly
gaze upon the glory of the Risen Christ or of Mary Queen of
Heaven, without yearning to make this world more beautiful, more
just, more closely conformed to God's plan?
In a
word, by focusing our eyes on Christ, the Rosary also makes us
peacemakers in the world. By its nature as an insistent choral
petition in harmony with Christ's invitation to “pray
ceaselessly” (Lk 18:1), the Rosary allows us to hope
that, even today, the difficult “battle” for peace can be won.
Far from offering an escape from the problems of the world, the
Rosary obliges us to see them with responsible and generous
eyes, and obtains for us the strength to face them with the
certainty of God's help and the firm intention of bearing
witness in every situation to “love, which binds everything
together in perfect harmony” (Col 3:14).
The family: parents...
41.
As a prayer for peace, the Rosary is also, and always has been,
a prayer of and for the family. At one time this prayer
was particularly dear to Christian families, and it certainly
brought them closer together. It is important not to lose this
precious inheritance. We need to return to the practice of
family prayer and prayer for families, continuing to use the
Rosary.
In my Apostolic Letter
Novo Millennio Ineunte I
encouraged the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours by
the lay faithful in the ordinary life of parish communities and
Christian groups;(39)
I now wish to do the same for the Rosary. These two paths of
Christian contemplation are not mutually exclusive; they
complement one another. I would therefore ask those who devote
themselves to the pastoral care of families to recommend
heartily the recitation of the Rosary.
The family that prays together stays together. The Holy
Rosary, by age-old tradition, has shown itself particularly
effective as a prayer which brings the family together.
Individual family members, in turning their eyes towards Jesus,
also regain the ability to look one another in the eye, to
communicate, to show solidarity, to forgive one another and to
see their covenant of love renewed in the Spirit of God.
Many
of the problems facing contemporary families, especially in
economically developed societies, result from their increasing
difficulty in communicating. Families seldom manage to come
together, and the rare occasions when they do are often taken up
with watching television. To return to the recitation of the
family Rosary means filling daily life with very different
images, images of the mystery of salvation: the image of the
Redeemer, the image of his most Blessed Mother. The family that
recites the Rosary together reproduces something of the
atmosphere of the household of Nazareth: its members place Jesus
at the centre, they share his joys and sorrows, they place their
needs and their plans in his hands, they draw from him the hope
and the strength to go on.
... and children
42.
It is also beautiful and fruitful to entrust to this prayer
the growth and development of children. Does the Rosary not
follow the life of Christ, from his conception to his death, and
then to his Resurrection and his glory? Parents are finding it
ever more difficult to follow the lives of their children as
they grow to maturity. In a society of advanced technology, of
mass communications and globalization, everything has become
hurried, and the cultural distance between generations is
growing ever greater. The most diverse messages and the most
unpredictable experiences rapidly make their way into the lives
of children and adolescents, and parents can become quite
anxious about the dangers their children face. At times parents
suffer acute disappointment at the failure of their children to
resist the seductions of the drug culture, the lure of an
unbridled hedonism, the temptation to violence, and the manifold
expressions of meaninglessness and despair.
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.
The Rosary, a treasure to be rediscovered
43. Dear brothers and sisters! A prayer so
easy and yet so rich truly deserves to be rediscovered by the
Christian community. Let us do so, especially this year, as a
means of confirming the direction outlined in my Apostolic
Letter
Novo Millennio Ineunte, from which
the pastoral plans of so many particular Churches have drawn
inspiration as they look to the immediate future.
I
turn particularly to you, my dear Brother Bishops, priests and
deacons, and to you, pastoral agents in your different
ministries: through your own personal experience of the beauty
of the Rosary, may you come to promote it with conviction.
I
also place my trust in you, theologians: by your sage and
rigorous reflection, rooted in the word of God and sensitive to
the lived experience of the Christian people, may you help them
to discover the Biblical foundations, the spiritual riches and
the pastoral value of this traditional prayer.
I
count on you, consecrated men and women, called in a particular
way to contemplate the face of Christ at the school of Mary.
I
look to all of you, brothers and sisters of every state of life,
to you, Christian families, to you, the sick and elderly, and to
you, young people: confidently take up the Rosary once again.
Rediscover the Rosary in the light of Scripture, in harmony
with the Liturgy, and in the context of your daily lives.
May
this appeal of mine not go unheard! At the start of the
twenty-fifth year of my Pontificate, I entrust this Apostolic
Letter to the loving hands of the Virgin Mary, prostrating
myself in spirit before her image in the splendid Shrine built
for her by Blessed Bartolo Longo, the apostle of the Rosary.
I willingly make my own the touching words with which he
concluded his well-known Supplication to the Queen of the
Holy Rosary: “O Blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain which
unites us to God, bond of love which unites us to the angels,
tower of salvation against the assaults of Hell, safe port in
our universal shipwreck, we will never abandon you. You will be
our comfort in the hour of death: yours our final kiss as life
ebbs away. And the last word from our lips will be your sweet
name, O Queen of the Rosary of Pompei, O dearest Mother, O
Refuge of Sinners, O Sovereign Consoler of the Afflicted. May
you be everywhere blessed, today and always, on earth and in
heaven”.
From the Vatican, on the 16th day of October in the year 2002,
the beginning of the twenty- fifth year of my Pontificate.
JOHN PAUL II
(1)
Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
Gaudium et Spes, 45.
(2)
Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2
February 1974), 42: AAS 66 (1974), 153.
(3)
Cf. Acta Leonis XIII, 3 (1884), 280-289.
(4)
Particularly worthy of note is his Apostolic Epistle on the
Rosary Il religioso convegno (29 September 1961): AAS 53
(1961), 641-647.
(5)
Angelus: Insegnamenti di Giovanni Paolo II, I (1978):
75-76.
(6)
AAS 93 (2001), 285.
(7)
During the years of preparation for the Council, Pope John XXIII
did not fail to encourage the Christian community to recite the
Rosary for the success of this ecclesial event: cf. Letter to
the Cardinal Vicar (28 September 1960): AAS 52 (1960), 814-816.
(8)
Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 66.
(9)
No. 32: AAS 93 (2001), 288.
(10)
Ibid., 33: loc. cit., 289.
(11)
It is well-known and bears repeating that private revelations
are not the same as public revelation, which is binding on the
whole Church. It is the task of the Magisterium to discern and
recognize the authenticity and value of private revelations for
the piety of the faithful.
(12)
The Secret of the Rosary.
(13)
Blessed Bartolo Longo, Storia del Santuario di Pompei,
Pompei, 1990, 59.
(14)
Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2 February 1974),
47: AAS (1974), 156.
(15)
Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium,
10.
(16)
Ibid., 12.
(17)
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church Lumen Gentium, 58.
(18)
I Quindici Sabati del Santissimo Rosario, 27th ed.,
Pompei, 1916, 27.
(19)
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the
Church Lumen Gentium, 53.
(20)
Ibid., 60.
(21)
Cf. First Radio Address Urbi et Orbi (17 October 1978):
AAS 70 (1978), 927.
(22)
Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
(23)
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2679.
(24)
Ibid., 2675.
(25)
The Supplication to the Queen of the Holy Rosary was
composed by Blessed Bartolo Longo in 1883 in response to the
appeal of Pope Leo XIII, made in his first Encyclical on the
Rosary, for the spiritual commitment of all Catholics in
combating social ills. It is solemnly recited twice yearly, in
May and October.
(26)
Divina Commedia, Paradiso XXXIII, 13-15.
(27)
John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (6
January 2001), 20: AAS 93 (2001), 279.
(28)
Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus (2 February 1974),
46: AAS 6 (1974), 155.
(29)
John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte (6
January 2001), 28: AAS 93 (2001), 284.
(30)
No. 515.
(31)
Angelus Message of 29 October 1978 : Insegnamenti, I
(1978), 76.
(32)
Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 22.
(33)
Cf. Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses, III, 18,
1: PG 7, 932.
(34)
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2616.
(35)
Cf. No. 33: AAS 93 (2001), 289.
(36)
John Paul II, Letter to Artists (4 April 1999), 1: AAS 91
(1999), 1155.
(37)
Cf. No. 46: AAS 66 (1974), 155. This custom has also been
recently praised by the Congregation for Divine Worship and for
the Discipline of the Sacraments in its Direttorio su pietà
popolare e liturgia. Principi e orientamenti (17 December
2001), 201, Vatican City, 2002, 165.
(38)
“...concede, quaesumus, ut haec mysteria sacratissimo beatae
Mariae Virginis Rosario recolentes, et imitemur quod continent,
et quod promittunt assequamur”. Missale Romanum 1960, in
festo B.M. Virginis a Rosario.
(39)
Cf. No. 34: AAS 93 (2001), 290.
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